USDA awards $30 million for food safety, plant health improvements
USDA will award $30.1 million in competitive grants to fund 80 research projects to improve food safety, reduce antibiotic resistance in food, and increase the resilience of plants in the face of climate change. The grants are made possible through USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI).
“In the face of diminishing land and water resources and increasingly variable climatic conditions, food production must increase to meet the demands of world population projected to pass nine billion by 2050,” says Tom Vilsack, USDA secretary. “Funding in research to respond to these challenges should be considered as an investment in our nation's future, an investment which will pay big dividends in the years to come.”