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Enabling sustainable soil and water management through microbe-powered RF soil sensing 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $450,000

Location   Santa Cruz, CA

Grantee Institution   University of California Santa Cruz

Monitoring soil properties is an effective way to decrease resource consumption while maintaining crop yields. However, most farms do not use sensor data to guide soil inputs and irrigation, primarily because traditional sensor networks are costly and require significant labor to install and maintain. This research is creating a new technique for agricultural soil sensing that pairs wireless underground tags with an aboveground mobile reader.

Agroecosystem responses to climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity in the United States and Latin America 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $446,474

Location   Syracuse, NY

Grantee Institution   University of Florida

Climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity are three of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. To address these, agroecology stresses the importance of promoting biodiversity conservation and food sovereignty in our food system. This research uses interdisciplinary, multiregional, and community-based approaches to examine the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity and human livelihoods, and the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services in rural and urban agricultural landscapes.

Targeted On-Demand Disease Management Practices/Therapies 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $450,000

Location   Raleigh, NC

Grantee Institution   NC State University

Increased agricultural trade, human movement, rapid pathogen evolution and a changing climate make many of the tactics used to combat pathogens impossible to implement. This research is developing an ecological community-level understanding of how plant pathogenic bacteria survive and compete in agricultural microbiomes and aims to develop new management and diagnostic tools and host/microbiome interaction models.

Establishing Predictive Genomics to Improve Pollinator Health 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $449,816

Location   West Lafayette, IN

Grantee Institution   Purdue University

Most bee breeding methods were developed almost a century ago and do not use genome-enabled breeding techniques. This research program sets out to work directly with bee breeders to develop and evaluate genome-enabled breeding techniques while producing a large genomic database for honeybees across the country.

Establish Power-to-Food by Cultivating and Processing Hydrogenotrophic Single Cells to Design New Sustainable Protein Supply Chains Without Arable Land 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $430,485

Location   Amherst, MA

Grantee Institution   University of Massacheusetts Amherst

Alternative sustainable protein supply chains not reliant on traditional agriculture are needed for future food security. This research is studying high-protein bacteria that use hydrogen as an energy source, which can be produced sustainably and using less land than traditional agriculture.

Holistic Irrigation Strategies for Climate-Smart Agriculture 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $448,339

Location   College Station, TX

Grantee Institution   Texas A&M University

Currently, agriculture decision support tools for water management are unsuitable for climate-smart agriculture because they mostly serve the single purpose of increasing crop productivity. This research is developing water management strategies that not only optimize crop productivity, but also increase carbon sequestration, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote soil health and resilience.

FFAR & NPB Focus on Continuous Air Quality Improvement Efforts 

FFAR Awards Grant to Genvax Technologies to Develop African Swine Fever Vaccine 

FFAR Announces New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Awardees 

FFAR Names Dr. Saharah Moon Chapotin as Executive Director