A Cold Steppe-led USDA RCPP project
Arkansas's Grand Prairie Farmland & Groundwater Preservation Project
Preserving Arkansas farmland by reducing water demand. Use USDA financial assistance to hold more water in the root zone and build organic matter, at little to no out-of-pocket cost - all we ask is that you share the results. Sign-ups close August 20, 2026.
What we plan to do
One problem, treated as one problem.
The problem
Southeastern row-crop soils are low in organic matter, which limits how much water the root zone can hold - while the alluvial aquifer beneath Arkansas's Grand Prairie keeps declining. We treat these as one problem: building stable soil carbon increases plant-available water, which reduces irrigation demand and groundwater withdrawals.
What farmers receive
Participating farms receive Nourishing Burn biochar, delivery and application, and soil-moisture and water monitoring equipment - for little to no out-of-pocket cost. Depending on farm size, we recommend trialing 150–250 tons: ideally 3 tons per acre, or a 5-ton-per-acre rate on fields with significant soil health concerns.
What it means
More water held in the root zone means fewer irrigation sets - less diesel, less labor, fewer pump hours - and a better chance that rainfall arrives before the next irrigation is needed. Results are measured in terms that matter to you: days added between irrigation events and acre-feet of water saved.
The water problem
A shrinking aquifer under the Grand Prairie
Arkansas's Grand Prairie sits over the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer — the region's most important source of irrigation water — and it is being drawn down faster than it refills. The Arkansas Department of Agriculture's 2025 Groundwater Report found withdrawals across eastern and southern Arkansas running above what is estimated to be sustainable, leaving deep "cones of depression" where water levels fall year after year.
Some of the steepest declines sit directly under the Grand Prairie. Rebuilding the soil's capacity to hold water is one practical way to ease that pressure.
Read the full report: Arkansas Department of Agriculture — Groundwater Protection & Management Program
Figure 4 — Alluvial Aquifer Depth to Water, Spring 2025. Source: 2025 Arkansas Groundwater Protection and Management Report, Arkansas Department of Agriculture.
Measured, not promised
A side-by-side on your own ground.
On participating farms, we set up a side-by-side comparison: one field receives biochar plus soil moisture probes and water monitoring; a second gets identical monitoring but no biochar; a third stays on your usual calendar-based schedule. You see the soil health and water results on your own ground - measured, not promised.
Field 1 - Biochar + monitoring
Biochar applied, with soil moisture probes and water monitoring.
Field 2 - Monitoring only
Identical monitoring, no biochar. This is the control the biochar field is measured against.
Field 3 - Calendar-based scheduling
Your usual practice: irrigation timed by the calendar rather than by probes or a water balance. No biochar and no instruments - the business-as-usual comparison.
The requirement, and your data.
In return for the program covering your biochar, application, and monitoring, participants are required to share the results — soil health improvements, yield data, and water usage. That's the deal: little to no cost, and the data demonstrates agronomic and economic value to our farmers.
All individual farm data remains your property, and we never sell it or use it for unrelated marketing. As a condition of the program, results are shared with USDA-NRCS - reported at the program level rather than farm by farm - and your data is available to you on request at any time.
What RCPP is, and what a pre-selectee is.
What is RCPP
A USDA-NRCS program that funds partner-led conservation projects at a regional scale. Instead of applying on your own, you join a project a partner has already built - we manage the proposal, the paperwork and the program requirements.
What is a pre-selectee
We submit you and your farm for financial assistance to apply biochar under CPS 336, skipping the normal USDA ranking process in recognition of your commitment to conservation. Signing up expresses interest only. No commitment · Little to no cost · Little to lose.
Where the project is
The counties sitting on the aquifer.
Every county in Arkansas is eligible. The two lists below are where the project concentrates, because they sit over the alluvial aquifer - the ground where holding more water in the root zone does the most good.
Primary focus counties
Adjacent Delta counties
Arkansas counties - also eligible
The rest of the state can take part too.
“Biochar application could accelerate our soil health goals by about fifteen years. What I expected to take twenty years, we could have within five.”
Keith Scoggins
Arkansas NRCS Soil Health Specialist
What happens next.
- 01
You sign up
Takes about five minutes.
- 02
We submit you
You go forward with our proposal to USDA-NRCS.
- 03
If the project is awarded
We contact you exactly the way you chose on the form.
- 04
Contracting, then delivery
Application is scheduled around your season.
Common questions
The project, answered.
Go to the source
The program, and the standard.
Straight from USDA: how RCPP works, and the practice standard it funds biochar under.
Who is behind it
The people we work with.
Agencies, universities and industry partners involved in the practice standard, the research behind it, and the project itself.
Happy to walk you through it.
Email helpingfarmers@coldsteppe.com or call 901.305.8887. Nourishing Burn is produced in Stuttgart, Arkansas from Arkansas rice hulls - upcycled from the mills our farmers already supply.
For organizations.
Partner with the project through a letter of support, coordination, or match funding.