This article was originally posted on the University of Georgia CAES website and was written by Allison Floyd.

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut Research is calling for concept notes in two Areas of Inquiry: varietal development and value-added gains. Concept notes will be accepted through April 20, 2018 at 11:59pm Eastern Daylight Time (UTC -4).

Varietal development is an important part of the program because effective and efficient development of improved varieties is key to increased production of peanuts. A primary focus of the Peanut Lab is to partner with national peanut breeding programs to enhance their capabilities to breed for new peanut varieties that meet the requirements of their respective programs. This will be accomplished by linking U.S. and host country breeding programs to apply the most effective tools, including those of genomics, phenotyping and information management, towards the development and dissemination of improved varieties.

Value-added gains fit into the scope of the Peanut Lab since integrating research into a value chain perspective can help to target research and increase the likelihood for adoption and impact. Focus research areas in the RFP include addressing private sector demand, bottlenecks in innovation adoption and scale-up, crop management practices, use of peanut as animal feed, improved post-harvest quality and reduced losses, and increasing resilience.
 
The Peanut Lab is employing a Piestar project management system, including for project proposals. To download the RFP, go to the Peanut Lab Opportunities page. 
 
Support documents (such as the data management plan) are on the Peanut Lab’s Work with Us page of our website.

More Requests for Proposals will be issued in the near future.