Cooperative Agreement AIDOAAA1600058

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (CFDA 10.212) provides $645,887 to Irrigation For The Future Inc. to develop and demonstrate an advanced irrigation decision support system (DSS). The key products and services to be delivered include: An auto-calibration system that uses adaptive feedback and remote sensing data to optimize the modeling algorithms in the...

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy awarded a $2.5 million cooperative agreement to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from August 2022 to August 2025. The award will support research to develop new strategies for low-energy, low-emission production and use of nitrogen fertilizer. MIT will create a technological and economic model to optimize nitrogen use in agriculture. Iowa State University will receive a sub-award to further develop the process and...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) provides $274,525 to Leaficient Inc., a for-profit organization, to develop and evaluate a novel light production system for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) that dynamically shapes light to optimize power efficiency and biomass growth. The project aims to improve the energy efficiency of indoor agriculture by using advanced optics, machine...

This $1.5 million Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering (NSF OISE) will fund the development of a climate-resilient and sustainable food production system utilizing controlled environment hydroponic agriculture with novel wastewater treatment and reuse technologies. Led by Clemson University in collaboration with universities in South Korea, the award will support five key activities over a two-year period from January 2023 to...

This $649,882 federal Project Grant awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program supports research to quantify the reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the use of efficient irrigation techniques in corn and cotton production systems. The overarching goal is to provide more informed climate-smart irrigation solutions and encourage their adoption by demonstrating the potential for emissions...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $650,000 Project Grant under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA #47.084) program to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Office of Research Administration. The grant supports the development of a user-tailored irrigation water management decision-support hub focused on California's Central Valley. The project aims to provide individual growers with high-resolution, daily irrigation advice by integrating...

This $500,000 Project Grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), under CFDA Program 81.135, will support the University of California, Santa Barbara's research and development of a highly energy-efficient solar thermal membrane desalination system. The key innovation involves using a phase change process at the liquid-solid-vapor interface to efficiently transport and utilize thermal energy, which can significantly reduce energy consumption compared to conventional...

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation awarded a 5-year, $15,000,000 Cooperative Agreement under the SECURE Water Act - Research Agreements program (CFDA 15.560) to the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority. The primary purpose of this pilot project is to identify viable solutions to enable federal, state, and irrigation water districts to perform the dual purpose of traditional water conveyance and renewable energy generation, thereby building resiliency to...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded a $875,000 Project Grant under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) to the Georgia Tech Research Corporation to develop a new decentralized system that integrates wastewater treatment with hydroponic farming. The project aims to produce vegetables efficiently using minimal resources and energy by implementing advanced methods for real-time data collection and system control. The...

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was awarded a $950,000 cooperative agreement from the Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation under the Water Desalination Research and Development program (CFDA 15.506) to conduct last-mile pilots and translate low-cost, time-variant electrodialysis reversal brackish water desalination with optimized brine management from an academic prototype to a commercial product for rural and tribal communities. Leveraging prior innovations funded...