The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently awarded five new grants through the Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development (BREAD) program that will enable several CGIAR Consortium Research Centers to work collaboratively with U.S. research institutions.
“The BREAD partnership is supporting research projects with real promise to help small farming families in developing countries boost their sustainable agricultural productivity,” said Rob Horsch, deputy director of Global Development, Science and Technology at the Gates Foundation.
All five grants will fund projects that use innovative approaches to advance basic research on key problems involving the farmers. According to a NSF news release, these grants attracted proposals from more than 160 U.S. institutions in 45 states, partnering with more than 260 institutions in 76 countries, in fields as diverse as the genetic improvement of crops and animals, control of diseases and pests, the chemistry and biology of soils and water, and engineering.
For example, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and the National Institute for Agronomical Research (INRA) will unite to develop vaccines against contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, a livestock disease that is common in Africa.
Elsewhere, the University of California, Davis, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) are collaborating to improve the production of banana and cassava crops grown by the poor. While Boyce Thompson and the International Potato Center (CIP) will document the emerging and reemerging pathogens that continue to cause devastating food production losses in Africa. At the same time, Cornell, USDA-ARS, IITA will battle plant and animal viruses affecting staple food crops in sub-Saharan Africa.
Find out more in the NSF news release: NSF provides additional $5.9 million to support five new BREAD Program Projects.
Photo credit: Sanjay Vashee, J. Craig Venter Institute
[...] Gates at the IFAD Governing Council will probably say the same thing today. And put his money where his mouth [...]
[...] Gates at the IFAD Governing Council will probably say the same thing today. And put his money where his mouth [...]