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

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94 Grants found

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Increasing Water Productivity, Soil Carbon, and Sustainability of Integrated Multi-Crop Systems Using Field-Scale Research 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $7,657,633

Total award amount   $16,362,948

Location   Manhattan, KS

Matching Funders   Bayer Crop Science, Iowa State University, Kansas State University, LandScan, LI-COR, Mississippi State University, The Ohio State University, The University of Kansas

Grantee Institution   Kansas State University

Increasing crop yields while improving soil and watershed health requires understanding how agriculture management interacts with local environmental conditions. To date, this research remains fragmented and limited in scope. Kansas State University researchers are tackling these knowledge gaps and improving precision agriculture through an expansive study across the U.S. Corn Belt and Great Plains exploring how crop, soil and water management affect the soil microbial communities that drive agroecosystem functions. This project will investigate how combinations of cover crops, nitrogen, crop rotation and tillage, and water management under variable soil water conditions influence soil microbial communities that drive nutrient availability and loss.

Advancing DEI in Sharing Carbon & Ecosystems Services Information 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $100,000

Total award amount   $200,000

Location   Madison, WI

Matching Funders   American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and the Soil Science Society of America

Grantee Institution   Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies- Grants has this institution on file as "Tri-Societies"

This investment is building inclusivity and accessibility into the Tri-Societies’ new educational website Decode 6. This free, educational website–named for carbon, the sixth element on the periodic table–provides resources in carbon and ecosystem services and their respective markets for the agricultural and environmental sectors.

Integration of Agroforestry as a Transformative Solution to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Organic Farms 

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $200,000

Location   Knoxville, TN

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture

The 2022 Organic Center-FFAR joint Organic Research Program awardee, Dr. Sindhu Jagadamma, is investigating how growing trees on organic farms and transforming organic waste from those farms into high-value compost naturally and cost-effectively mitigates climate change and reduces the carbon footprint of organic farms. She will conduct the study at Caney Fork Farms, a Tennessee certified organic farm, and develop and disseminate educational materials to improve producers’ knowledge of these and other innovative farm management approaches to increase their adoption throughout the Southeast.

Oregon Tilth 

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $50,000

Location   Corvallis, OR

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   The Organic Center

The Organic Training for Agricultural Professionals Prize supports the continued success of Oregon Tilth’s conservation, transition and farm viability education and will train additional farmers and agriculture professionals in organic certification, organic regulations, production practices and profitability tools. It will also facilitate the convening of organic certifiers to explore ways to streamline linkages between USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service support and the organic certification process.

Enhancing Tools to Model Climate and Environmental Impacts in Organic Agriculture Systems 

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $77,022

Location   Madison, WI

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   University of Wisconsin, Madison

The 2022 Organic Center-FFAR joint Organic Research Program awardee, Dr. Erin Silva, is investigating how to improve existing carbon and nutrient modeling tools and create new ones to better reflect organic farming management practices and reduce climate change impact. She will share the results with agricultural professionals and policymakers to inform where further research is needed to better understand the impacts of organic farming methods on climate and environmental stewardship.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Organic Grain Resource and Information Network 

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $100,000

Location   Madison, WI

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   University of Wisconsin, Madison, Organic Grain Resource and Information Network

The Organic Training for Agricultural Professionals Prize advances the University of Wisconsin-Madison Organic Grain Resource and Information Network (OGRAIN) programming by building additional state-wide and cross-state relationships through Cooperative Extension, supporting work with Tribal Nations and developing additional resources for new agriculture professionals and farmers transitioning to organic.

Iowa State University Organic Agriculture Program (ISU OAP) 

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $50,000

Location   Ames, IA 

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   Iowa State University Organic Agriculture Program

The Organic Training for Agricultural Professionals Prize supports the expansion of the Iowa State University Organic Agriculture Program (ISU OAP) through train-the-trainer and organic certification workshops, videos and podcasts, and carbon sequestration webinars and field days. ISU OAP has a 25-year history of training farming community groups, farmer leaders and agricultural professionals in organic agronomic practices, certification and farm management.

OATS (Organic Agronomy Training Service) 

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $150,000

Location   Champaign, IL

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   The Organic Center

The Organic Training for Agricultural Professionals Prize supports OATS (Organic Agronomy Training Service) to increase domestic organic crop production by supporting the development of an organic professional certificate program, a variety of multi-media training tools and an industry-wide assessment to identify future participants and necessary education. OATS is a training program for agricultural professionals working with organic or transitioning farmers in the northern tier of the U.S., fiscally sponsored by the Organic Trade Association.

Performance-Based Financing Models for Sustainable Water Management in the Great Lakes Basin 

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $600,000

Total award amount   $1,200,000

Location   Ann Arbor, MI

Program   Seeding Solutions

Matching Funders   Great Lakes Protection Fund

Grantee Institution   University of Michigan

Though fertilizer runoff can cause water pollution, the demand for high crop yields often stymies conservation practices. One possible answer lies with encouraging private financiers to incentivize farm sustainability efforts by identifying the full lending risks associated with fertilizer emissions. Researchers are exploring this potential solution by linking a water quality modeling and monitoring system in the Lake Huron drainage basin to sustainability-based financial products for farmers.

FoodShot Global Challenge #3 Bioactive Foods GroundBreaker Prize (Champaign, Illinois) 

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $120,000

Location   Champaign, IL

Program   FoodShot Global Challenge

Matching Funders   FoodShot Global

Grantee Institution   University of Illinois

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. Kaiyu Guan, Blue Waters professor at the University of Illinois and president of Habiterre, received $120,000 for his work in Innovating Soil 3.0 to develop a “system of systems” approach that can support farmer decision-making to improve soil health and provide scientifically rigorous MRV (monitoring, reporting and verification) services to ecosystem services markets.