AgriCapture Climate-Friendly Rice

Notice: _On April 14, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (PCSC). The USDA plans to reform the program into the Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative. Contact your local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) for more information on how to apply to the AMP initiative. _

This project will benefit climate-smart farmers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, and California while expanding climate-smart rice markets and guaranteeing a supply of climate-smart rice to customers. All farms will be certified under the ACFRS.

This project plans direct incentive payment to producers for climate-smart practice implementation and identity preserved storage and potential crop premiums for producers who develop their own processing capabilities and markets. Planned practices include: alternate wetting and drying, furrow irrigated rice, reduced burning of rice stubble, early incorporation of rice stubble into the soil, and various techniques for improving nitrogen fertilizer efficiency.

No eligibility criteria are published. AgriCapture's Advancing Markets for Producers page describes the practices and the supply chain but never states who may enroll; fit is assessed case by case from an inquiry. Its farmer page asks you to "provide information about your operation, including crop type, acreage, location, and management practices, so our farm management team can evaluate eligibility."

What the published scope does tell you:

• Commodity: rice. AgriCapture "partners with American rice farmers and mills to build the market for sustainably grown rice," and the 2024 program covered "33 Farms" and "42,000 Acres of U.S. Grown Rice" "Across the Mississippi Delta."

• Where: this record covers Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas and California. No county or watershed list is published.

• What you would have to do: adopt water-saving irrigation — "Farms use Furrow Irrigated Rice or Alternate Wetting and Drying" — and efficient fertilizer application; accept verification ("field-level data, remote sensing, satellite imagery, & soil sampling"); and keep the crop identity preserved "during harvest, storage, milling, and packaging." The record's project summary adds ACFRS certification.

• AgriCapture also works with "a variety of landowners and farmers" beyond rice — other row crops, grasslands and ranchlands — but those are its own programs, not this USDA-funded project.

Status, which matters before you invest time: USDA cancelled the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program on April 14, 2025. The project continues under USDA Advancing Markets for Producers (agreement NR233A750004G004), but this record is closed and the page is oriented to rice buyers and mills rather than to new grower sign-ups.

Your next step is therefore a conversation, not an application: use the contact form on the page or call AgriCapture's office, (615) 625-5195, and ask whether they are still enrolling growers in your state.

No per-farm payment rate, award ceiling, or cost-share percentage is published.

AgriCapture's AMP page reports program-level results only — a "2024 Program Overview" of "33 Farms" across the Mississippi Delta, "42,000 Acres" of U.S.-grown rice, and "$2.4 Million" in "Direct Farmer Incentives." That is an aggregate, not a rate; dividing it out would produce a number AgriCapture has not published, so do not plan against it.

The payment design is described without figures: direct incentive payments to producers for climate-smart practice implementation and identity-preserved storage, plus potential crop premiums for producers who develop their own processing capabilities and markets. Qualifying practices include alternate wetting and drying, furrow-irrigated rice, reduced burning and early incorporation of rice stubble, and improved nitrogen fertilizer efficiency. Participation also brings non-cash obligations: field-level data, remote sensing, satellite imagery and soil sampling for verification, ACFRS certification, and identity preservation through harvest, storage, milling and packaging.

Status matters here: USDA cancelled the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program on April 14, 2025. The project continues under USDA Advancing Markets for Producers (agreement NR233A750004G004), but this record is closed and the page is oriented to buyers and mills rather than to new grower sign-ups.

If you grow rice in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas or California and want current grower terms, contact AgriCapture directly — they are not on the page.

Fill out the contact form here to get started.

• Video overview