Additional Funding Opportunities

Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), Seeding Solutions, Health Agriculture Nexus

https://foundationfar.org/what-we-do/challenge-areas/health-agriculture-nexus/ 

The Health-Agriculture Nexus Challenge Area supports pioneering research to reduce food and nutrition insecurity, decrease food waste and loss and improve human health. 

Research focuses on: 

• Increasing access to healthy food 

• Reducing and redirecting food loss and waste 

• Advancing plant and animal production systems 

• Breeding better nutrition 

• Improving processing and packaging technologies 

• Predicting supply and demand for crops and food animals 

Lots of open opportunities: https://foundationfar.org/grants-funding/open-opportunities/ 

Due Date: Dependent on Opportunity

​

New Innovator in Food and Agriculture Research Award

The New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award provides early-career scientists the investment needed to propel them into successful research careers. Young faculty in the sciences often struggle to secure grant funding. We established the New Innovator Awards to launch the careers of promising scientists whose research addresses significant food and agriculture challenges. These awards allow the grantees to focus exclusively on research without the pressure of securing additional funding. 

https://foundationfar.org/grants-funding/opportunities/new-innovators-request-for-applications/ 

Due Date: May 3, 2023

​

Scientific Cooperation Research Program (SCRP)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Fellowship Programs, announces this funding opportunity to support the Scientific Cooperation and Research Program (SCRP) by issuing new awards. This opportunity is available to State cooperative institutions or other colleges and universities in the United States, as defined at 7 USC 3103. In addition, applicants must be former Mentors and Fellows from USDA/FAS’s Borlaug International Agricultural Technology Fellowship Program with an ongoing collaboration. This program is intended to support applied research, extension, and education collaborations between U.S. researchers and their foreign counterparts from selected emerging market economies. 
 
The SCRP supports FAS’s Borlaug Fellowship Program and other USDA strategic goals by mobilizing the scientific communities’ accumulated knowledge and technologies through the funding of joint research, extension, and education projects. These projects are between U.S. researchers and researchers from selected emerging market economies, last up to two years, and address issues including but not limited to agricultural trade and market access, animal and plant health, biotechnology, food safety and security, climate smart agriculture, and sustainable natural resource management. Since 1980, the program has supported hundreds of projects, enhancing the technical skills of agricultural professionals, and helping beneficiary countries further develop their relationships with the U.S. agriculture sector. 
 
In the 2023 program cycle, the SCRP will support applied research, extension, and education projects between U.S. researchers and their foreign counterparts from selected emerging market economies (as defined at 7 USC § 5623(d)(1), generally including countries listed in the lowand middle-income groups by the World Bank) who seek to create practical solutions to challenges faced by farmers and build regional or global trade capacities in target countries. Both collaborators must be a previous Mentor/Fellow pair from USDA/FAS’s Borlaug International Agricultural Technology Fellowship Program (Borlaug Fellowship Program). 

https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=346675 

Due Date: May 10, 2023

​

Western SARE: Research & Education 2024 Call for Pre-proposals

This program involves scientists, agricultural producers, and others using interdisciplinary approaches to advance sustainable agriculture at local and regional levels. With the collaboration of producers, projects must integrate rigorous research and education aiming to advance the three components of sustainable agriculture- environmental, economic, and social- and use innovative educational outreach to disseminate new knowledge to students, producers, and stakeholders. It is expected that outcomes of funded projects will result in quantifiable benefits for producers, increase the preservation of the natural resources upon which agriculture depends, and be documented in scholarly journals and disseminated through teaching and educational activities with students, producers, and other agricultural stakeholders. 

https://www.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/RE_Pre-proposals-2024.pdf 

Due Date: May 23, 2023, 12:00pm MST

​

Seeding Solutions Grants

Seeding Solutions encourages the development of unique partnerships that support innovative and transformative research focused on one of our Challenge Areas or AgMission. 
To be considered, applications must address and provide solutions to an intractable problem and/or accelerate innovation within FFAR’s Challenge Areas or AgMission. 

• Soil Health: Advanced understanding of what soil health is, how it is measured and how to manage and optimize the sustainable delivery of the ecosystem services which soils provide. 

• Sustainable Water Management: Interdisciplinary, model–based research to enhance terrestrial water quality and supplies and minimize linked environmental impacts while maximizing crop production through increased adoption of strategically placed and designed agricultural water management practices. 

• Next Generation Crops: Advanced breeding methods and development of biotic and abiotic stress tolerance for crops grown in organic and conventional cropping systems to increase farmer profitability and environmental resilience. 

• Advanced Animal Systems: Improved animal health, welfare and productivity, antibiotic stewardship, and environmental sustainability. We particularly encourage research with outcomes relevant to multiple species and/or One Health approaches that incorporate transdisciplinary research relevant to animals, humans and the environment. 

• Urban Food Systems: Elucidation of connections between urban food systems and the urban environment, in addition to the connections between rural and urban communities to improve food and nutritional security, human health outcomes, economic opportunities, and food system resiliency through transdisciplinary partnerships. 

• Health-Agriculture Nexus: Systems–level approaches (both technological and non– technological) aimed at reducing food and nutritional insecurity and improving human health in the United States and worldwide. 

• AgMission: Innovative research and integrated data systems to advance knowledge and adoption of Climate–Smart Agriculture practices, focusing on co–design with agricultural stakeholders and understanding enabling conditions for systems–level change. 

https://foundationfar.org/seeding-solutions/ 

Due Date: June 28, 2023

​

Sustainable agricultural and food systems research fellowships

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, within the framework of its cooperative research programme, invites applications for its sustainable agricultural and food systems research fellowships. These enable scientists working in agriculture, forestry or fisheries to conduct research projects abroad. The main aim of the programme is to strengthen scientific knowledge and provide relevant scientific information and advice that will inform future policy decisions related to the sustainable use of natural resources in food, agriculture, forests and fisheries. Applications that fall under the following areas are particularly welcome: 
•sustainable productivity growth and food security and nutrition; 
•new technologies and practices for food production; Food loss and waste; 
•antimicrobial resistance - one health approach to agriculture and food systems; 
•innovations in the transfer and development of agricultural knowledge, including Indigenous and traditional knowledge; 
•digital technologies and digitalisation; 
•climate change, including pathways to net zero, carbon sequestration in agriculture, forestry and land use, water use; 
•plant and animal breeding to enhance sustainable productivity growth and resilience to climatic events - diversity of crop production; 
•fisheries and aquaculture productivity, sustainability and resilience. 

http://www.oecd.org/agriculture/crp/applications/ 

Due Date: September 10, 2023

​

NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences

The NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences recognizes research by a mid-career scientist who has made an extraordinary contribution to agriculture or to the understanding of the biology of a species fundamentally important to agriculture or food production. For the purpose of the prize, areas of science with applications to agriculture include plant and animal sciences, microbiology, nutrition and food science, soil science, entomology, veterinary medicine, and agricultural economics. 

http://www.nasonline.org/programs/awards/food-and-agriculture.html 

Due Date: October 3, 2023

​

Postdoctoral Research Program

The Earth Institute Postdoctoral Research program is the premier program in the world for those dedicated to a better understanding of critical scientific and social issues in global sustainable development. Earth Institute Postdoctoral Researchers will join multidisciplinary teams of outstanding, committed scientists from across the Earth Institute and Columbia University. 
 
The program provides innovative postdoctoral scholars with the opportunity to build a foundation in one of the core disciplines represented within the Earth Institute (i.e. social, earth, biological, engineering, and health sciences), while at the same time acquiring the breadth of cross-disciplinary expertise needed to address critical issues related to sustainable development. Specific areas of research include food security, energy systems, climate change impacts, poverty reduction, disease, and environmental degradation. The program offers a unique intellectual surrounding that fosters cross-disciplinary interaction, research and education. 

https://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/55 

Due Date: October 31, 2023

​

Agriculture and Food Research Initiative- Foundational and Applied Science Program

The AFRI Foundational and Applied Science Program supports grants in six AFRI priority areas to advance knowledge in both fundamental and applied sciences important to agriculture. The six priority areas are: Plant Health and Production and Plant Products; Animal Health and Production and Animal Products; Food Safety, Nutrition, and Health; Bioenergy, Natural Resources, and Environment; Agriculture Systems and Technology; and Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities. Research-only, extension-only, and integrated research, education and/or extension projects are solicited in this Request for Applications (RFA). See Foundational and Applied Science RFA for specific detail. 

https://www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/funding-opportunities/agriculture-food-research-initiative-foundational-applied-science 

Due Date: December 29, 2023

​

Building Synthetic Microbial Communities for Biology, Mitigating Climate Change, Sustainability, and Biotechnology (Synthetic Communities)

Microbes and communities of microbes have remarkable genetic, physiological and biochemical diversity, allowing them to flourish in environments all over the planet and in a variety of substrates and hosts. Given their relative importance to ecosystems around the world, to the economy and to health, researchers have studied microbial systems extensively and have a better understanding of their capabilities and impacts on hosts and the environment. In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned to microbes and their diverse capabilities for bio-remediation and applications in biotechnology, agriculture, and medicine. Because of advances in molecular biology, synthetic biology and bioengineering, researchers now have the ability to assemble synthetic microbial communities that have novel compositions, genetics and phenotypes and to use these communities to address both fundamental biological questions and a range of societal problems. The goal of this solicitation is to support research that addresses one or more of the three themes: 1) define the underlying mechanisms or rules that drive the formation, maintenance or evolution of synthetic microbial communities, 2) use synthetic microbial communities to address fundamental biological questions, including questions in molecular biology, cellular/organismal biology, ecology and evolution and/or 3) build synthetic communities with biotechnology, bio-economy or environmental engineering applications, including but not limited to the production of novel bio-renewable chemicals, bio-degradation of recalcitrant or "forever chemicals," enabling a circular bio-economy, fostering sustainable agriculture and mitigating the impacts of climate change. For theme 3, the emphasis should be on designing communities with novel capabilities and understanding the underlying mechanisms that lead to these novel capabilities. 

https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf22607

Due Date: August 1, 2024