Noble honored by Louisiana with distinguished service award

Charles Noble III of Mangham was recently given the Distinguished Service to North Louisiana Agriculture Award  at the Northeast LA Ag Expo awards banquet in West Monroe. 

The presentation was made by Sen. Francis Thompson, who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee for Louisiana.

In 1979, Charles Noble left his engineering career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to join his parents on the family farm in Richland Parish. 

Over the next 40 years Charles was engaged in the production of cotton, soybeans, rice and corn. As a manager of C.M. Noble, Inc. and later as managing partner of Noble Planting Co., he strove to modernize and streamline the operations of the farm. 

Noble was one of the first producers in Louisiana to utilize a personal computer for financial management and record keeping. He helped to pioneer minimum tillage practices which saved fuel, soil, and money. He also added grain storage and drying facilities in order to deliver quality product to end users of corn and rice.

Along with his management activities, Charles became involved with numerous farm organizations. He had a strong desire to tell agriculture’s story and to set the record straight when he felt agriculture was being misrepresented. 

He worked extensively with extension and research personnel with on-farm applied research. He was one of the few cotton producers selected statewide to participate in large scale, on-farm replicated cotton variety trials to evaluate Bt cotton varieties during a critical time when Bt cotton came on the market. 

He also participated in numerous on-farm trials with cotton and corn relating to insect and disease management.