This is the second year the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has asked for research topics from agricultural commodity boards, said Mark Mirando, the national program leader, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), a division of the USDA.
The process is open to any US commodity board that addresses an agricultural commodity and that works with promotion, research and information - boards that work with feed crops like corn, wheat and soybeans, for example.
“The 2014 farm bill requires NIFA to solicit topics from commodity boards for inclusion in our request for applications for the AFRI competitive grants program,” Mirando said.
In addition to highlighting research needs, commodity boards are responsible for half of the funding for the projects, said Mirando. “The farm bill specifies that grants funded under that program have to be a 50/50 match of commodity board and Congressional appropriation,” he told us.
Deadline looming
Topic proposals for the upcoming 2018 grant cycle are being collected through to July 25.
“Along with the topic, they’ll propose a certain dollar amount that they’ll put forward,” he added.
The proposals need to align with the six priority areas set by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive grant program, which cover plant health, production and plant products; animal health, production and animal products; food safety, nutrition and health; bioenergy, natural resources and environment; agriculture systems and technology; and agriculture economics and rural communities.
Researchers can apply for grants related to the topics suggested by the commodity boards, said Mirando. When researchers apply for funding to pursue a topic from a commodity board, they also have to contact the board to as part of the application process.
"[The application] still has to be peer reviewed and evaluated as highly meritorious to meet our funding line,” said Mirando. “We might have a program on plant breeding, with general topics and a specific topic for a commodity board and that topic might be breeding for drought for resistance.”
Working directly with the commodity boards addresses several goals, he said. The project helps build public-private relationships and ensures stakeholder input in establishing research topics.
“All the commodity boards are eligible to submit topics, and that gives us additional stakeholder input on what’s important to those different commodities,” he said. “Those commodity boards represent all the producers within [that crop] – presumably those are their topics or priorities of greatest interest.”
The project already has increased communications between NIFA and various commodity boards, he said.
The next call for grant proposal submissions is set for March 2018: “We’re hopeful that the program will grow and garner more interest among the commodity boards,” he said.