NCGA continues to move forward with its long-term initiative to manage and ultimately solve aflatoxin issues for farmers with the announcement of a new round of research grants.
The Aflatoxin Mitigation Center of Excellence Research Program will again offer grants to researchers for projects focused on solving aflatoxin issues for farmers. These grants, which will be awarded to researchers focusing on six priority areas, were designed by southern corn checkoff boards to bring a unified approach to funding research projects across the region and will thus favor research teams that include members from multiple states.
“The National Corn Growers Association, working with southern state grower associations including Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina, developed AMCOE to bring a unified approach to aflatoxin research that will yield results in a timely and more efficient manner,” said NCGA Corn Productivity and Quality Action Team Chair Charles Ring, a corn grower in Texas. “Working together, we can improve the tools available for aflatoxin control and get real results that farmers can see in their fields.”
Projects funded for 2020 should focus on one of these six priority areas: amelioration, best-management, biological controls, breeding, testing, and transgenic.
While corn farmers in southern states experience aflatoxin challenges every year, these challenges may present themselves in any corn region of the United States when the crop comes under stress. Thus, the benefits of such research, particularly as outlined in the six priority areas, are truly national in scope. Thusly, proposals will be considered regardless of the geographic region of the parties submitting and any state wishing to provide additional funding for AMCOE is encouraged to do so.
Letters of intent from principal investigators, co-principal investigators, and collaborators not exceeding the $75,000 per year limit will be accepted by AMCOE until October 25.
For more information about the review process, evaluation criteria and program, click here.
