Rice Can Help NYS Farms Profit From Climate-Change Flooding

Rice geneticist Susan McCouch caught a waterfall of rice pouring from the hopper of a harvester combine idling in a drained rice paddy about 10 miles from campus and grabbed a handful to take a closer look.

It was the first harvest of a new Cornell project to help New York state farmers learn how to grow rice. The potentially lucrative crop can be grown on land that is flood-prone, and in dry conditions, as a hedge against climate change.

“The grains are looking quite good right here – they’re not discolored, they’re healthy,” said McCouch, Ph.D. ’90, professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science (SIPS), Plant Breeding and Genetics Section, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). “I think we just go ahead and dry them down and see how they cook up. It looks great.”

She is part of a team lead by Cornell Cooperative Extension that is growing rice on two demonstration plots: in a flooded rice paddy in Freeville, New York, and in dry conditions in Candor, New York, in Tioga County. The project will also include online “how to” growing guides, and research to identify areas in the Northeast that are suitable for rice and surveys to understand farmers’ willingness and barriers to growing it. The team will also investigate how rice-growing provides habitat for birds, storm water and pollution mitigation, and more.

“This is the right time, in terms of flood-risk issues and the need for diversified farming practices in New York state and across the Northeast,” said Jenny Kao-Kniffin, the CALS associate director of Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Climate change has increased the severity and frequency of rain and flooding in the Northeast, and New York farmers, especially small growers, are facing escalating risks of flooding on their land. Too much water threatens high-value crops like vegetables and fruit, said Kao-Kniffin, an associate professor in SIPS’ Horticulture Section. “It just takes 48 hours of flooding or so, and the harvest could be gone, especially if it brings in inches of silt.”

Many farmers have responded by transitioning away from high-value crops and instead plant other crops like hay in flood-prone areas. Or they’re just letting that land go fallow.

But rice can provide a lucrative alternative.

Source: cornell.edu

Photo Credit: istock-digitalsoul