Even the Agricultural Council of Arkansas' Twitter article last Friday night characterised Dick Bell rather respectfully:"excellent guy, wonderful intellect, great leader"
Dick's death a week brought into a close life of substantially accomplishment, perhaps not only for that rice marketplace -- at which for almost three decades he led Riceland food items since the world's biggest rice miller plus among the location's largest processors of noodles -- in the broader arena of international and national agricultural policy.
Although he worked for many decades in provincial circles -- as an agricultural economist with the USDA's Foreign Agricultural services, since a helper agricultural attaché at Ottawa and Brussels, as A G attaché to its American Embassy at Dublin, and as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs -- he had been as un-bureaucratic while possible might request of rice producers.
He had a knowledge of agricultural economics and policy that bordered on encyclopedic, also can hold their own with members of Congress or Capitol Hill leaders, however he'd a fabulous (and coveted ) knack for distilling the brain-numbing minutiae of government policy and programs to language the normal man could grasp.
Even though Dick had been a"Yankee" by birth (Illinois), also he really lost his emphasis during his years in Arkansas, he had been the consummate southern gentle man: gracious, soft spoken, generally showing a keen interest in people with whom he interacted.
I crossed paths with him often through the years, at a meeting or some other, also he also always would make it a point to come and chat with me along with also other members of the media, without matter of top producers of rice which of our Farm Press editors was covering his commentshe would, a twinkle in his eyes, manage to work at a mention throughout his talk with something we'd published, as though he followed our scribblings religiously. He endeared himself into those of the networking by always making himself readily available when we wanted information or plagiarize opinions about ag policy or markets.
Much was written regarding Dick's livelihood with USDA/FAS, together with Riceland Foods, and after that following his retirement, as Arkansas' first Agri-Culture Secretary. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who made him on that article, stated after his departure "With his enormous understanding of the whole agricultural arena, and also the admiration he made from everybody at the agri-world, there was no body that I really could think of who was simply suited to your project. He had been a very hardworking, educated, and effective public slave "
In a age when authorities and government service are often reviled, Dick would, I believe, have liked a label: effective public servant.
U.S. rice along with U.S. agriculture are the best due to his lifetime of services, also on his passing might recall with respect his many contributions.
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