Year Awarded 2022
Total award amount $240,000
Location College Park, MD
Program FoodShot Global Challenge
Matching Funders FoodShot Global
Grantee Institution University of Maryland
FoodShot Global’s GroundBreaker Prize recognizes rising scientific stars whose research has identified technological and ecological tools that enable farmers to optimize yields and the long-term health of the land. Dr. Ray Weil, professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland, received $240,000 for his work at the intersection of BioActive Foods, Precision Protein and Innovating Soil to improve human nutrition by addressing low sulfur soils that may cause deficiencies in key amino acids in African countries. Dr. Weil will develop innovative management practices that use Indigenous resources and plant diversity to help soils and agroecosystems provide crops with enough sulfur to increase yields and farmer income, while enhancing the amino acid profiles – and hence the nutritional quality – of the protein in grain legumes such as bean, peanut, cowpea and soybean.