LATITUDE 40°® is the Bayliss Ranch rice brand and the geographic region where their crops have been grown for nearly 150 years. This common parallel passes through the great rice growing regions of Italy, Spain, Turkey, northern China and Japan. It then crosses the Pacific Ocean and landfalls in the Sacramento valley of California. Within this valley, Bayliss Ranch farms a fertile tract of land in Butte County, located about 150 miles north of San Francisco. The waters to the farms flow from the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains and rivers. The Bayliss Ranch is a fifth generation California homestead.

The original Bayliss Ranch was created just before the Civil War ended when two brothers, Dan and Ike came to California seeking their fortune. Known as the community of Bayliss, it was then an important wheat growing area with direct access to the California and Oregon Railroad line and the port of San Francisco. Joined by their four brothers, Will, Aaron, Charlie, and Daniel, the six of them eventually put together a tract of about 20,000 acres. With a twenty mule team hitched to the plow, they would head south for half a day, stop for lunch, and plow back that night, about nine or ten miles in each direction. Their goal was to ship one million bushels of wheat to England. In 1880 a flood in the Sacramento valley wiped out their crop setting the stage for their eventual conversion to rice cultivation in Butte County.

The California market for rice was driven by a large Chinese population, many of whom immigrated to help build the transcontinental railways. As early as 1856, between 40,000 and 50,000 Chinese were consuming at least a pound of imported rice per capita daily. The California State Agricultural Society saw the potential for a domestic rice market and began offering prizes and financial incentives to farmers in the Sacramento valley to convert to rice ranching.

Today, Bayliss Ranch typically grows the medium grain California Japonica Rice Varieties along with their development of specialty rices such as CAL RISO..! (Click here for Cal Riso Information)