NIFA Announces Sustainable Agricultural Systems Program Grant Recipients

The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced an investment of $70 million through the the Sustainable Agricultural Systems program area of NIFA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The funding will support seven coordinated agricultural projects, which are larger-scale and longer-term investments that integrate research, education and Extension efforts to transform the U.S. food and agricultural system and sustainably increase agricultural production in ways that also reduce its environmental footprint. The funded projects include a University of Wisconsin-Madison collaboration that aims to scale up traditional Indigenous food production practices with integrated crop-livestock systems, cover crops, and rotationally-grazed cattle and pastured chickens. Meanwhile, a project at Texas A&M AgriLife Research will improve the sustainability of cotton production through precision management, and a University of New Hampshire project will focus on agroforestry. An Iowa State University project will address the sustainability of dairy goat production.