Research and Education Grants

News flash! If you are not ready to apply for a Research and Education Grant, SSARE offers two options for Planning Grants.

Who can apply?
Including, but not limited to, teams of researchers from public and private institutions such as 1862 and 1890 land-grant universities, environmental agencies, historically black universities, USDA-ARS labs, non-governmental organizations, and community based organizations.

What activities are eligible?
Research-based activities with an educational/outreach component that focuses on developing sustainable agricultural systems or moving existing systems toward sustainable agriculture.

How much will the grants fund?
Recent projects have averaged $175,000, ranging from $130,000 to $230,000 for one to three years duration. Planning projects, intended to support researchers while they design more competitive broad-based projects, average about $20,000 for one year.

Successful proposals include:

• Systems orientation. Instead of looking at just increasing yields or reducing inputs, systems research looks at all the parts of an agricultural production system to determine how each individual component interacts with the other components.
  
• Farmer or end-user involvement. Producers and consumers should be part of the process from problem identification through project development, implementation, dissemination of results, and evaluation.

For more information about Research & Education Grants, contact Jeff Jordan at (770) 412-4787 or jjordan@southernsare.org