NIFA Extends Deadline Seeking Research Topics from Commodity Boards for FY 2018 AFRI Program

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is extending the deadline for eligible national and state commodity boards and marketing orders to propose topics for research under its FY 2018 Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) competitive grants program.

Commodity boards will now have until Aug. 8, 5 p.m. (instead of July 25) to submit topics that relate to established priority areas of AFRI for consideration in the FY 2018 AFRI program.

A Federal Register Notice entitled “Solicitation of Commodity Board Topics and Contribution of Funding Under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program,” published May 26, solicits topics from eligible commodity board entities (federal and state-level commodity boards, as defined in the notice). Proposed topics may be chosen for inclusion under a specific program area priority of an AFRI Request for Applications (RFA).

This is the third year that NIFA has implemented the 2014 Farm Bill commodity board provision, which is enhancing collaboration between the agency and commodity groups as well as leveraging additional funds for critical research in areas of common interest. For additional information regarding AFRI Commodity Boards, please visit NIFA’s Commodity Boards web page.