Jonas Aidoo has a new home — and he’ll be staying in the SEC. The 6-11 center announced on Monday that he will be joining John Calipari and the Arkansas Razorbacks next season.

Baylor was the perceived favorite here, but Arkansas made a strong push this weekend getting him on campus for a visit. Alabama, North Carolina and Kentucky were also involved.

Aidoo is coming off of his best season yet, emerging as a true offensive threat for Tennessee during his junior year. He averaged 11.4 points per game, shooting 51.5 percent from the field. Aidoo added 7.3 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game.

Rick Barnes admitted that Aidoo’s departure was a surprise.

“He had told everybody he was fine,” Barnes told the media in an uncharacteristically short response.

Aidoo also entered the NBA Draft, and there’s been some chatter about him wanting to have more freedom to shoot from long range. He shot 20 percent on very limited attempts from three-point range last season, but developing his shot a little bit more could boost his NBA stock.

Tennessee essentially replaced Aidoo with Ohio State center Felix Okpara, who might not be as skilled on the offensive end, but likely is going to bring a little more to the table defensively. The Volunteers have also landed two long wings — 6-10 Igor Milicic and 6-8 Darlinstone Dubar.

Tennessee still has three open spots on the roster left to fill.

FAYETTEVILLE — The Northwest Arkansas Crisis Stabilization unit closed on April 11, and some people in the community say they’re disappointed in the decision to close and what they say is a lack of public notice.

Leslie Taylor is vice chancellor for communications and marketing with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which took over the operation of the facility last year. Taylor said that the Northwest Arkansas unit was underutilized in comparison with the other three facilities in the state and UAMS was unable to keep it open with the funding levels provided by the state, and that other resources, including Medicare and Medicaid and private insurance, did not provide enough additional money to keep the unit operating.

Taylor said that after UAMS announced in March it would close the unit at the end of June, when its contract expired, several staff members resigned and UAMS was unable to recruit people to fill the positions for the remaining time.

“We had hoped to keep it open through the end of June,” Taylor said. “We had several people resign. We were down to four employees, and at that point we weren’t able to safely operate the facility and regrettably we had to go ahead and close.”

State Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville, said she learned of the closing over the weekend after receiving phone calls and text messages from constituents, and she contacted UAMS to confirm the facility was closed.

“I asked UAMS why there wasn’t some kind of public announcement,” Clowney said. “Other organizations and people in the community who refer people there had no idea it was closed.”

Clowney said she understood the staffing concerns but said she would have preferred UAMS have some kind of open, public conversation about the situation and not just close the facility without notice.

“Shutting it down without notice to anybody is leaving the most vulnerable in our community high and dry with no other means to get the resources they need,” Clowney said.

The 16-bed facility served as an alternative to jail for some individuals. Participation was voluntary for those treated, who were usually accused of creating a disturbance, trespassing or other disruptive behaviors, law enforcement officials have said. The facility operated on a referral basis, with potential clients being identified by local law enforcement agencies, hospitals and other medical facilities, families and friends.

The impending closing of the facility was discussed at a meeting of local stakeholders on April 10 in Bentonville, according to Chief Mike Reynolds with the Fayetteville Police Department. Reynolds said members of his department’s Crisis Intervention Team staff attended the meeting and informed him of the closing. Reynolds said he sent out a department-wide notice of the closing.

“That was 24 or 48 hours before they closed,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said records from his Crisis Intervention Team staff show the meeting was attended by the local Crisis Intervention Team steering committee with the Bentonville, Rogers and Springdale police departments, Benton County sheriff’s office and the Benton County prosecuting attorney’s office also having representatives present. They were told the facility would be closing at 4 p.m. April 11 due to staffing shortages.

When UAMS announced the June 30 closing date, the school cited the under-utilization of the Northwest Arkansas facility compared to the other three in the state.

According to information provided by Taylor in September, the Northwest Arkansas unit has been less successful in getting client referrals from non-law-enforcement sources. According to UAMS, from April through July 2023, the Pulaski County unit had 563 referrals, with 47 (8%) coming from law enforcement agencies. The Pulaski County facility reported 256 admissions during that time.

During the same period, the Northwest Arkansas unit had 253 referrals, 44 (17%) of which came from law enforcement agencies. The Northwest Arkansas facility reported 100 admissions in that period.

During that time, the Sebastian County unit had averaged 80 admissions, Pulaski County had averaged 67 and the Craighead County unit had averaged 38 admissions per month. According to the Department of Human Services, the Northwest Arkansas unit had averaged 14 admissions of people in need of emergency services per month since it reopened in August 2022.

Taylor provided some updated numbers on Monday, showing that from July 2023 through March, the Pulaski County unit had 651 total admissions, while the Northwest Arkansas unit had 286.

Washington County Judge Patrick Deakins said the county was never notified of the decision to close.

“The last I heard from UAMS was on March 19 saying they were going to be open until June 30,” Deakins said.

Deakins said Monday the county has no specific plans for the Crisis Stabilization Unit. He said there have been some discussions about the facility, as well as the Arkansas Community Corrections facility housed in the old county jail. The county has given the state notice it intends to terminate the lease on the old jail building, and Deakins said that space could also be used by the county but no decisions have been made.

Kelly Cantrell, public information officer for the Washington County sheriff’s office, said Sheriff Jay Cantrell was not notified in advance of the stabilization unit’s closing and only learned of it Monday.

Sarah Moore is a member of the Fayetteville City Council and has been an advocate for keeping the Crisis Stabilization Unit open. Moore said she knew of a woman who was referred to the facility on Friday and sat in the parking lot throughout the day thinking it would eventually open.

“This was the first we had heard that it was closed,” Moore said. “We’ve been aware that they have had days when they were temporarily closed, and at first we thought this might be another short-term closure. So the public and community advocates were never told. It was closed without any proper notice.”

Moore suggested that UAMS could keep the Northwest Arkansas unit open by shifting employees from other facilities if they chose to do so.

“They made a business decision when they should have made a human decision,” Moore said.

Taylor said UAMS doesn’t have enough psychiatric nurses in the Northwest Arkansas region to be able to shift people from their current jobs to keep the unit open.

She said a fully staffed unit would have 18 full-time employees. On March 1, the unit was staffed with 10 full-time employees and one part-time employee.

“We did the best we could, and we didn’t make this decision lightly,” Taylor said. “There was just no way to keep that open.”

Arkansas’ rice crop rebounded in terms of acres in 2023, with farmers adding 327,000 more acres than they planted in 2022. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that the 1.41 million acres harvested in the state last year was roughly half the rice grown in the country.

During the past decade or more, it has been rare for Arkansas rice producers to have back-to-back years where the rice crop expanded. But there’s a good possibility that will happen in 2024, Riceland Foods Vice President of grain sales and procurement Grayson Daniels told Talk Business & Politics.

“The weather has to cooperate. That’s the first thing,” he said. “It definitely looks like we will have a bigger crop this summer if the weather holds.”

The USDA forecasted that growers produced 107 million hundredweight of rice last year, a 33% increase when compared to the 80.3 million hundredweight produced in 2022. The rice yield for 2023 was forecasted at 7,550 pounds per acre, up 140 pounds from the previous year.

Milled rice exports were up 18% last year and total rice exports that include milled and rough rice were up 12%, Daniels said. Early estimates are that export numbers will be as good or exceed those numbers this year, he said.

There are several positive and negative factors that will have an impact on prices and production this year. The El Nino weather pattern has wreaked havoc in several parts of the world, causing potential problems for rice growers in other countries and to this point it has had very little impact in Arkansas, he said. India placed a moratorium on exporting its domestic rice crop, which means there’s less competition for U.S. growers in export markets.

The U.S. export market has remained strong during the last year, and that could continue through 2024, he said. Another positive indicator for the country’s rice market is that worldwide stocks from companies that are involved in the rice industry finished lower in 2023.

There are other reasons to think the rice market might be bearish this year, too, he said. Larger crops could lower yields and create more supplies, he said. The U.S. dollar has been strong and historically that hasn’t always been good for agriculture commodities. At some point during the next year, it’s likely that India will lift its export ban. And weather can always have an impact at any given time, Daniels said.

Another potential impact could come from the state’s most widely grown crop, soybeans. Since 2022, U.S. soybean production has been down by about 3% overall, Daniels said. This year there could be an increase in production, and if that’s the case in Arkansas, some farmers may choose to dedicate more acres to that crop, he said.

There are several reasons to think soybean production will be up this year, he said. First, the country’s production has been down the last several years so at some point a rebound is likely. Second, the weather has been bad in Brazil during its growing season. Brazil is the top soybean grower in the world, producing 160 million metric tons during its last growing season, according to the USDA. That accounted for 43% of all global production while the U.S. finished second at 31%.

There are a few reasons, however, why the U.S. soybean market might be down, Daniels said. First, an increase in domestic supplies could drive prices down. Second, the largest importer of soybeans in the world, China, prefers South American soybeans. Third, world stock markets could rise and that might have a negative impact on domestic soybean prices.

Despite all the potential machinations with agriculture commodities markets, Hunter Biram, extension economist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said rice is one of the least risky crops for farmers to grow in terms of production. According to metrics he developed, soybeans are four times riskier to grow than rice from a production standpoint. Corn and cotton are both twice as risky to produce.

“Rice has the lowest yield risk of any crop,” he said.

Rice is the most consumed food in the world. Roughly half the world’s population eats rice on a regular basis. Last year more than 540 million metric tons of rice was consumed, according to the USDA. About 4.6 million metric tons was consumed in the U.S. and most of that rice came from domestic sources.

The crop is mainly grown in the Mississippi Delta region, and most of the rice grown there is of the long-grain variety. Medium and short grain varieties are grown in California.

Rice has been grown in the South since it was first brought to South Carolina in the 1600s. Rice was grown in small amounts in Arkansas as early as the 1840s, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Mass production of the crop started after 1902 when Lonoke County farmer William Fuller sparked interest in the crop after he set up an experimental farm in Carlisle.

The crop is grown in 40 of the state’s 75 counties. The vast majority is produced in Arkansas’ Delta Region in eastern and southern parts of the state.

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