Stuttgart, Arkansas is known as the duck and rice capital of the world because it’s surrounded by rice fields and reservoirs that serve as way stations for the annual migration of ducks and geese on the Mississippi Flyway. Area rice farmers, like Sidney Robnett, manage and pay for winter-flooded rice habitat that provides more than 35 percent of the all food energy for dabbling ducks wintering in their fields.

In addition to providing for wildlife, Sidney and his fellow Arkansas rice farmers grow food for humans, too! More than 50 percent of the rice produced in the United States is grown in Arkansas, and it’s the state’s number one agricultural export.

Being surrounded by all that affordable, delicious, nutritious rice, Sidney says it’s easy to get tunnel vision. “You work the fields, grow your crop, and after that crop is harvested and hauled to the mill, you're pretty much done for the year as far as that crop is concerned. But when you stop to think about where that rice is going, or whose life that crop may have an impact on, you realize there’s something really powerful about growing food for people.”