South Carolina Gold Rush: The Resurgence of the State’s Rice Culture

It’s not unusual for Campbell Coxe’s day to begin at 4 a.m. and stretch well into the night. The life of this fifth generation plantation farmer, with 20,000 acres of forest, timber and agricultural land to manage, is neither easy nor glamorous. But it is the perfect life for Coxe.

An avid outdoorsman, Coxe’s insatiable appetite for hunting, fishing and horseback riding certainly accounted for much of the plantation’s appeal. But the rich history of his family’s life on the plantation soon became a driving force in his efforts to preserve this piece of South Carolina’s agricultural heritage.

Located on the Great Pee Dee River in Darlington County, Plumfield Plantation was built by South Carolina Governor David R. Williams in the early 1800s. The plantation flourished when cotton was king in the South. In order to protect his vast fields from seasonal flooding, Gov. Williams constructed a levee system to help keep water out.

Some 200 years later, Coxe saw the levee system as a way to keep water in. “I started growing rice in 1995, mostly to attract waterfowl and other wildlife to the property,” he explains. “A cousin of mine had grown some and talked me into trying it. At the time, we were growing a very small amount of rice, about 20 acres or so to start. But it worked out pretty well.”

For more than two centuries, commercial rice production drove the state’s coastal economy. In fact, Carolina Gold Rice earned a reputation in Europe and America as being the best in the world. After the Civil War, a number of factors caused rice production to suffer. It ultimately ceased as an economic force in South Carolina in the early 20th century.

During rice’s economic heyday, it was never grown commercially in Darlington County, primarily because its successful cultivation depended on tidal rivers and creeks for irrigation. However, there’s evidence that African slaves built and tended small paddies of rice for their personal consumption on many of the state’s inland plantations.

“When we decided to grow rice at Plumfield, we didn’t have a whole lot of people to ask about how to grow it here in South Carolina,” Coxe recalls. “So basically, we had to re-invent the wheel.”

Although the yield was small, Coxe shipped the plantation’s first rice harvest to Arkansas for milling, and then gave it away as Christmas gifts. “We had more people wanting it than we had rice to give,” he notes, “so we extended our acres the next year.”

Coxe says the first crop of Carolina Plantation Rice was grown from special seed—choosing Della, an heirloom variety he discovered through family contacts in Arkansas. Coxe believes this unusual rice possesses the truly distinctive taste of the 18th-century rice plantations. It also rates so high on the aromatic scale because of the soil, climate, water and northern latitude where it is grown. “It’s a basmati-type long grain rice,” notes Coxe. “People who buy Carolina Plantation Rice not only like it for its aromatic appeal but also for its taste.”

Charleston Chef Donald Barickman, a longtime user of Carolina Plantation Rice, agrees. “I was actually one of the first chefs to get the rice,” states Barickman, who is one of the South’s most prominent chefs. “When I met the Coxes at a wedding in Knoxville, they told me how they were bringing this old heirloom rice variety back to life on their plantation on the Great Pee Dee River. They offered me some of their rice to play around with. Ever since then, there’s really been no other rice for me.”

“We grew large extremely quick,” Coxe continues. “We were sending a lot of rice to Arkansas — several truckloads a year. The distance is 800-plus miles, so it didn’t take us long to figure out that most of our cost was in the shipping, because we had to ship it there and back. We got to the size that it was justified to try to have it milled locally.”

Since there were no rice mills in South Carolina at the time, Coxe built his own at Plumfield Plantation in 2002. “We built a modern mill using a combination of different machinery from all over the world,” he explains. “We wanted a state-of-the-art mill that could produce the quality rice that meets our high standards. It’s a pretty complicated operation, but it’s saved us a tremendous amount in milling and shipping costs.”

Even as Coxe was making a go of growing the aromatic Della variety of rice commercially at Plumfield, it seemed any talk of rice growing in South Carolina always took a turn down memory lane to the golden days of Carolina Gold—the rice that brought South Carolina fame and fortune during the Colonial and antebellum eras. Carolina Gold, an heirloom variety named for its beauty at harvest and, of course, the fortunes made from it by Carolina rice planters, is softer than normal long-grain rice and cooks to independent grains. Carolina Gold was first produced in diked coastal wetlands in South Carolina and eventually spread throughout the South.

After the Great Depression, Carolina Gold lost its prominence to new, higher yielding varieties of rice. But in the mid-1980s, Dr. Richard Schultze Sr., an eye surgeon and plantation owner from Savannah, Ga., collected stores of Carolina Gold seeds from the USDA seed bank and began repatriating Carolina Gold to the coastal wetlands.

“In 2005, we also grew Carolina Gold for the first time… about 20 acres of it,” Coxe adds. “Today, it’s considered gourmet rice. It’s been marketed more as a source of history than a food item. We want to see if the food market is really there.”

The growing passion surrounding the rice culture in South Carolina has also taken root in the formation of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, which is dedicated to “advancing the sustainable restoration and preservation of Carolina Gold rice and other heirloom grains; and raising public awareness of the importance of historic ricelands and heirloom agriculture.” According to Coxe, a founding member, this alliance of rice growers, historians and agricultural researchers hopes to tap into the renewed interest in artisan foods and locally grown, sustainable agriculture, as well as expand the market.

Carolina Plantation Rice currently works with several other contract growers in South Carolina. Coxe says, “What this does is it increases interest in growing rice in different parts of the state, while also increasing the availability of good rice grown to my standards.”

Twenty-five years ago, becoming a traditional rice farmer was the farthest thing from his mind when Coxe came home to help his grandfather in the family plantation. Today, his role in preserving this important piece of South Carolina’s heritage is unquestionable. But Coxe says he couldn’t do it alone. With the support of his family and the help of a dedicated team of co-workers, he hopes to one day pass the reigns of his traditional South Carolina rice plantation to an enthusiastic sixth generation of family farmers.

For information about purchasing Carolina Plantation rice products, please visit www.carolinaplantationrice.com.

Get a complete list of Charleston's restaurants.

Oak Steakhouse Housed in a spectacular setting on Broad Street which features arched doors, eighteen foot ceilings, mahogany paneling and 150 year old heart of pine floors. The menu, composed of traditional items such as Steak Tartare, Shrimp Cocktail, Porterhouse and New York Strip, appears to offer classic steakhouse fare. At second glance, it weaves Italian flavors and dishes throughout. Serving dinner Monday through Saturday, 5pm until 11pm. Sunday Brunch 11 am until 3pm.

McCrady's Inventive cuisine. Fresh from the farm. Named one of the Top Ten Restaurants in North America by Opinionated About Dining. McCrady's Restaurant, located in an historic 1778 Georgian public house, offers an award-winning dining experience with the best of new Southern cuisine. Chef Sean Brock's (2008 James Beard Rising Star Chef Nominee) sensationally presented dishes one of Charleston's most extensive wine lists. Private dining available in the spectacular Long Room, Gallery, Chef's Room, and Cypress Room.