BAU Representative : The Project for Development of Breeding and Water Management Technologies for Safe and Nutritious Rice Production (SANRICE) and Japan-based business development company AJI-CLE Co., Ltd. officially entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today during a signing ceremony held at the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) campus.
The signing ceremony, which welcomed the participation of Professor Dr. Md. Rafiqul Islam Sarder, Vice Chancellor, BAU establishes a partnership aimed at contributing to water saving, public health improvement, environmental sustainability, and climate change mitigation in Bangladesh

The main purpose of this MoU is to facilitate cooperation between SANRICE and AJI-CLE to clarify the methane emission reduction effects of the 3F4D+MD irrigation method. The 3F4D+MD method, developed by the SANRICE project, is an intermittent irrigation technique that reduces arsenic in rice grains and saves irrigation water compared to continuous flooding, without compromising crop yield.

The SANRICE project has been supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since 2022, functioning as a joint research project among BAU, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), and other partner institutions. The 3F4D+MD method has already been successfully validated in BAU experimental fields and within farmers' fields in the Jashore district.
This joint research marks a first-of-its-kind initiative. It represents a vital effort to provide scientific evidence demonstrating that this irrigation method lowers environmental impact, adding to its already proven benefits of reducing arsenic in rice and conserving irrigation water.