USAID Announces More Than $57 Million to Drive Agricultural Innovation

The United States, through USAID, committed $57.4 million, working with Congress, to accelerate food security initiatives and advance novel climate-smart agricultural solutions to reduce global hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Announced at the 2024 World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue in Iowa, more than $38 million will support Feed the Future - the U.S. government's global hunger initiative - Innovation Labs.

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab network, including two newly funded labs, will advance technology development and draw on the expertise of top U.S. universities and host country research institutions to tackle some of the world's greatest challenges in agriculture and food security. The Climate Resilient Sustainable Intensification lab, led by Kansas State University, will conduct research to develop and adapt technologies that increase agricultural productivity on less land with fewer environmental tradeoffs. At Washington State University, the Veterinary Vaccine Delivery lab will accelerate the development and deployment of cold-chain-independent vaccines for livestock.

New investments in existing labs include World Coffee Research joining Cornell University to develop improved coffee varieties and the University of Florida partnering with the University of California, Davis to address poultry disease through advances in chicken breeding. Cornell, Purdue, and Michigan State Universities have been awarded extensions to continue work on climate resilient crops, food safety policies and regulations, and local food security policy, respectively.

The remainder of the funding includes an award to accelerate the development and deployment of disease-resistant wheat varieties through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and CIMMYT; a contribution to the Global Crop Diversity Trust to increase the availability of adapted crops and seeds to meet the challenges of new pests and diseases, higher temperatures, less water, and soil degradation; and funding to non-profit Akademiya2063 to support African leadership on agriculture policy reform.

Feed the Future has continued to deliver strong results, as demonstrated in this year's newly launched Feed the Future Interagency Report. In the initiative's first decade both hunger and poverty fell by 20 to 25 percent in areas of focus. In 2023 alone, Feed the Future worked with 6.2 million producers to apply improved agricultural practices on 4.5 million hectares of cropland and cultivated pasture. In addition, small and medium businesses and farmers accessed $1.4 billion in agriculture-related financing and leveraged $677 million in private-sector investment - double the level in fiscal year 2020 - resulting in record sales of more than $4.6 billion.

Building on this success, Feed the Future will continue to work with partner countries, donors, and both the public and private sector in the United States and abroad to accelerate transformational change.