You don't normally think of the National Science Foundation as a major funder of agricultural research in the United States, or at least I don't.1 Well, NSF announced a major change yesterday.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced a nearly $50 million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support innovative, solutions to critical agricultural challenges in developing countries. Each organization will provide $24 million over five years to support a competitive awards program for science research projects that address drought, pests, disease and other serious problems facing small farmers and their families who rely on their crops for their food and income.The new program is called BREAD -- Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development.
1That's at least partly out of my ignorance and narrow-mindedness. NSF does have the Plant Genome Research Program, after all, and
The overall goals of this program are to support basic research in plant genomics and to accelerate the acquisition and utilization of new knowledge and innovative approaches to elucidating fundamental biological processes in plants. The focus is on plants of economic importance and plant processes of potential economic value. (emphasis mine)
Leave a comment