Hello!
Looking back into my own history on here, I also posted on this topic back in 2021. Here goes again!
The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) is one of USDA’s flagship research funding programs. I know some people in academia who have been supported by these grants over the years; perhaps so do you. They can run up to three years and, with roughly $650k to $800k available per award, they are aimed at modest-sized efforts, rather than the big, multi-million-dollar initiatives like SCRI, OREI, et al.
Many of the deadlines have passed, but of the remaining open topics, I wanted to highlight a few to see if anyone might be interested in working up a response.
Due the first week of October: Economics, Markets, and Trade
And two that are due the first week of November: Data Science for Food and Agricultural Systems, and Social Implications of Food and Agricultural Technologies.
The other topics might also appeal to you, but you’ll have to wait until next year: https://www.nifa.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2024-07/FY24-AFRI-FAS-RFA-P-MOD3-P.pdf
For the Economics, Markets, and Trade topic:
- Reducing risks of farmer participation in ecosystem service markets
- Economic, social, and environmental returns to public crop breeding programs
For the Data Science topic:
- Developing a reusable framework for combining spatial and phenology models for integrated pest management
For the Social Implications topic: I didn’t have anything in mind; just wanted to put it out there in case anyone is working in that space.
For each of these concepts, I have done quite a bit of background work already, so none of these are starting at zero.
What next? Each of these has knowledge management and data sharing components, and will require software developers as a key part of the team. If that’s you, and any of these topics pique your interest, please feel free to get in touch anyway you know how!