The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced on Feb. 2 new plans to invest nearly $5 million into AFRI Foundational Knowledge of Plant Products in order to support new studies.
According to a press release from earlier this month, NIFA will be investing a large sum of money into The Foundational Knowledge of Plant Products, a program that aims to fund various projects meant to improve food and agriculture techniques in order to make or extract plant-derived chemicals and products.
“The intent of this Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program is for results to be translated into discoveries that help create or meet emerging and future markets and contribute towards long-term demand for new agriculturally based products," said NIFA officials in their press release.
The funding allocated by NIFA will be invested into projects that focus on agriculturally important plants, a decision that is expected to be justified by the NIFA with each plant selected, according to the press release.
All of those who are participants within these projects will be permitted to use a vast number of methods in order to determine the genetic underpinning of the chemicals studied, such as molecular, biochemical, whole-plant, agronomic, or eco-physiological approaches.
