Grow Further is a non-profit organisation (based in Seattle, Washington, USA with a remote national/global team) that provides grants for agricultural innovations relevant to smallholder farmers and other populations at risk of food insecurity. It is a privately funded public charity, founded by an economist and funded by a diverse community of individual donors spread around the world.

Thematic focus

• Socio-economic objectives
  • They support subsidies relevant to small farmers and other populations at risk of food insecurity and improve one or more of the following aspects:
  • Nutrition: This includes both improving nutrient levels in crops (e.g. biofortification) and improving the breeding of species that are already nutritious (fruit and vegetables, fish, etc.).
  • Climate adaptation: This covers not only heat tolerance, but also almost all types of biotic (pests, diseases, weeds, etc.) and abiotic (heat, drought, salinity, submergence, cold, soil nutrients, etc.) stress tolerance, both in crops and livestock. Anything that reduces the risk of farming or helps farmers on marginal land is also susceptible to climate adaptation. They also count work on adapting to rising carbon dioxide levels as climate adaptation.
  • Agricultural yield: This mainly covers facilitating the production of high-value products or improving the quality of existing products, but can in some cases involve reducing the cost of production.

• Species
  • They fund research into domesticated species relevant to food security and nutrition, including cereals; pulses; edible roots and tubers; fruit and nuts; edible vegetables and mushrooms; forage crops; animals raised for meat, milk and/or eggs; and species that support food production (covering crops, bees, draught animals, etc.).
  • This does not include timber; biofuels; crops and livestock raised for fibre; crops grown for recreational substances; ornamental plants; herbs and flavourings, unless there is a clear link to food security; etc. Projects that seek to improve yields of the main staple cereals improve nutrition and farm income to some extent, but are not their main focus

• Discipline
  • They will consider proposals from a variety of disciplines, including information and communication technologies in agriculture, as well as more traditional disciplines such as agronomy, crop science, plant protection, animal science, veterinary medicine, soil science, and agricultural engineering.
  • They are quite discipline-agnostic, but as a practical matter they may prioritise some disciplines over others at the start of their organisational development for reasons of size, risk or timeframe. For example, they may need to show results relatively quickly, so in the short term they need to prioritise something like developing applications over something like creating fruit trees.

• Financing information
  • They generally make grants in the range of 10-100,000 dollars a year. Grants generally last from 1 to 5 years. Specific grant announcements may include more specific intervals. Their grants are considered repayable.

• Eligibility Criteria
  • All types of organisations, public, private and non-profit, are in principle eligible to apply, although they may apply additional due diligence to for-profit entities.
  • They envisage awarding most grants to institutions based in low-, lower-middle- or upper-middle-income countries, although this is not a requirement, as long as the grant benefits small farmers and other populations at risk of food insecurity in these countries. As a private organisation, they have the flexibility to work in countries that aid agencies do not consider to be a strategic priority.

For more information, visit Grow Further.