Agribusiness

As the manufacturer of Cajun Country medium, long, whole grain brown, popcorn, and jasmine rice, the Falcon Rice mill has remained the only family run rice mill in the U.S. Falcon opened its doors in Crowley, Louisiana in 1942 as a seed rice business, and now produces over 900,000 CWT hundred weights a year around the country.

Operating for over 100 years in the U.S., Omega Protein exports proteins, specialty oils, and essential fatty acids to the food and supplement industry. Omega-3 rich fish oil, processed at its Abbeville, Louisiana Gulf fish plant, reaches consumers in more than 40 countries through farm-raised seafood and pork.

Supreme Rice is the premier exporter of US milled rice on the Gulf Coast, serving as Louisiana’s largest rice milling operation. By leveraging Acadiana’s convenient access to the ports of Lake Charles, Houston, and New Orleans, the company processes over 1 billion pounds of rice annually – shipping worldwide to over 50 countries.

Louisiana’s High-Impact Jobs Program (HIP) offers qualifying companies up to five years of reimbursable grants for the creation of new jobs that pay above the parish (county) average wage, based on the parish where the project is located.

The Louisiana Industrial Ad Valorem Tax Exemption Program (ITEP) offers an 80% property tax abatement for up to 10 years on a manufacturer’s new investment.

Located in a rich and fertile section of Acadiana known as the “tri-parish area”, LSU Eunice is a two-year university in the LSU system offering numerous transfer degree programs, technical certificates, and associate degrees. It is nationally recognized for its allied health programs, and its developmental education program, Pathways to Success.

SoLAcc offers technical diplomas, workforce training, high school dual enrollment and two-year degree programs. It maintains 9 campuses across the Acadiana region, and offers 35 areas of study via traditional, evening, and web-based courses. SoLAcc is focused on job placement, and maintains strong ties to local businesses who trust in the capabilities of its graduates.

Southwest Louisiana (SOWELA) Technical Community College offers programs in fields such as criminal justice, industrial instrumentation technology, office systems technology, and process technology.

UL Lafayette is designated by the Carnegie Foundation as a Tier 1 research university (R1), and it is among the top 10 universities in the U.S. for its percentage of R&D expenditures funded by business, according to the National Science Foundation. UL Lafayette’s College of Engineering is its largest undergraduate program boasting over 2,700 undergraduate students, 177 master’s students, and 41 PhD students representing 45 states and 25 countries. The college focuses on providing “hands-on” learning experiences with a strong emphasis on internship and cooperative learning experiences. Over 200 companies regularly recruit its Engineering and Technology graduates.

Here, LSU AgCenter scientists conduct research on sugarcane, cattle, and row crops. It also specializes in energy cane, a variety of sugarcane developed to produce biomass that can be turned into fuel for the emerging biofuel market. The cattle research includes studies of crossbreeding cattle to evaluate the suitability of tropically adapted breeds to Louisiana.