Tidewater Grain Co is a totally sustainable family and farmer-owned specialty small grain producer based in Oriental, NC. Our focus: heirloom grains. We are proud to be the first NC rice farmers in over 120 years, to grow our flagship product, Carolina Gold Rice. It's origins trace back to 1685 when a ship merchant hailing from Madagascar used its load of rice to pay for ship repairs in Charleston, South Carolina. An ambitious farmer named Dr. Henry Woodard saw this as a opportunity and planted the first crop of rice in the Americas. It flourished and soon took over the South Carolina lowlands and stretched north into what is now known as North Carolina. This coastal area known as the "Tidewater region," thrived for over two hundred years with its fertile soil and ship ports for distribution in the early 1900's, market pressures, a series of hurricanes and the boom of commodity farming, effectively ended rice farming in the Carolinas. That is until now. After a 120-year hiatus, Carolina Gold rice production is back in Eastern North Carolina. We grow and mill our rice at the farm and offer current harvest, GMO free white and brown rice as well as middlins or rice grits, rice hulls ( often used by organic gardeners), a specialty long-grain variety of Carolina Gold Rice called Santee Gold and new this year, Carolina Gold Rice Gluten Free Rice Flour.