UA Professor Gets $500K to Study Sustainable Rice Production

Benjamin Runkle, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, has received a $500,199 Faculty Early Career Development grant from the National Science Foundation to expand his research on sustainable rice production.

Runkle is working with farmers in the Arkansas Delta to develop and test alternative irrigation strategies for rice production. Their goal is to reduce the quantity of water used and therefore decrease the amount of methane produced in flooded rice fields.

Runkle and the farmers are also trying to do this without decreasing rice production, and, in some cases, expect to increase crop yields.

The NSF award will enable the professor to quantify the climate impact of several water-saving irrigation strategies. The project will inform policy and investment decisions in Arkansas and the mid-South.