By Grow Further
Grow Further founder and CEO Peter Kelly, center, surrounded by researchers at the CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research in Ghana. Photo: Kwekwe Photography
At Grow Further, we “connect people and ideas for a food-secure future.” But what does this motto mean?
For an individual or company, the answer is simple. When they ask us, “I want to support the future of food security; how do I get involved?” we have a very clear answer for them. You can not only support agricultural research and development projects with potential for outsized long-term impact, but also engage, learn, and participate in our work if you so choose.
For a scientist or farmer, the answer isn’t much more complicated. If you have a great R&D project in mind to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change, or improve income and nutrition, check out our grant announcements. We want to hear your best ideas, and we’re looking to fill in gaps that other funders might be overlooking rather than pushing a specific technical agenda.
Like other non-profits involved in agricultural research, Grow Further welcomes and enjoys support from institutional sources, including foundations and corporate partners. What makes us stand apart is that Grow Further is harnessing the power of individual donors and the energy of donor members and volunteers to not only fund worthy agricultural research efforts, but also to scrutinize grant applications, select candidate projects, and then monitor those projects that receive grants from us. The model we are pursuing has been somewhat described as a “March of Dimes for Food” except participation in our work doesn’t begin and end with donations. Should they choose, our donor members are invited to become active participants in our work, from reviewing applications to meeting scientists.
As our membership base grows, we recently put out our first call for proposals to serve smallholder farmers through R&D. Our open-ended request sought the best ideas from around the world to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change and improve income and nutrition. The response was overwhelming–we received more than 700 applications. Hundreds met all of our qualitative criteria, leaving our screeners to prioritize the top 5 or 10% according to the number of farmers who might be reached, typically through strategic partnerships and farmer engagement.
Top proposals went out for peer review, and then our members, who come from a variety of professions and parts of the world, applied their perspectives to the peer reviews to determine which proposals should go into due diligence. The most interesting, and probably most important, part of that due diligence was talking to farmers about whether and how they might benefit from a project and how it might be improved. In the photo below, our CEO Peter Kelly participates in a roundtable discussion with farmers in Tanzania.
Kelly leading a roundtable discussion with farmers outside Arusha, Tanzania regarding a proposal from Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology. Photo: True Vision Productions
Thanks to our generous supporters, not only in money but also in time, on October 17 we announced the very first recipients of Grow Further research grants.
- The CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute in Tamale, Ghana is awarded a grant to fund its breeding, agronomic, and socioeconomic research into developing the world’s first commercial variety of Bambara groundnut. Bambara groundnut is a high-value and climate-resilient species of legume that holds enormous potential but has received limited research attention.
- The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania is awarded a grant for its R&D into a machine learning-driven smartphone application to help smallholder farmers detect the very earliest signs of diseases of staple crops. It aims to give farmers time to head off threats and save their crops before it becomes too late, and even to reach those without smartphones.
Bridging the gap between individuals passionate about food security and unique but overlooked R&D concepts into improving small-scale farming—this is what we mean by “connecting people and ideas for a food-secure future.” We have a long journey ahead of us, but we are off to a very strong start.
For more information, please see:
Our October 17 press release with details on our first grants at https://www.prweb.com/releases/groundbreaking-food-security-non-profit-announces-nearly-200-000-in-grants-to-reach-480-000-smallholder-farmers-301962652.html .
A multi-stakeholder panel discussion of our model on the sidelines of the Borlaug Dialogue (World Food Prize) conference on October 25 at 6:45-8:45 am at Iowa Events Center 306 or streaming via Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/company/growfurther .
Learn more about Grow Further at https://growfurther.org .