Livestock and poultry producers face unprecedented pressure to increase productivity and profitability, while providing safe, affordable protein, adapting to consumer preferences and protecting animal health. They also confront complex, interconnected challenges such as antimicrobial resistance, manure management and disease threats like H5N1 and New World screwworm.
This article appeared in the November 2025, Issue 58, Feed and Additive magazine
Public-Private Partners Generate Actionable Solutions
Through research-based, cross-sector partnerships, the animal agriculture industry has the power to address major challenges with actionable solutions. Across the United States, public-private collaborations unite producers, researchers, funders and other stakeholders to ensure research is practical, timely and applicable in the real world. These partnerships also extend public investment, bringing additional resources to accelerate breakthroughs from lab to field, driving innovation, resilience and growth across food and agriculture.
Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research
Congress established the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) in 2014 to catalyze the creation of public-private partnerships to support bold science addressing big food and agriculture challenges. These collaborations bring together experts from academia, industry, government and nonprofits to increase public investment in agriculture research and deliver impactful, industry-aligned research solutions.
Consortia Accelerate Research by Pooling Resources
Consortia are one of FFAR’s signature models for collaboration. They bring together multiple public and private entities to co-design a mission, define research priorities and establish a governance framework that guides funding, fosters collaboration and produces actionable results. FFAR brings public funds provided by Congress to leverage additional investments from consortium members. Together, these pooled resources support research on challenges too large for any single organization to tackle alone.
International Consortium for Antimicrobial Stewardship
FFAR’s Production Systems Priority Area includes the International Consortium for Antimicrobial Stewardship (ICASA). Antibiotics are vital for animal health, but protecting their effectiveness is crucial for both humans and animals. FFAR partnered with industry leaders, researchers and producers to fund research through ICASA on diagnostics, health and management practices that reduce antibiotic reliance while keeping livestock healthy. Over five years, it has invested more than $15 million in 29 projects advancing animal health and stewardship. Building on this foundation, ICASA is exploring new collaborations to advance innovation and continue advancing responsible antimicrobial use in livestock production.
Greener Cattle Initiative
Another FFAR consortium, the Greener Cattle Initiative (GCI), is the first to share knowledge, leverage investments and accelerate research for scalable, commercially feasible solutions to reduce dairy and beef enteric methane emissions. GCI exceeded its initial $5 million funding goal by 45% thanks to increased stakeholder commitments, awarding $7.2 million across three projects through its first request for applications (RFA). Results from a second RFA will be announced soon.
SMART Broiler Program
FFAR sometimes partners with just one or two organizations to advance animal production research as well. For example, in collaboration with McDonald’s Corporation, FFAR launched the SMART Broiler program to develop automated tools that objectively assess broiler chicken welfare across the supply chain. The program offered $4 million in grants to successful developers, with Amazon Web Services, Accenture and USPOULTRY providing management, technical support and sponsorship, demonstrating strong support from the U.S. broiler industry for this initiative.
Commodity Groups & Check-Off Programs
FFAR frequently partners with farmer and commodity groups and check-off programs, also. FFAR collaborated with the Swine Health Information Center, for example, to develop and fund three research programs, two of which were additionally funded by the Pork Checkoff program. These programs address H5N1 risk to swine, Japanese encephalitis virus and wean-to-harvest biosecurity. The United Soybean Board has also partnered with FFAR on several research initiatives, including FFAR’s new Crop-Animal Systems Research Program.
Beef Research Roadmap
Successful public-private partnerships can take other forms, too. FFAR collaborates with organizations through industry working groups that identify research gaps, align stakeholders around shared goals and chart paths for continuous improvement. One result of these groups is the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef’s (USRSB) new publication, Innovation in the U.S. Beef Value Chain: A Sustainable Beef Research Roadmap. With FFAR’s support, USRSB conducted industry focus groups and convened experts from across the beef value chain to shape the roadmap, ensuring a unified strategy for advancing U.S. beef sustainability.
Manure Management
Manure management is another challenge requiring collective action. Leveraging its strength in catalyzing research partnerships, FFAR convened a stakeholder working group, guided by an advisory council with representatives from Colorado State University Ag Innovation Center, Dairy Management Inc., the University of Vermont, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service and a major food and beverage company. This year, the group commissioned a literature review and hosted the Advancing Innovation in Dairy Manure Management Workshop, focusing on innovations for medium-sized farms, adoption barriers and opportunities to create manure products that increase producer profitability and environmental sustainability.
Emerging Pests & Pathogens — ROAR Program
While consortia, working groups and smaller partnerships are effective for developing long-term programs to tackle persistent challenges, animal agriculture also faces urgent, immediate threats, such as H5N1, New World screwworm and Asian longhorned tick. FFAR’s Rapid Outcomes from Agricultural Research (ROAR) program deploys funding to support research and outreach in response to these emerging or unanticipated threats to the nation’s agricultural systems. For example, FFAR and the National Pork Board awarded a $1 million ROAR grant that enabled USDA researchers to rapidly respond to African Swine Fever, a deadly virus that threatens the U.S. pork industry. The researchers identified immunity-providing proteins in swine and developed a vaccine, now in field trials. Once commercialized, the vaccine has the potential to save the U.S. pork industry $2.5 billion annually if the virus enters the U.S.
Join Us to Help Producers Overcome Today’s Challenges
This spirit of collaboration fuels our funding partnerships and the transformative impact they are having on U.S. agriculture. If you share FFAR’s vision of a world in which pioneering, collaborative science provides everyone access to affordable, nutritious food produced on thriving farms, we want to hear from you. Contact us to explore partnership opportunities that drive innovation, resilience and growth across the food system. Innovation occurs faster when we work together.
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