Project Grant 20223941138250

This $175,000 Project Grant award to Nutramaize LLC from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program seeks to develop commercial orange sweet corn hybrids with high levels of health-benefitting antioxidant carotenoids. The project aims to address USDA Strategic Goal 7 by leveraging sweet corn as an accessible and affordable food format to deliver more carotenoids to Americans, helping to protect...

Nutramaize LLC, an Indiana-based AgBioScience company, received a $460,455 federal Project Grant from the Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Laying Hen and Turkey Research Program (CFDA 10.245). The grant will support Nutramaize's research to investigate the role of xanthophyll carotenoids in mitigating the negative health and production effects of heat stress on laying hens. The project aims to determine if increasing carotenoid intake through the...

This $788,000 project grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310) supports the development and evaluation of conventionally bred biofortified orange corn with high provitamin A carotenoids and zinc to improve human nutrition. Key objectives include selecting and evaluating maize germplasm in Mexico and the U.S. for increased provitamin A and zinc, determining the...

This $650,000 federal Project Grant award from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (CFDA 10.310) supports research to enhance the provitamin A carotenoid content of bread wheat. The University of California, Davis will carry out biochemical, physiological, agronomic, postharvest stability, and consumer quality evaluations of a bread wheat breeding line engineered to produce increased levels of beta-carotene in the grain...

This $638,000 Project Grant from the US Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program will fund research to identify genetic factors controlling carotenoid synthesis, storage, and bioavailability in sorghum grain. Colorado State University will conduct the research over four years to determine how sorghum genes and the environment impact carotenoid content and accumulation. Researchers will also...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded a $175,000 Project Grant under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (CFDA 10.212) to Carolina Seed Systems Inc. to demonstrate the use of secondary plant metabolites from sorghum bicolor hybrids to improve the sustainability and profitability of antibiotic-free poultry production. The goal is to incorporate these plant-based compounds into poultry feed to promote gut health, increase feed...

North Carolina State University received a $637,000 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to improve anthocyanin yield, stability, and standardization from purple carrots. Funded through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program, this four-year project aims to leverage genotyping and phenotyping capabilities to select carrot cultivars optimized for anthocyanin content and profiles....

This three-year, $650,000 Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) will fund research at The Ohio State University to improve poultry production efficiency. The University will pursue two objectives to test the hypothesis that retinoic acid (RA) has dual functions in poultry fat accretion. First, researchers will define the contribution of the retinol binding...

The Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded Cornell University a $180,000 Project Grant under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) federal grant program. The three-year award will fund research to understand the interplay between provitamin A and starch metabolism in cassava plants. The goal is to provide breeding strategies to international cassava programs to develop varieties that are both nutritionally enriched with provitamin A and...

The University of Connecticut received a three-year, $650,000 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the effects of probiotic supplementation on broiler chicken embryonic development and production outcomes. The grant is funded through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program (AFRI CGPD), which supports research, education and extension activities in food and agricultural sciences....