Call for Applications // Wanted: Exceptional Innovations to Produce More Food with Less Water

Are you a scientist, entrepreneur, or a passionate problem solver interested in helping produce more food with less water in developing countries? Do you have a piloted innovation that you seek to share with others, highlight before experts, publicize, and accelerate? Individual awards are expected to be between USD 100,000 and USD 2 million depending on the type of funding requested. The period of performance for individual awards is up to three years; the actual period of performance for each award will be determined at the time of award. We are seeking applications that:

• Promote user-centered design, not technology for the sake of technology.
• Build sustainability into the fabric of the program. All innovations must be sustainable (financial, institutional, environmental, technological, and social).
• Innovations supported by this program must demonstrate direct or strong indirect benefits for the poor and women.
• Securing Water for Food welcomes and encourages high quality applications, especially from women-owned/women-led enterprises and developing country entrepreneurs.
• Have a local presence and develop market-driven partnerships.

This funding competition sources and accelerates innovations that will enable the production of more food with less water or make more water available for food production, processing, and distribution. The three areas that are deemed critical to reducing water scarcity in the food value chain are listed as:

• Improving water efficiency and reusing agricultural wastewater to significantly extend the productivity of limited water resources.
• Effective water capture and storage systems for extending temporal availability of water supply in regions where precipitation is seasonal.
• Management of salinity in water supplies, as it is a major threat to food production.

Through this competition, Securing Water for Food anticipates disbursing $7.5million USD in award funding. Individual awards are expected to be between USD 100,000 and USD 2m depending on the type of funding requested. The period of performance for individual awards is up to three years; the actual period of performance for each award will be determined at the time of award.

Awards made through this RFA may be in the form of grants, cooperative agreements, or other instruments as appropriate, depending on the nature of the submitting organization and the proposal. The RFA and any future amendments can be downloaded from http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=287360 or the Attachments section below.

A live question-and-answer webinar will take place on August 31, 2016 from 12:00-1:30pm EDT. For those who could not attend, the responses will be recorded and located here (https://ac.usaid.gov/rd4rfa/) and are shared on the Securing Water for Food website.

Applications will be accepted until 5:00 PM ET on Oct. 10, 2016.

Have questions about the Securing Water for Food program?

If you have questions about the application process, please click on the Q&A link below. If you are experiencing technical difficulties, please e-mail swffplatformhelp@dobt.co. Source: