How do we sustain being able to go to the grocery store and having this wide selection of products?"
said Greenlee, an assistant professor of chemical engineering.
Greenlee has won a $4.3 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to work with farmers on ways to recycle water.
"This is a very different world than even 150 years ago, and it comes back to the availability and cleanliness and safety of water.
And ag supports all of that," said Greenlee, who joined the UA faculty in December 2015.
Greenlee’s project is one of seven receiving a total of $34 million through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Water for Food Production Systems Challenge Area.
That leaves "nontraditional" sources, some of which might include water used to wash out dairy operations or even in nonagriculture operations such as the water used to cool power plants, Dobrowolski said.
Some areas with water scarcity already routinely recycle water, but "we’re going to start using a lot more of that nontraditional water, with treatment, to grow crops," Dobrowolski said.
Initially in Arkansas, at least, she said she plans to work with dairy and hog farmers on ways to recycle water used in their operations.
Greenlee said agriculture producers work to manage water so as not to be wasteful, but water recycling so far has not become common in the state.