Building Resilience in Agriculture RFP Grant

The Building Resilience in Agriculture RFP seeks innovative projects that enhance the resilience of farming communities and ecosystems in the face of climate change. With a budget cap of $150,000, eligible projects must focus on terrestrial food crops and demonstrate measurable outcomes in areas such as soil health, climate adaptation, and improved livelihoods. This initiative, funded by the National Geographic Society and Pepsico, emphasizes the importance of local expertise and co-creation with farming communities.

Today, about half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, and about a third of the population’s livelihoods rely directly on agriculture. Yet, agricultural systems around the world are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and unless farming communities have the tools to be resilient and adapt, these impacts can lead to global and local disruptions in livelihoods, ecosystem health, culture, and the supply of food.
Based on climate models, agricultural systems will face increasing challenges related to weather, climate, pests and diseases, deteriorating soil quality, and other changing conditions. These agricultural systems rely on the stewardship and innovation of farming communities worldwide. Farming is an occupation and livelihood where people have been innovating to adapt and thrive ensuring food security and supply since time immemorial. While the toolbox of solutions to address risks and build resilience is vast, approaches might be in the earlier stages of piloting, or are applied on local scales because the expertise is maintained by traditional and Indigenous knowledge systems.
Opportunity Overview
This funding opportunity is made possible through an impact-driven collaboration between the National Geographic Society and Pepsico.
This funding opportunity will support innovative projects that apply science and innovation in a real-world context, focused on feasible, nature-positive solutions. The projects should have measurable outcomes on the resilience of farms, farming communities, and natural ecosystems in the farming landscapes to the realities of changing climates and extreme weather events. The projects will demonstrate, measure, and support practices and approaches that are regenerative. The project’s main goals must aim to make farms, farming communities, and natural ecosystems more resilient and demonstrate two or more of the following outcomes:

• Soil Health: Build the health and fertility of the soil to support a healthy and productive ecosystem above and below ground.
• Climate Mitigation and Adaptation: Increase resilience to climate change impacts, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Watershed Health: Improve watershed health through reducing nutrient runoff and the quantity of water needed for farms and communities to thrive.

Biodiversity: Protect and improve biodiversity across agricultural landscapes – examples include forest conservation and restoration, bees and other pollinators for crops as well as improving the soil microbiome.
Improved Livelihoods: Improve livelihoods in locally contextualized ways, ensuring farmers’ access to training, decision making and resources to implement sustainable agricultural practices and achieve improved farm performance.

Eligibility

Applicant must be over the age of 18
Project must be completed within 2 years of receipt of funding
Applications must be submitted in English, although English does not have to be the PI’s primary language
The project includes one or more of the following terrestrial food crops: corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, sugar beets, oilseeds (i.e. canola, sunflower, rice bran), rice, oats, cocoa, oil palm, raisins and soy.
The project has a predominant field or land component where solutions are applied and tested on a farm, in a farming community, or in a landscape adjacent to cultivated land.
The application includes project collaborator(s) who have appropriate farming or farming community expertise and local connections.

Ineligibility

We will not consider projects that:
are focused solely on crops used for non-food items like fiber production.are focused solely on livestock or other animal farming practices, including grazing, breeding, welfare, and feed production.are not co-created with farmers.are exclusively focused on the basic research of technological innovations.exceed the maximum budget of $150,000 without other sources of funding secured at the time the proposal is submittedrequire land conversion: the projects must take place on existing cultivated land. The beneficial outcomes (e.g. soil health; climate mitigation and adaptation; watershed health; biodiversity; and livelihoods) can extend to land or landscapes adjacent to cultivated land.Applicant must not be a current National Geographic Society staff member.