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FFAR Grant Improves Chickpeas’ Protein Content & Quality 

Fast Tracking Climate Solutions from Global Germplasm Banks 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $5,000,000

Total award amount   $11,500,000

Location   Texcoco, Mexico

Matching Funders   Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Grantee Institution   CGIAR

The most dangerous impact of climate change is the disruption of global agriculture and food systems through disasters such as drought, heat and flooding. These disruptions, including decreased agricultural production and reduced harvests, are hardest on the approximately half a billion smallholder farmers living on less than two dollars a day. This initiative, led by CGIAR, advances transformative approaches to expand the use of genetic diversity from germplasm banks. The research ultimately aims to develop new climate-smart crop varieties for millions of smallholder farmers worldwide.

Major enhancement of U.S. swine industry preparedness and responses to large-scale infectious foreign animal diseases through harmonizing biosecurity plans and advancing interpretable machine learning 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $449,988

Total award amount   $479,988

Location   Raleigh, NC

Matching Funders   NC State University

Grantee Institution   NC State University

In the U.S., swine producers protect their herds from infectious diseases using biosecurity practices; however, the effectiveness of these practices varies greatly because there is insufficient information about which practices work best for different types of diseases and farms. There is also no central database of farms and their biosecurity plans. This research is partnering with commercial pig producing companies, swine producers and local veterinary health officials to create a secure database of all swine farms in the country, their biosecurity plans and other potential risk factors for disease outbreaks. Using this information, the team can run computer simulations of outbreaks to test which biosecurity practices are most effective at containing infections and protecting farms. The team will combine secure databases and computer simulations into a user-friendly app to enhance biosecurity for farms and prepare for future outbreaks.

Award Winner

FFAR Vet Fellows Third Cohort 

Year Awarded  2021

Total award amount   $10,000 per student

Location   Washington, D.C.

Matching Funders   American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC)

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) announced the 14 recipients of the 2021 Veterinary Student Research Fellowships (Vet Fellows) in partnership with the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC). This fellowship creates opportunities for veterinary students to pursue research on global food security and sustainable animal production.

Rapid Response to Coffee Leaf Rust 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $150,000

Total award amount   $431,103

Location   Hilo, HI

Program   Rapid Outcomes from Agricultural Research

Matching Funders   The Hawaii Coffee Association, Hawaii Coffee Growers Association, The Maui Coffee Association, Purdue University, United Ka'u Farmers Cooperative , The Synergistic Hawaii Agriculture Council and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture

Grantee Institution   Synergistic Hawaii Agriculture Council

Coffee leaf rust disease is threatening the Hawaii coffee industry, the state’s second top commodity. Caused by the emerging Hemileia vastatrix fungus, coffee leaf rust attacks the leaves of coffee trees, ultimately reducing coffee trees’ yields. To address this threat, Synergistic Hawaii Agriculture Council researchers are investigating the fungus and developing tactics to mitigate its spread.

FFAR Accelerates Breeding Technology to Develop New Crops 

Breeding drought & heat tolerant wheat 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $999,736

Total award amount   $2,141,527

Location   Pullman, WA

Program   Seeding Solutions

Matching Funders   Flinders University, LongReach Plant Breeders, O.A. Vogel Wheat Research Fund, Washington Grain Commission, Washington State University

Grantee Institution   Washington State University

Wheat and other plants avoid overheating by evaporating water from leaf surfaces. However, this mechanism is inefficient if the soil moisture is scarce. As climate change disrupts precipitation patterns, causing drought conditions to become more prevalent, wheat breeders must pursue every genetic advantage possible to increase the crop’s climate resiliency. Washington State University researchers are using a new technique developed in their lab to identify genes promoting heat and drought resiliency in wheat.

FFAR Grant Builds Supply Chains for Environmentally Beneficial Crops 

Unravelling the genetics of cowpea adaptation to high temperatures for legume improvement 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $490,617

Total award amount   $981,233

Location   Fort Collins, CO

Program   Increasing Climate Resilience in Crops

Matching Funders   Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Grantee Institution   Colorado State University

Cowpea is an important crop nutritionally and economically for smallholder farmers in Africa and other regions. It is also one of the legumes most tolerant to high temperatures, making it key to understanding the genetics of adaptation to heat stress. Still, relatively high night temperatures significantly reduce grain yields. This research is examining bioclimatic data—the relationship between climate and biological matter—and genetic information from cowpea varieties to search for gene variants associated with increased temperature tolerance.

Leveraging landrace genomics to rapidly engineer thermotolerant cassava 

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $499,999

Total award amount   $999,999

Location   Davis, CA

Program   Increasing Climate Resilience in Crops

Matching Funders   Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Grantee Institution   University of California Davis

While scientists now wield breakthrough technologies to edit crop genomes to enable climate resiliency, there is still a gap in knowledge of which genes must be edited. This research is leveraging the valuable but largely untapped reservoir of information stored in the genomes of crop landraces—traditional varieties adapted to diverse environments. Combining newly developed genomic analysis and climate modelling approaches, researchers are identifying gene variants predicted to be adaptive to future climates, with an emphasis on temperature extremes, and using genetic engineering techniques to generate cassava varieties to accelerate breeding.