National Geographic Society | For projects building resilience in agriculture

This funding opportunity is made possible through an impact-driven collaboration between the National Geographic Society and PepsiCo.

This funding opportunity will support innovative projects that apply science and innovation in a real-world context, focused on feasible, nature-positive solutions. The projects should have measurable outcomes on the resilience of farms, farming communities, and natural ecosystems in the farming landscapes to the realities of changing climates and extreme weather events. The projects will demonstrate, measure, and support practices and approaches that are regenerative. The project’s main goals must aim to make farms, farming communities, and natural ecosystems more resilient and demonstrate two or more of the following outcomes:

• Soil Health: Build the health and fertility of the soil to support a healthy and productive ecosystem above and below ground.

• Climate Mitigation and Adaptation: Increase resilience to climate change impacts, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Watershed Health: Improve watershed health through reducing nutrient runoff and the quantity of water needed for farms and communities to thrive.

• Biodiversity: Protect and improve biodiversity across agricultural landscapes – examples include forest conservation and restoration, bees and other pollinators for crops as well as improving the soil microbiome.

• Improved Livelihoods: Improve livelihoods in locally contextualized ways, ensuring farmers’ access to training, decision making and resources to implement sustainable agricultural practices and achieve improved farm performance.

The funding will only consider projects with a predominant field or land component where solutions are applied and tested on a farm, in a farming community, or in a landscape adjacent to cultivated land. The projects should include one or more of the following terrestrial food crops: corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, sugar beets, oilseeds (i.e. canola, sunflower, rice bran), rice, oats, cocoa, oil palm, raisins and soy.

They are particularly interested in supporting applied science-based projects that address highly localized barriers in adopting more regenerative, climate smart land management approaches. This means that in addition to understanding the environmental outcomes, projects must also evaluate the cultural, social and economic feasibility of adoption and scalability. In addition, projects should be co-produced and/or led by local collaborators who have relevant farming or farming community knowledge and experience in the local context. All projects should align with FAIR and CARE principles to ensure ethical integrity.

For more information and application, click here.