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AgMission Request for Applications: Regenerative Agriculture for Climate Resilient Farms and Value Chains

Open Opportunity

Contact

Allison Thomson

athomson@foundationfar.org

Grants Team

grants@foundationfar.org

This opportunity is now closed

About AgMission Request for Applications: Regenerative Agriculture for Climate Resilient Farms and Value Chains

The AgMission initiative is launching a funding opportunity for action research to accelerate the adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) and improve climate resiliency of farms and food value chains in North America, Europe, South Africa and Australia. FFAR invites applications to develop paired research and practice implementation projects that identify opportunities for increased adoption of climate resilient practices and document the impact on key physical and economic variables at the farm level. Specifically, this opportunity seeks to identify practices that promote climate resilience and align with regenerative agriculture goals, including building soil health and fertility, reducing greenhouse gas emissions or increasing soil organic carbon. Additional regenerative co-benefits of practice adoption may include reducing fertilizer loss to watersheds and increasing biodiversity on working lands.

AgMission seeks to award meritorious applications that include both increased implementation of CSA practices on working farms and contribute to scientific understanding of the impact of climate resilience in agricultural production for future food security.

Matching funds for this opportunity are provided by AgMission Founding Partner PepsiCo.

Informational Webinar Recording

The recorded webinar and slides below describe a Climate Impact Tool developed by CIAT with funding from FFAR and PepsiCo. This tool is intended to provide consistent, easy to access, scientific information on the climate risks to crop production and potential adaptation options. A full list of references is recorded at the end of the slides. The tool is not yet publicly available, but it will be made available to applicants who are invited to submit a full proposal.

Applicants to the AgMission RFA may indicate in their pre-proposals that they intend to use this tool in the development of their full proposals – appropriate uses would be to identify a) specific climate threats to the crop(s) and region(s) of interest and b) potential adaptation practices to focus on in response to those specific threats.

Applicants are not required to use this resource; alternative sources of information on regional and crop specific climate impacts and appropriate adaptation practices can be used. The tool is provided to allow proposals to focus on the implementation of adaptation practices on working farms in response to the current open opportunity. Proposals must include both implementation and research elements to be considered for funding.

Download the Webinar Slides

Application Guidelines

Am I eligible to apply?

AgMission welcomes applications from domestic and international project implementers, higher education institutions, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and U.S. government-affiliated research agencies. Collaborative multi-institution applications are encouraged.

Any individual(s) with the skills, knowledge and resources necessary to carry out the proposed research as Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) may apply to the program through their home institution or organization.

How do I apply?

Pre-applications and invited full proposals must be submitted by the deadline date through FFAR’s online application Grant Management System. Applications submitted outside of this System will not be considered.

To start a new application, please click here. If you are a new user, register for an account by clicking “Create Account” button located under the email address field on the left side of the home page. Once you log in, you may begin working on your application. Please be sure to save your work often by clicking on “Save and Finish Later.” To access a saved application, please do so through your Grant Management Account.
Only pre- applications and invited full proposals submitted by the deadline through FFAR’s Grant Management System will be accepted and considered eligible for evaluation. To be fair to all applicants, FFAR will not grant extensions to applicants who missed the deadlines posted in the Key Dates section.

What is the funding availability and award information?

At the discretion of the AgMission Executive Committee, we will award up to $6 million in grants through this program with individual projects not to exceed $1.5 million over three years. Successful projects will receive annual disbursements. This RFA seeks proposals that combine practice implementation with scientific research; up to 50% of the budget may be directed towards efforts to increase implementation of adaptation practices with agricultural producers.

Key budget considerations are noted below, and additional budgetary guidelines can be found on our website.

  • Matching Funds are not required for this program but forming collaborative partnerships that provide additional funding/match is encouraged. These partners may include but are not limited to the private sector, non-profits, commodity and trade groups, state governments and others that do not traditionally work in agriculture.
  • A maximum of 10% of the total award may be used for indirect costs. FFAR’s indirect cost allotment is not an indirect cost rate applied to the total modified direct costs; instead, it is an overall allotment from the Total Funds Request, also known as the Total Project Costs. This requirement means that 90% of the requested funds must go directly to the proposed research.
  • Reasonable budgets work in favor of the applicant. Budgets that are not commensurate with proposed work or poorly justified will likely negatively affect the application’s overall evaluation.
What is the evaluation criteria?

All proposals will be screened for relevance, accuracy, completeness, and compliance with FFAR policies. Pre-proposal applications must demonstrate the potential to meet the evaluation criteria. A central tenet of AgMission is that research involving agricultural practices should be co-created with producers. Projects must include a planning component that includes outreach and engagement with relevant farmers.

Full proposals then will be evaluated on the following criteria:

Novelty, Innovation and Effectiveness (20%)

  • Does the proposed project innovatively explore how to drive farmers’ or landowners’ adoption of regenerative practices by strategically integrating social and biophysical sciences?
  • Does the proposal clearly demonstrate that the research has not been done elsewhere?
  • Has the applicant demonstrated that the implementation approach is effective at achieving practice adoption by agricultural producers?

Technical Merit Feasibility (30%)

  • Does the proposal clearly outline the aims and objectives?
  • Does the proposal include appropriately thorough, tractable and feasible methods?
  • Has the principal investigator assembled a qualified research and implementor team with access to appropriate technical support?
  • Does the proposal present a tractable timeline and budget?
  • Does the proposal include adequate risk evaluation and a mitigation plan?
  • Does the proposal include an adequate data management plan with a commitment to FAIR data principles?
  • Does the proposal clearly demonstrate alignment between practice implementation and research design?
  • Does the proposal contain a sufficiently flexible design to be able to respond to changing realities on the ground?

Impacts and Outcomes (30%)

  • Is the project likely to increase agriculture resilience in the crop system of focus?
  • Does the applicant plan to advance opportunities for practice implementation developed in their research?
  • Does the proposal adequately describe the impact and applied relevance of the research?
  • Does the proposal emphasize scalability and present a plan for disseminating the project outcomes?
  • Does the project identify how they will monitor resulting GHG impacts in practice adoption?
  • Does the proposed project provide training for the next generation of scientists?
  • Does the proposal include an outreach plan to make results available to a broader community, including historically underserved communities and Minority Serving Institutions?

Investigator (20%)

  • Are the PI and their team well suited to perform the research?
  • Is the effort committed sufficient to perform the proposed research?
  • Will this research project serve as a platform for advancing implementation?
  • Do the PI and their team have institutional and outside organization support essential to the proposed project?
  • Does the project team have a track record of successfully engaging with farmers to accelerate adoption of regenerative agricultural practices?
  • Does the project team have local knowledge of the region of the proposed work? Do they have a sound understanding of the local context?
Who do I contact for assistance?

For questions related to the online submission system or this RFA, please contact FFAR’s Grant Management team at grants@foundationfar.org.

For programmatic questions, please contact Allison Thomson, Scientific Program Director at athomson@foundationfar.org or Olivia Shoemaker, Scientific Program Assistant for AgMission at oshoemaker@foundationfar.org.

We only accept scientific or programmatic and grant inquiries by email. We strive to respond to inquiries within two business days, but our response time depends on the volume of questions received and the complexity of the questions asked.

Please note that we do not monitor this mailbox on evenings, weekends or federal holidays.

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