Transcript Global Center for Food Systems Presentation

Global Center for
Food Systems
Innovation Grants
Global Center for Food Systems
Innovation Lab
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Consortium led by Michigan State University, Wageningen University
(Netherlands), Energy and Resource Institute (India), Lincoln University (PA)
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One of eight labs funded by the USAID Global Development Lab under the
Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN)
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Goal: To create, test and enable the scaling of innovation in the food system
• Multi-disciplinary
• Focused on the entire food system
• Forward looking
Main Thematic Focus
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Population Growth, Climate Change: Innovations that increase
food availability and food system resilience in Africa and Asia in
the face of global climate change.
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Rapid Urbanization and Transformation of the Food System:
Assure access to plentiful, safe, nutritious, and affordable food for
all citizens.
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Evolution in Skills Required by Food Systems: Looks at
upgrading skills in the food system in order to adapt the food
system workforce to global trends.
Cross-cutting Themes
• Information and Communication Technology: Use of
ICT to improve food system performance and help to
accelerate the adoption of technologies.
• Gender: The role of gender as a factor affecting the
design and implementation of innovations in the food
system.
Food Systems Innovation Grants
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Early Stage Innovation Grants – (Stage I):
• $100,000 each
• Designed to enable the development of early stage innovations
• Include activities such as prototyping, idea development, small scale testing
and refinement.
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Innovation Evaluation Grants – (Stage II):
• $250,000 each
• Targeted at innovations that are developed but have not been fully
deployed or rigorously tested in the field.
• Activities could include field trials, stakeholder focus groups, refinement of
the innovation design, and market assessments.
Food Systems Innovation Grants
• Innovation Scalability Grants – (Stage III)
• $500,000
• Innovations that have proven themselves functional and potentially feasible
for broader deployment.
• To assess the potential for scaling innovations across larger populations and
broader geographic regions.
• A one-to-one private sector or non-USG funding match is required to help
ensure that innovations are of interest to multiple stakeholders and relevant
to local development conditions.
10 Thematic Focus Areas of RFA
1. Weather data for climate-smart agriculture
• create inexpensive weather data networks at a national scale, which would
include: data collection, tools for crop management, an education program
to guide farmers and other end-users, improvement of agricultural services
for farmers:
• Irrigation scheduling, pest information, fertilizer application guidance,
monitoring of water stress, crop maturity date, other data to aid in improving
yields
2. Improved ability of smallholder farmers to adapt to climate variability
and change
• reduce the vulnerability and increase capacity of smallholder farmers to
adapt to climate variability and climate change in water- stressed regions in
developing countries
10 Thematic Focus Areas of RFA
3. Improved ability of agricultural researchers to provide agronomic
recommendations
• improve the ability of agricultural researchers and planners to provide
agronomic recommendations for increasing crop productivity and reducing
vulnerability to climate change
4. Assistance to small entrepreneurs in food processing
• pilot, evaluate, or scale innovations that address key constraints related to
either:
• Assistance to local entrepreneurs interested in the growing market for
processed and perishable foods
• Small-scale food processing technology
10 Thematic Focus Areas of RFA
5. Innovations in the informal urban food sector
• account for climate change and resource scarcities, and which focus
primarily on conditions in urban food markets.
6. Gender-sensitive ICT-based approaches to improving women’s
access to urban markets
• increase farmer income through improved access to markets across a
broad set of outputs.
• Group-based access to markets (factor and output markets)
• Gender-equitable benefit sharing mechanisms, and
• Use of established ICT-based market platforms.
10 Thematic Focus Areas of RFA
7. Marketing meat and dairy products without extensive cold
chain development
• develop innovations in infrastructure, policy, market practice or cultural
practice that accommodate increasing demand for safe meat, poultry
and dairy products without large-scale implementation of cold chain
logistics
8. Projecting labor market and skill needs for agri-food businesses
• develop cost-effective methods to project labor market and skills needs
and identify training and workforce development programs that would
equip local workers with needed skills
10 Thematic Focus Areas of RFA
9. Improving effective use of mobile phone-based agricultural
services by small farmers
• help to solve the mobile last-mile problem in delivering agricultural
information and supporting market participation by smallholder
farmers
10. Promoting gender equitable access to profitable markets
• boost production/marketing/commercialization while also stimulate
household consumption and promoting women’s access to legume
markets
Geographic Focus
Implementation must occur in one of the following
countries:
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Bangladesh
Cambodia
Ethiopia
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Malawi
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Mozambique
Nepal
Philippines
Rwanda
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
Application Information
• Deadline
o March 16, 2015
o 5 PM Eastern Time
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Abstract
o Summarize all relevant aspects of proposal with special attention to objectives
and methods
o 4,000 characters (1/2 page)
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Page limits for proposed work
o Innovation grants (12 pages)
o Innovation Evaluation grants (15 pages)
o Innovation Scalability grants (20 pages)
Proposed Work
A. Purpose
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Explain the proposed work and how it relates to GCFSI’s goal, which is to
create, test and enable the scaling of innovations in the food system
B. Themes
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Indicate the GCFSI Food Systems Innovation theme(s) from this RFA that
are addressed.
C. Broad problem or system context
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Describe your specific innovation.
Who are your beneficiaries?
How will your innovation address the problem?
Proposed Work
D. Previous work
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E.
Briefly document other work in this area by others
Explain how this proposal is innovative and adds value to the body of research and
technology testing in this area.
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the literature, evidence base, and current
and existing USAID or other donor-funded projects in their problem area
Outcomes
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What are the activities, deliverables, outputs, and results of your project during the
project period?
What impact area (geographically and number of participants) could your technology
have within 5 years?
What assumptions inform these projections?
Proposed Work
F.
Sustainability
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How will your innovation be sustained and scaled to achieve greater impact?
How will work be adopted and integrated by other public and private sector
stakeholders?
What conditions would need to be met to ensure the sustainability of your innovation?
G. Gender
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Explain the implications of your proposal for gender issues and women’s empowerment.
What is the unique value to women?
Discuss possible negative side effects scaling your approach may have on gender
dynamics.
Proposed Work
H. Measures of success
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I.
What are the relevant indicators you will use to judge the success of this grant?
Identify indicators used in measuring and differentiating the impact of the
proposed innovative solution by gender and other relevant categories
Limitations
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Consider potential accomplishments in light of available funding and time
period
Information and Communication Technologies
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ITC proposals should specify both the technology and the agricultural tool or
service focus
Other Proposal Content
1. Team composition (up to 10 pages)
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Describe the team composition and rationale/expertise for team members, and
their proposed level of effort
Curriculum vitae for each of the project directors or key technical staff (up to 4
CVs)
CV should include information on the applicant’s education, relevant prior and
current employment, honors received, and long-term professional goals
Include summary of qualifications for team members
2. Project Timeline (up to 2 pages)
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Include a timeline for the proposed project
Projects are requested to be 18 to 36 months in duration, depending on the
type of grant
Other Proposal Content
3.
Past performance (up to 2 pages)
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organizational past performance
applicants past performance on similar activities (size and scope)
past performance records of major subcontractors or sub-recipients
If applicant or their proposed subcontractors encountered problems on any of the
referenced projects, they may provide a short explanation and the corrective action
taken
Letter(s) of support
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Team members, collaborating or host institutions, USAID missions or programmatic staff
Multiple letters documenting commitment to collaborate or provide leveraged resources
may be submitted but are not required (3 letters maximum, 2 pages each)
Impact (up to 1 page)
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Identify the foreseeable environmental consequences of the proposed activities
Budget
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The budget must detail all estimated expenses for the grant period, including:
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direct research implementation costs
international and domestic travel costs
ground transportation
meals and incidentals
emergency health insurance (required)
indirect costs
Budgets should include a page with all costs summarized by year and cost category.
Funds must be used to carry out project within a period of 18 to 36 months (depending
on grant type) from the date of contract signing.
Cost share and leverage
• Include all other cost-share for the proposed work (both in- kind and
cash contributions from non-US Federal Government sources), and
include cost- share amount in the budget form.
• Any cost-share should be included by year and cost category using the
budget template provided.
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• The only expense categories acceptable for cost-shares are participant
salaries and fringe, travel costs, subcontract expenses, project supplies,
and related indirect costs.
• Leveraged investments should be documented in a separate table by
technical or program area.
Selection process
• Three-stage selection process:
• all applications will be reviewed and evaluated according to their technical
merit by subject matter experts
• a panel with relevant expertise will identify top proposals for funding
• the final decision will be made by USAID and GCFSI after a careful
evaluation of the scientific panel recommendations
The competition results are expected to be announced in July
2015.
Selection criteria
1. Quality of idea/innovation (40%): Clear understanding of the area of
the food system being addressed, and clear explanation of how the
project would result in an innovation that would address an
important problem affecting food system performance. How would
the project add value to the existing set of technologies or
development interventions?
2. Innovation Development, Testing, or Scaling Plan (25%): The
technical soundness of the proposed approach, the clarity and
rationale for the stated goals of the project, the adequacy of technical
resources available to accomplish the work, and the soundness of the
plan to develop, test, or scale the innovation within the time allotted.
Selection criteria
3. Alignment with GCFSI Goal (20%): Relevance of the
proposed work to the goal of GCFSI (to create, test and
enable the scaling of innovations in the food system)
potential for proposed work to facilitate new
collaborations and innovation, and the likelihood that the
work will facilitate scaling-up of the innovation within the
global food system.
4. Personnel Capacity (15%): The expertise of the applicant(s)
in carrying out the proposed work.
Funded projects
First Round Innovation Grants
Name
Objective
Using sensors to Enable Plant and Soil Develop Portable, web-based sensor to enable uploading and
Measurements.
analysis of data.
Improve value chains through ICT-enabled credit and extension
E-Warehousing for Smallholder Farmers
interventions.
Assess willingness to pay for food safety by building the capacity of a
Marketing Food Safety
maize mill to produce aflatoxin-safe maize and facilitating sale of
certified maize.
Implementers
Michigan State University
East Africa
UC Berkeley, Grameen Foundation
Kenya
University of Maryland, IFPRI, Western
Kenya
Michigan University, Texas A & M
Building Capacity for Assessing Irrigation Develop an assessment framework for evaluating irrigation
UC Davis
Innovations
innovations through a participatory extension methodology
Estimate and identify strategies to mitigate the costs of climate
Virginia Tech
change on vulnerable households
Build capacity of women-based enterprises to develop orange sweet
Enhancing Vitamin-Nutrition through Orange
potatoes, in part through social networking and mobile phone Tuskgee University, Sokoine University
Sweet Potatoes
messaging.
Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Change
Location
Uganda
Ethiopia, Zambia
Tanzania
Funded projects
First Round Center-Led Projects
Name
Scaling Agricultural Innovations Under a
Changing Climate
Profiling Legume Use, Demand and Exchange
in Urban Markets
Mapping the Market for Legumes
Agro-ecology for Climate Change Resilience
in Malawi
Training Small Landholder Farmers Through
Videos
Improving Productivity & Resilience to
Climate Change
Mapping Education & Skills Development
along the Legume Value Chain
Gender Analysis of the PigeonPea Value
Chain
Objective
Develop a generalizable model for effective scaling of biophysically
salient agricultural innovations.
Analyze role of legumes in the informal sector and articulate special
urban-based factors.
Analyze qualitatively and quantitatively the market for legumes.
Develop Farmer Field schools with farmers' input and findings from
mother/baby trials to provide technical information for extension
staff and farmers.
Understanding how to teachsmallholders, especially women, about
the benefits of multi-purpose legumes, and how to use ICTs to
participate in local value chains.
Model the potential impact of management practices, crops, and
varieties and provide information to the government, researchers
and communities.
Identify and map current systems and stakeholders for students and
the workforce in the legume value chain.
Conduct a gender analysis of the complete pigeonpea value chain.
Implementers
Michigan State University
Location
Malawi
Michigan State University
Malawi
Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Malawi
Malawi
Michigan State University
Malawi
Michigan State University
Malawi
Michigan State University
Malawi
Michigan State University
Malawi