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

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384 Grants found

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A Deeper Dive: Linking Below-Ground Soil & Water Quality with Above-Ground Productivity in Organic Systems to Enhance Economic Viability & Ecosystem Resiliency

Year Awarded  2023

Total award amount   $195,124

Location   Ames, IA

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   Iowa State University

Dr. Kathleen Delate is quantifying the optimal combinations of soil, greenhouse gas emissions and economic modeling for ecosystem health. She is comparing agricultural system management, manure management and alternative cropping systems. Delate plans to share her results with the farming community to encourage farmer participation in data collection and practice adoption. She is also training multi-cultural farmers on the identified practices to spur adoption of her research recommendations.

Investigating the re-integration of organic food crops & animal production on above & belowground diversity, soil health, farm resilience & food safety.

Year Awarded  2023

Total award amount   $199,256

Location   West Lafayette, IN

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   Purdue University

Dr. Moriah Bilenky is investigating how integrated cropping systems on organic fields can reduce input costs and enhance biodiversity above and below ground. Specifically, Bilenky and her team are investigating the impacts of adding small ruminants to an integrated cropping system on soil health, microbiome health and presence of food pathogens on vegetable farms. The researchers aim to identify integrated cropping system best practices and plan to disseminate educational materials to increase adoption of these practices.

Rodale Institution

Year Awarded  2023

Total award amount   $96,694

Location   Kutztown, PA

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   Rodale Institution

This Prize allows the Rodale Institute to expand its online educational portal to further reach and train farmers and agricultural professionals across the U.S. Specifically, the Institute is creating greater access to its online course “Transition to Certified Organic Agriculture” by translating it into Spanish, creating a scholarship program to provide free access to their online courses and expanding the types of courses offered.

Oregon Tilth

Year Awarded  2023

Total award amount   $63,173

Location   Corvallis, OR

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   Oregon Tilth

This 2023 Prize allows Oregon Tilth to train additional farmers and agriculture professionals in organic certification, organic regulations, production practices and profitability tools. The Prize also funds convenings for organic certifiers that explore ways to streamline linkages between the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service support and the organic certification process. Lastly, the Prize supports the Know Your Cost to Grow program, an online curriculum and cost calculation app developed to help producers develop and utilize cost information.

Kalona Regenerative Network Producer Education Training Program

Year Awarded  2023

Total award amount   $77,777

Location   Kalona, IA

Matching Funders   The Organic Center

Grantee Institution   Kalona Regenerative Network

Kalona Regenerative Network is educating farmers to use regenerative and organic farming methods to restore ecosystem health, grow more nutrient dense food and create profitable farms. With this Prize, KRN is offering organic certification in-house and implementing a pay-what-you-can and scholarship model for their Producer Education Program. The Prize also supports accessible education and guidance to help producers and consumers drive change within the U.S. food system.

New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award

Year Awarded  2023

FFAR award amount   Applicants are eligible for grants up to $150,000 per year for a maximum of three years

Location   Washington, D.C.

The New Innovator Award supports early-career scientists pursuing research that sustainably enhances agricultural production or improves health through food. By investing in scientists and faculty members at the onset of their careers, this award allows them to pursue research without the pressures of securing additional funding.

A new methods of managing human waste for improved soil health, carbon sequestration, contaminant removal, and social acceptability

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   $330,256

Total award amount   $660,517

Location   Brattelboro, VT

Program   Seeding Solutions

Matching Funders   Cornell University, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, Rich Earth Institute, University of Michigan

Grantee Institution   Rich Earth Institute

Synthetic fertilizers accelerate crop growth and are commonly used in agriculture; however, these products contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, wastewater is also a source of pollution, and only a fraction of the vast quantity of nutrients flowing through modern wastewater treatment systems is captured for beneficial reuse. A significant portion of regional fertilizer needs could be met by reclaiming the nutrients present in wastewater. The Rich Earth Institute is producing biochar from wastewater material to potentially be used to develop safe, renewable fertilizers that enhance agricultural productivity, support soil health, reduce nutrient pollution and mitigate climate change through soil carbon sequestration.

Plant-XR: A New Generation of Breeding Tools for Extra-Resilient Crops

Year Awarded  2022

FFAR award amount   €5,000,000

Total award amount   €31,948,325

Location   Utrecht, the Netherlands

Matching Funders   CropXR, Dutch Research Council, National Growth Fund

Grantee Institution   CropXR

As the pace of climate change picks up, speeding the development of resilient crops is urgent. CropXR is building, supporting and facilitating a development pipeline for more resilient, sustainable and climate-adapted varieties of agricultural crops. The research combines plant biology, computational modelling and artificial intelligence to create computational, functional plant models to predict and guide rational, targeted breeding and cultivation strategies.

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

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.