The congressionally created Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) will put $10 million into a new global consortium with the goal of accelerating crop breeding to meet the rising world demand for food, the eight-member consortium said in a kick-off announcement. FFAR said its contribution “is expected to leverage significant investment from partners.”
Consortium members are Bayer, Biogemma, KWS, FAPESP, Precision PlantSciences, Rijk Zwaan, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and FFAR. Sally Rockey, executive director of FFAR, said the Crops for the Future Collaborative would pool financial resources, technology and proprietary knowledge with an initial focus on corn, leafy greens, and wheat and small grains.
The collaborative “will increase capacity to breed crops with specific traits, leading to plants that are adapted to different environments,” said FFAR. “Target crop characteristics might include enhanced nutritional qualities or ability to withstand environmental challenges such as drought, heat, or flooding. Ultimately, knowledge generated by the Collaborative will be publicly available through scientific publications and informational platforms, benefiting public and private crop breeding efforts.”