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FFAR Grant Quantifies Organic Carbon to Improve Agricultural Productivity 

FFAR Announces 26 Awardees of FFAR Fellows Program 

Expanding Gene
Editing Communications
 

FFAR Grant Supports Climate Smart Beef and Dairy Production 

FFAR Grant Improves Chickpeas’ Protein Content & Quality 

Fast Tracking Climate Solutions from Global Germplasm Banks 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $5,000,000

Total award amount   $11,500,000

Location   Texcoco, Mexico

Matching Funders   Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Grantee Institution   CGIAR

The most dangerous impact of climate change is the disruption of global agriculture and food systems through disasters such as drought, heat and flooding. These disruptions, including decreased agricultural production and reduced harvests, are hardest on the approximately half a billion smallholder farmers living on less than two dollars a day. This initiative, led by CGIAR, advances transformative approaches to expand the use of genetic diversity from germplasm banks. The research ultimately aims to develop new climate-smart crop varieties for millions of smallholder farmers worldwide.

Kirchner Food Fellowship Inaugural HBCU Cohort (2021-22) 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $75,000

Total award amount   $273,000

Location   Jacksonville, FL & Washington, D.C.

Matching Funders   The Kirchner Impact Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Burroughs-Wellcome Fund

The Kirchner Fellowship HBCU cohort is part of a $1 million five-year collaboration between the Kirchner Impact Foundation and the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research to increase diversity within the venture capital industry by training HBCU students to become agriculture technology venture capitalists. Kirchner HBCU fellows invest capital in early-stage food and agriculture companies applying ground-breaking technologies to provide sustainable solutions to address global food challenges.

Kirchner Food Fellowship Announces Inaugural HBCU Cohort 

Reinvigorating Soybean Yield for 21st Century Agriculture 

Year Awarded  2021

Total award amount   $450,002

Location   Ithaca, NY

Grantee Institution   Cornell University

Soybeans are an important protein source and generate billions in economic growth in the United States. However, soybean yields lag other staple crops due to knowledge gaps concerning hybrid breeding—breeding between genetically distinct parent crops. This research focuses on increasing yields through a two-pronged approach. The team is using biotechnology to introduce a male-sterility/male rescue system that prevents soybean from self-pollinating, along with CRISPR gene editing to enhance soybean floral traits that will attract bees to outcross, or cross different breeds of soybeans. This hybrid breeding system has the potential to introduce genetic diversity, potentially creating trillions of dollars in additional economic and agricultural growth.

Understanding the roots of soil health 

Year Awarded  2021

Total award amount   $449,563

Location   Lexington, KY

Grantee Institution   University of Kentucky

Plant roots are highly efficient at building soil organic matter, suggesting that increasing root growth in cropping systems can improve soil health. However, there are knowledge gaps that limit our ability to take full advantage of soil health benefits that roots could provide—for example, the contributions of living roots vs. decaying root litter to soil organic matter are unclear. This research is determining how living roots and decaying litter affect soil organic matter in low and high fertility soils and evaluating cover crops as a tool to capitalize on the benefits of roots in cropping systems.