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

UC Davis Receives FFAR Grant to Help Improve Vineyard Soil Health

Regenerative agriculture, which uses holistic farming and grazing practices to strengthen soil health and crop productivity, may help grape vines become more resilient to changing climate conditions. However, more research is needed to increase adoption of regenerative agriculture practices on vineyards. FFAR awarded a Seeding Solutions grant to the University of California, Davis to assess the effects of regenerative practices on vineyard soil health.

Tuskegee University Endowment

This award establishes an endowment to advance organic agriculture and farming practices in the Southeast through the university’s College of Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition Sciences. The endowment will also focus on increasing the equity in organic farming, including developing a network of organic research among Southeast academic institutions, with a focus on HBCUs.

AgMission CIAT Grant Evaluates the Risk of Climate Disruption for Key Crops across Geographies

Extreme events are increasing in frequency and severity and have impacted key crops in this region, repeatedly demonstrating how vulnerable local agriculture is to droughts, floods heatwaves and other unpredictable weather. CIAT researchers are identifying and assessing the likelihood of future climate risks and extreme events, and their potential impacts on yields and quality of key crops in North America, South Africa, Egypt and Brazil.

Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) Grazing Research in the U.S. Northern Great Plains

Researchers are investigating whether Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing, in relation to widespread continuous grazing practices, contributes to measurable differences in overall soil health, environmental sustainability and farmer profitability within the U.S. Northern Great Plains.

Expanding development of a predictive model to quantify the risk reduction associated with specific soil health practices for use by private & public lenders & insurers to incentivize the transition to resilient, climate-smart agriculture

This research is generating an unprecedented market-based, actuarially-sound model to quantify farm risk mitigation through the adoption of good soil health practices. The model will provide agricultural lenders and insurers who price risk an economic rational to factor in incentives such as better terms or lower loan rates and insurance prices to producers adopting good soil health practices.

FFAR-OCP Disruptive Fertilizer Technology Fellowship First Cohort

The FFAR-OCP Disruptive Fertilizer Technology Fellows Program fosters disruptive innovation in the next generation of fertilizer research and development through a research challenge, whereby emerging young researchers can enhance their efforts in fertilizer efficiency research and technology development. These research projects address the need for increasing plant uptake of essential macronutrients and limiting the loss of inputs – which contribute largely to water and marine ecosystem damage – while boosting productivity.

Ohio State University Study Examines Soil Organic Carbon-Enhancing Practices

Carbon farming optimizes carbon capture by implementing practices that are known to improve the rate at which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored in plant material or soil organic matter. To fill research gaps in soil sequestration practices, Ohio State University researchers are studying the potential of soil management practices to mitigate climate change.

Mapping Trees in Future Climates: Integrating Knowledge, Data and Tools to Enhance Agroforestry Adoption for Climate Resilience

The Savanna Institute is producing high-resolution future climate suitability maps across the Midwestern U.S. that can be incorporated into tools to inform climate-smart agroforestry adoption.

Kansas State University Provides Data on Nitrogen Management Practices in the Great Plains

Limited data is available that evaluates nitrogen losses and provides producers with the information needed to reduce nitrogen fertilizer application rates for water-limited crops by using climate-smart agriculture practices. Kansas State University researchers are examining the key components of the nitrogen cycle in water-limited grain sorghum production under various climate-smart agriculture practices.

Improving Soil Health on Vineyards