How One Rice Farm’s Duck Rescue Is Shaping the Future of Regenerative Farming and the Food You Buy
For more than 30 years, one family has paused planting season to protect the ducks nesting in its cover crops.
Every spring, a family rice farm in Northern California pauses its planting plans to hunt for duck eggs. It’s a decades-old tradition that has quietly turned into one of the clearest examples of what regenerative farming looks like in practice. Here’s how the program works, why it exists and what it could mean for the way you shop for rice and other pantry staples.
What’s happening: A rice farm has rescued about 30,000 duck eggs
Lundberg Family Farms, a rice grower based in Richvale, California, runs a Duck Egg Rescue Program each spring before its fields are prepped for planting. Working with the California Waterfowl Association, the farm searches its cover crops for nests and collects eggs by hand.
The farm has been doing this since the early 1990s and estimates it has rescued about 30,000 duck eggs.
The process is low-tech and hands-on. Volunteers, including local school groups over the years, walk the fields in a line holding a rope strung with noisy cans. When mother ducks fly up, the group finds the nests. Fourth-generation farmer Brita Lundberg has described it as a “giant Easter egg hunt,” according to Cherry Bombe.
Rescued eggs travel in feather-lined cartons to a local hatchery, where the ducklings hatch and are raised for about five weeks before being released into the wild.
Why it’s happening: The farm is built to share space with wildlife
Three things explain why a rice farm ends up in the duck rescue business.
The fields double as wildlife habitat. Lundberg has farmed in Richvale since 1937, and each winter it floods portions of its rice fields to mimic the wetlands that once covered more of the Sacramento Valley. The farm says those fields support more than 200 species, including thousands of migrating waterfowl on the Pacific Flyway.
The birds pull their weight, too. They eat weed seeds and press leftover rice straw into the wet soil, helping it break down before the next season.
Cover crops invite ducks to stay. Other fields are planted with winter cover crops to protect and rebuild the soil, and some ducks settle in to nest. “My grandpa and his brothers used to call our fields ‘bird hotels,’” Brita Lundberg wrote in a LinkedIn post. Once spring planting begins, those cover crops have to be mowed, which puts any remaining nests at risk.
The practices line up with regenerative organic standards. In 2023, Lundberg became the first U.S.-grown rice brand to launch Regenerative Organic Certified rice, a certification that builds on USDA Organic with added standards for soil health, animal welfare and social fairness. Its cover crops, flooded fields and duck rescue were already doing much of that work.
“That’s the story of regenerative agriculture in general. We care about the ecosystems around our fields. The community we are a part of. The team members who make it all possible. And the soil we stand on.”
Brita Lundberg, fourth-generation farmer, Lundberg Family Farms, via Organic Produce Network
What’s next: Duck stories, smarter labels and more regenerative rice
The duck rescue started as a practical fix. Now it’s shaping how the farm talks to shoppers, and that could ripple well beyond one rice field.
Wildlife could become the way brands explain regenerative farming
Lundberg has already made ducks the stars of its “Ducking Good Rice” campaign. The goal is to explain regenerative agriculture without burying shoppers in soil science.
“We knew if we talked about things like soil health metrics, consumers’ eyes would glaze over, or they wouldn’t look at the ad at all. But everyone can relate to a duckling,” Brita Lundberg said. “If we care this much about ducks, think about how much we care about rice.”
That approach is likely to catch on as more regenerative brands look for relatable ways to show what their farming practices actually do.
What it means for you: Expect to see more animals and farm stories on packaging and in ads. Enjoy them, but use them as a starting point. The certification behind the story is what tells you which standards a product actually meets.
Regenerative organic rice could become easier to spot
As the first U.S.-grown rice brand with Regenerative Organic Certified rice, Lundberg has set an example other growers could follow. More certified options would give shoppers a simple way to support farms that protect soil, animals and workers.
What it means for you: Next time you buy rice, check the bag for the Regenerative Organic Certified seal. It signals the product meets USDA Organic rules plus extra standards for soil health, animal welfare and social fairness.
Community conservation could keep growing
School groups have joined Lundberg’s spring egg hunts over the years, turning a farm task into a hands-on lesson in conservation. Programs like this give communities a direct connection to the wildlife habitat around them.
What it means for you: If you live in a farming region, look into local conservation groups like the California Waterfowl Association. Partnerships between farms and wildlife organizations are often where these kinds of projects begin.
What began as a way to keep ducks safe from tractors has become a simple, memorable way to explain regenerative farming. As more shoppers look for food grown with the land in mind, the stories behind that food, and the certifications that back them up, will likely matter more than ever.
THREE SIGNALS TO WATCH
1. Lundberg’s next spring duck egg rescue and how many eggs volunteers collect from the cover crops
2. New ad campaigns from Regenerative Organic Certified brands that use animals or farm stories instead of soil data
3. More rice brands carrying the Regenerative Organic Certified seal on grocery shelves
Conversation
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