Set for Growth: Small Business Ag Tech Innovators Get Help from USDA

Posted by Growing Produce Staff|April 14, 2022

USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced it is doubling down on its small business innovation investments, extending almost $18 million in research funds to further develop transformative agricultural solutions.

NIFA’s Small Business Innovation Research program funds these research projects, each of which proposes an innovative or disruptive solution across nine topic areas ranging from food science and nutrition to conservation of natural resources. The program targets early-stage projects in the private sector poised to deliver significant public benefits and strengthens the role of federal research and development in support of small businesses, many of which are owned by women or historically underserved populations.

The 28 funded Small Business Innovation Research projects are broken down by topic area as follows:

Forests and Related Resources (3 awards, $1,900,000)
Plant Production and Protection (Biology) (3 awards, $1,849,000)
Animal Production and Protections (2 awards, $1,290,088)
Conservation of Natural Resources (2 awards, $1,299,939)
Food Science and Nutrition (3 awards, $1,949,851)
Rural and Community Development (3 awards, $1,949,958)
Aquaculture (2 awards, $1,242,975)
Small and Mid-Size Farms (3 awards, $1,949,867)
Plant Production and Protection (Engineering) (7 awards, $4,394,828)

And about a quarter of the grants are going to woman- or minority-owned businesses across the country. Examples of these projects include:

The Miami-based small business nanoSUR, LLC, is developing a gene-targeted insecticide for the red imported fire ant ($650,000).
Optimal Solutions, Inc., of Bridgewater, NJ, is developing a novel soil analysis approach that couples an on-site soil sampling system with machine learning to incentivize more proactive soil management ($650,000).
Radical Plastics, a small business based in Marblehead, MA, is developing a new technology to produce soil biodegradable plastic mulch films that solve current technologies’ limitations, while enabling farmers to increase crop yields, preserve water, energy and fertilizers, reduce labor and costs of farming ($650,000).
Simonpietri Enterprises, LLC, a small business in Kailua, HI, is developing a fuel refining technology that can make urban wood waste and construction and demolition debris usable for conversion into lower-cost jet fuel ($650,000).
Springtide Seaweed, a small business in Gouldsboro, ME, is refining nursery and farm seaweed cultivation systems to extend the U.S. seaweed industry beyond the low-value brown kelp crops into more valuable crops like nori and dulse ($650,000).

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