NIFA

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program at USDA offers competitively awarded grants to qualified small businesses to support high quality, advanced concepts research related to important scientific problems and opportunities in agriculture that could lead to significant public benefits...

Seeing President Obama’s fiscal year 2017 budget proposal and the strong commitment it makes to agricultural research reminds me of Dr. Consuelo De Moraes. As a university researcher and panel manager of the National Research Initiative (NRI) competitive grants program, I called Dr. De Moraes in...

The lack of women and minority representation in the professional agricultural workforce has become so pronounced that in STEM Stratplan 2013 President Obama called for an “all-hands-on-deck approach to science, technology, engineering, and math” (STEM) education. According to the White House...

Although automation in agriculture is often synonymous with efficiency, that has not been the case with harvesting and processing berries. That is about to change. Automated berry processing systems often damage the fruit, which results in lower profitability for growers and marketers. To counter...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. In Binghamton, New York, at-risk youth are learning to take charge of their lives by working on a variety of community...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) invests in agricultural sciences that turn research into action by...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. As we look back on 2015, NIFA is also celebrating the partnership we have developed with the nation’s land-grant...

As part of our ongoing #womeninag series, we are highlighting a different leading woman in agriculture each month. This month, we profile Dr. Lois Wright Morton, professor of sociology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University and director of the USDA-NIFA Climate &...

USDA scientists work 365 days to provide safe and sustainable food, water, and natural resources in the face of a changing climate and uncertain energy sources. To recognize the contribution that agricultural science and research makes in our daily lives, this week’s “Banner Year” series features...

A professor in the Lone Star State is counting on two underrepresented groups to play a major role in the future of agriculture. Ken Mix, assistant professor of agriculture at Texas State University (TSU), is the project director of a new program called “Boots to Roots,” a program that helps female...