Rice, Rice, Baby

Jennifer Holland: Welcome to Short Talks from the Hill, a research and economic development podcast from the University of Arkansas. I’m Jennifer Holland. My guest today is Lanier Nalley, professor and department head for Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness for the Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences. He is also a researcher with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the UA System Division of Agriculture. Lanier’s current research emphasis is on rice production, international agricultural policy, the economics of plant genetics and international development.

Lanier, welcome to Short Talks!

Lanier Nalley: Thank you.

JH: So, your research really focuses on two areas: international food security in places like Africa and Asia, and then the rice industry in Arkansas. So, let’s start with Arkansas. Tell me about your research in our state and how it relates to rice production.

LN: We don’t need to think of those as being mutually exclusive because Arkansas is the largest rice producer in the U.S., and approximately 40% of our rice is exported abroad. So, what I really focus on is increasing revenue for Arkansas producers and simultaneously trying to feed the world in doing that. And a lot of those issues revolve around increasing efficiencies for producers, specifically because rice does use a lot of water and that’s problematic, and it uses a lot of water, and it also has its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions. So, I like to think of myself, luckily, as a steward of society, because I get to help producers try to help the environment, and my passion is feeding the world so I can do all three of those things simultaneously.

JH: And internationally, tell me about your work on food insecurity, in particular in South Africa and South Asia?

LN: Yeah, so kind of tying it back to production. So, a lot of the work we do in Arkansas [is] to increase yields. And when I say “we,” it’s really the people, the Division of Agriculture and the U of A who do fantastic work in the hard sciences to increase yield and to have attributes like disease resistance. Well, that stops at the farm gate and then once it leaves the farm gate, economists basically take over and look at markets and how markets work. And that trickles down to obviously other countries around the world. And so, a lot of my research deals with how rice flows out of Arkansas and then ends up in the mouths of poor people in Central and Latin America. And then I do a lot of work in South Africa. South Africa is interesting because the World Bank classifies it as an upper-middle income country, but it has the largest wealth disparity in the world. So, you have a large portion of that population who is very poor. And so, a lot of my research focuses on kind of the nexus of climate change in Africa and food security, trying to model droughts and the effects of those droughts, and then the implication of those droughts on the populous of South Africa.

JH: And you frequently work with students on your research. Do you have any students working on any of your current projects?

LN: Yes. So, I have a student who her research focuses around, genetically modified maize in South Africa. So, this trait is unique because unlike traditional gene traits that we think about like Roundup Ready or herbicide tolerant or insect resistant, this trait was funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Monsanto, now  Syngenta, on trying to use water more efficiently. So southern Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa, is going through increased droughts in both intensity and frequency. And there’s still a large push back in many parts of Africa about genetically modified food and a lot of people don’t want to eat it for various reasons. And so, what we focused on, or my student focused on, was trying to ascertain if people viewed all GM traits the same. That is, it’s not herbicide tolerant or insect resistant. This trait is really to stabilize prices during a drought. I have another student who is working in the Philippines, and she is working on low glycemic index rice. So, I think many people will be shocked to learn, I was, that some of the highest diabetes rates in the world are in countries where BMIs are the smallest. So, places like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Mauritius, Madagascar. I think people in the US, we think of diabetes as like myself, I’m overweight and I work behind a computer and I’m high risk of diabetes for that. But in these countries, eating rice frequently can increase the prevalence of type two diabetes. Well, this rice variety, and the trait specifically, basically lowers the glycemic index of rice. And I have one of my master’s students focusing on how people view that trait. Would they be willing to pay a premium for it, and if so, or if they weren’t – would their behavior change if they knew they were at high risk for diabetes? So nearly all my master’s students will do internationally focused research with some high gravity around Arkansas as well.

JH: So, you mentioned that rice is a large emitter of greenhouse gases. Tell me a little bit about maybe some research that the university might be involved in related to this and your role in that.

LN: First, we have to understand why so much water is being used for rice. Rice is an aquatic plant. But we do that to prevent weeds, right? So, if you flood up a field, it’s more difficult for weeds to grow. Well, the negative byproduct of that is methane emissions. And methane emissions are a large issue in commercial rice production. So that really is affecting producers both because they don’t want to contribute to global warming – they want to be environmental stewards. But it also is becoming an issue because consumers are demanding more environmentally sustainable products. So, at the University of Arkansas in the Division of Agriculture, hard scientists are working on things like alternative wetting, drying and furrow irrigation, which serves two purposes. The first is that it uses less water, and it also has less methane emissions. And that’s great for rice producers because that’s saving in costs. And then it also is marketable by the sense of you can market your product as being more sustainable. And so, the role that I played – and other economists in my department – is we look at things like cost of production. So, there’s always tradeoffs between things of, you might be saving water, and you might be emitting less methane, but what does that mean to your bottom line. Because ultimately producers are, I think the spirit of most agricultural producers in Arkansas is to feed the world. I truly believe that. But you also got to pay your bills, right? And so, what we focus on a lot are two things. First, is it economically viable? And then second, how would consumers of rice respond to things that are marketed as…because it’s very complex. When you talk about a gigaton of carbon. I mean, I’ve been working at this for 15 years, and I still can’t wrap my head around what a gigaton of carbon is. I struggle with when someone tells me square footage of a room, I still struggle with it. But when you start talking about gigatons of carbon, you know, the average person, even most academics, struggle with that. So, what we focus on a lot is comparative metrics of trying to convey to consumers. Here’s what this might, that would be equivalent to taking X number of trucks off the road. Right? I think that in itself kind of behavioral economics. And we have a faculty member in my department, Brandon McFadden, who is fabulous at running experiments like that, trying to convey those hard science concepts which are very obtuse into digestible bits for consumers to understand. And what we do in AG economics is try to isolate which ones are the most effective at telling the good story of the research that’s being undertaken.

JH: Yeah, because I know a lot of people, they may be more familiar with hearing methane associated with cows or livestock. But yeah, hearing it associated with rice is not something that most people would probably even be aware of.

LN: It’s an issue. And it’s not that producers in Arkansas are doing anything wrong. That’s just the life cycle of rice and the physiology of it. Methane is a byproduct, and that’s becoming a big research topic for the university. And I think we’re cutting edge in that, and it really stems from the fact that we have brilliant extension agents working with rice producers, who then disseminate that information to researchers, who then incorporate that into their research. And I think the most enjoyable thing for me is then we incorporate our graduate students into that research. And ultimately, that research will provide them with the skill set to get a good job when they graduate, because they’re working on topics that are important not just to Arkansas, but to the globe. And I think importantly, it’s easy to say, well, rice is a big methane emission. We should eat less of it. Well, we need to remember that 3 billion people rely on rice as their primary crop, and 80% of the world’s poorest people rely on rice as their staple crop. So simply saying we’re going to produce less of it because it’s not good for the environment is not an option. So, researchers at the university have internalized that and said, what can we do as environmental stewards through good research at the university to try to reduce those methane emissions?

JH: Now, you mentioned your graduate students again, and some of the jobs they get after they graduate. What kind of jobs do they get? Where do they work after they graduate? 

LN: Well, all of them are making more money than I am, so they must be doing well. So, a lot of them will go work for Walmart. So, buyers for Walmart. So, our master’s program is really, I classify it as advanced data analytics. So, about a third of them will go on to private industry. A third will go on to get a PhD and about a third of them will go work for NGOs as well or government. So, a lot of our students will go work for the Foreign AG Service or USAID, which is the branch of the US government that specializes in foreign aid. And these are my grad students, because I’m internationally focused. A lot of them will go work in the rice industry, my graduates. So, I think one of the nicest things about our master’s program is it really sets a student up to do whatever they want, and that’s really fulfilling as a professor, where after a student’s done, they have multiple doors to run through, because the worst is when you have one door, and you have no option. And I just had a graduate student last week take a job at Tyson, and she had four other job opportunities, and it made me feel good because we prepared them well. We gave them a skill set that they were in demand, and I think that’s really a function of the curriculum the University of Arkansas provides. And then not only the curriculum, but we’re training them in such a manner that they’re in demand, which is very rewarding both as a researcher and a teacher.

JH: Lanier, thank you for being here today. We really enjoyed having you and sharing more about your research.

LN: Well, I appreciate it, and I think it’s important that you guys do series like this because I think disseminating research is more than simply publishing journal articles and producing graduate students. It’s letting stakeholders in Arkansas know the good work that’s being conducted at the university. So, thank you for having me.