Awarded Grants
Below is a listing of our awarded grants that tackle big food and agriculture challenges.

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430 Grants found

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FFAR Fellows Program 2022 Cohort 

Year Awarded  2022

Matching Funders   North Carolina State University

A unique three-year fellowship that prepares up to 48 graduate students to be the next generation of food and agriculture scientists by using an interdisciplinary approach to career readiness. Fellows work with university and industry representatives, as well as their peers, to conduct urgent research and engage in professional development.

Noninvasive Wellness Monitoring of Broiler Growout Using Continuous Audio Analytics (2022) 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $300,000

Location   Atlanta, GA

Program   SMART Broiler

Matching Funders   McDonald’s Corporation and Tyson Foods

Grantee Institution   AudioT

This research is developing a scalable, low-cost audio-monitoring tool that tracks bird vocalizations to alert farmers to broiler welfare and behavior. Bird vocalizations can provide insight into flock status and can be a complementary tool to video-based systems.

Flockfocus – Developing Automated Surveillance Tools to Safeguard Chicken Welfare (2022) 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $1,000,000

Location   Belfast, Northern Ireland

Program   SMART Broiler

Matching Funders   McDonald’s Corporation and Moy Park

Grantee Institution   Queen’s University Belfast

This research, in partnership with Moy Park, is to transferring intelligent surveillance techniques used for tracking humans to provide real time monitoring of individual birds within a flock. This camera-based technology, called FlockFocus, represents a significant improvement to monitoring technology currently available to the industry and has the potential for revolutionizing animal welfare in other sectors.

OPTICFLOCK: Welfare benefits of automated assessment of broiler chicken welfare 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $325,000

Location   Oxford, United Kingdom

Program   SMART Broiler

Matching Funders   McDonald’s Corporation, Munters and Tyson Foods

Grantee Institution   University of Oxford

This research, in partnership with Munters and Tyson Foods, is refining and extending the testing of a novel camera and computer system called OPTICFLOCKTM. The project is comparing key welfare outcomes, including hockburn, foot pad lesions and lameness, in commercial flocks managed with or without the technology and incorporates strategies to facilitate producer adoption of OPTICFLOCK technology.

Nitrogen SAVings through soil hEalth (NSAVE): Leveraging regenerative agriculture to reduce nitrogen inputs, increase farmer profits & mitigate climate change 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $998,784

Total award amount   $2,427,633

Location   Ames, IA

Program   Seeding Solutions

Matching Funders   Growers Edge, Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Meridian Institute, Midwest Row Crop Collaborative and Practical Farmers of Iowa

Grantee Institution   Practical Farmers of Iowa

Nitrogen is critical to plant growth and yields. Soil health practices can increase nitrogen availability, but farmers cannot determine by how much, so they apply additional, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, which is costly, contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and can negatively impact land and water ecosystems. This research is quantifying how adopting soil health practices can reduce the need for nitrogen inputs without sacrificing yield. Farmers need this scientifically sound economic information to make the best decisions for their land.

Fecal Microbiota Transplant to Reduce Post Weaning Diarrhea & Antibiotic Use 

Year Awarded  2021

Total award amount   $311,354

Location   Lafayette, IN

Matching Funders   Purdue University and National Pork Board

Grantee Institution   Purdue University

This research is investigating using fecal microbiota, or stool, transplants to reduce post-weaning diarrhea and antibiotic use in swine. Post-weaning diarrhea is caused when bacteria invade the gut, which becomes weakened from the diet change, transportation and change in environment that occurs during weaning. Researchers are administering the fecal transplants though a feed amendment with freeze-dried fecal microbiota, a less labor-intensive method than traditional oral gavage and better suited for commercial settings. If effective, the results could be optimized for other animal species and be developed into proprietary feed additive-type technologies by the animal health industry.

Risk Factors for Lameness in Finishing Pigs 

Year Awarded  2021

Total award amount   $268,493

Location   Philadelphia, PA

Matching Funders   University of Pennsylvania and PIC

Grantee Institution   University of Pennsylvania

Mycoplasma hyosynoviae (M. hyosynoviae) bacteria cause respiratory disease and lameness in pigs, contributing to economic loss and decreased animal welfare, and is a major driver of antibiotic use in swine production. Little is known about the incidence and causes of lameness in swine. This research is identifying factors that cause swine lameness to determine whether management factors like floor type, pen size and nutrition underlie common lameness problems. If lameness is caused by non-bacterial factors like M. hyosynoviae, alternative methods of prevention can be identified, reducing antibiotic usage.

Improving the Efficacy of Vaccination Against Mycoplasma Hyosynoviae by Identifying Optimal Application Times 

Year Awarded  2021

Total award amount   $359,618

Location   St. Paul, MN

Matching Funders   Newport Laboratories, Tyson Foods, Pipestone Veterinary Services, Regents of the University of Minnesota and Boehringer Ingelheim

Grantee Institution   University of Minnesota

Mycoplasma hyosynoviae (M. hyosynoviae) bacteria cause respiratory disease and lameness in pigs, contributing to economic loss and decreased animal welfare, and is a major driver of antibiotic use in swine production. This research identifies the optimal time for vaccine application against M. hyosynoviae in swine, which will result in significant prevention of lameness development in grow-finish swine and translate into reduced use of antibiotics for disease control.

Antimicrobial Use Monitoring & Benchmarking in U.S. Feedyards 

Year Awarded  2021

Total award amount   $400,022

Location   Manhattan, KS

Matching Funders   Kansas State University

Grantee Institution   Kansas State University

This research will develop a sustainable, practical system for individual beef producers to evaluate and report their antimicrobial usage in context of others across the beef feedlot industry. Results of this research can potentially impact how corporations and regulatory agencies formulate policies on antimicrobial use in beef cattle.