RFPs: Accelerating Catalyzing Solutions for Climate Change’s Impact on Agriculture in India

Corresponding with the global call by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, alongside GCI, other partners of Grand Challenges such as GC Africa (pan-African), GC Brazil (Ministry of Health of Brazil), GC Ethiopia (Armauer Hansen Research Institute), GC Rwanda (National Council for Science and Technology), and the Pasteur Network are initiating their proposal calls.

This call aligns with the global Grand Challenges call “Accelerating Catalyzing Solutions for Climate Change’s Impact on Health, Agriculture, and Gender.” Its primary objective is to recognize and bolster promising innovations while cultivating a network of researchers and stakeholders to heighten awareness about the challenges and channel forthcoming outcomes into practical solutions.

The overall purpose of this program on “Accelerating Catalysing Solutions for Climate Change’s Impact on Agriculture in India” is to increase the research and professional capacities, policy and administrative responsiveness, and agricultural-food-nutrition practices for better adaptation to climate variability and change in the Indian sub-continent.

This RFP seeks innovative research and pilot/feasibility projects utilizing transdisciplinary approaches to better adapt to mitigate or reverse the combined, deleterious effects of climate change on agriculture in India. It is intended towards development of scientific and technological solutions as well as action research enabled by innovation, technology development, or knowledge creation for evidence-based policy. They are especially interested in (i) locally led, system-level innovations that are scalable and sustainable and (ii) cross-cutting solutions at the intersection of multiple scientific and engineering disciplines.

Research Areas

• The major research areas within the above thematic areas which may be focused for a resilient agricultural production system and for which proposals are sought are as follows:
  • Mapping and Enhancing Landraces: Epigenetic responses to environmental stress
    • Research related to improvement of cultivars have mainly focused on increasing yield, and not on climate-resilience. Genome sequencing significantly increases the rate and accuracy for identifying genes of agronomic traits that are relevant to climate change, including adaptation to stress from pests and disease, temperature and humidity, altitude, and water extremes. Genomic assisted breeding approaches for climate resilient crops and vegetables and translation to commercial cultivars are still limited.
      • Accelerating demonstration of wild relatives of Crops
      • Adaptability of Lesser-known crops and livestock. Assessing adaptation responses of underutilised or lesser-known crops and livestock species apart from the dominant major food crops and livestock in different agroecosystems.
      • Microbiome analysis in Plant health
      • Adaptation strategies through enhancing water and nutrient use efficiency.
  • Securing Plant and Animal Proteins: Crop-livestock system to enhance agroecosystem resilience
    • Diversifying agricultural systems is an adaptation strategy that enhances resilience to climate change while offering socio-economic and environmental advantages. Diversity of food culture, landraces, crop and livestock system and their relationships with adaptation, pest and disease pressure and other socio-ecological constraints are some of the areas where research needs to be focused.
      • Agroecological practices and integrating natural resource management, food security, and livelihood could be tested to stimulate inclusive growth for a sustainable and integrated tree-crop-livestock system.
      • Research focusing on the combination of scientific data collection and solution-led field research on climate-smart livestock production. Research may include improvements in the cultivation of specific fodder crops, feed processing as well as manure and pasture management.
      • Innovation in the composition of specialized nutritious foods (e.g., RUTFs to treat severe acute malnutrition), considering susceptibility of raw ingredients to climate shocks, price volatility, and decreased nutritional quality.
  • Millets, Tubers and Tree Crop Staples: Reviving Regional Food cultures/varieties for Climate Adaptation.
    • Enhancement of production and productivity of millet-based crop diversification. Mapping of past and current adaptation to climate change in diversified cultivation system.
    • Studying changes in pest dynamics, pest/pathogen-crop relationships and emergence of new pests and pathogens under changing climate.
    • Multidisciplinary perspective with a clear reference to eco-geography, units of land, scale, variability that define each agro-ecosystem for climate change risk mitigation, improved rural livelihood, and better nutrition.
  • Soil Health and Biodiversity
    • In-situ methods for measuring Biological Nitrogen Fixation at field level to help validate climate-smart biofertilizers as next generation inputs. Research topics may include novel biosensors for measuring nitrogen fixation by free-living and non- symbiotic microbes and methods for proving candidate microbes are indeed drawing nitrogen from the atmosphere for crop benefits rather than mining the soil.
    • Estimation of bio-geophysical and geo-chemical parameters of soil.
    • Comparative studies on soil health and bioavailability of nutrients in millets in different agro-climatic regions.

Funding Information

• The funding level is up to INR 80 Lakh (USD $100,000.00) for each grant.

Project Duration

• The projects will be supported for a period of 36 months (3 years) starting from signing of Agreement.

They are looking for proposals that:

• Provide a strong rationale for the work proposed, demonstrating a clear understanding of India’s context and needs, and present a defined hypothesis and associated plan for how the idea would be tested or validated.
• Articulate how the project will lead to impact in the near-term and how those benefits will be sustained past the lifetime of the project.
• Articulate the scalability of the solution beyond a small local region or population. Strong consideration will be given to approaches that can scale to multiple geographic areas, zones, demographics, etc.
• Demonstrate engagement with local communities, local and/or regional decisionmakers and adopters of relevant innovations or policies.
• Inter-sectoral co-ordination and collaboration is strongly encouraged.
• They encourage applications from women and women-led organizations.

Desirable Outcomes

• The overall expected outcome is enhanced resilience to climate variability in vulnerable regions. Two specific outcomes desirable are:
  • Increased and More Responsive Adaptation Mechanisms, Technology and Policy.
  • Knowledge, Innovation and Policy to Confront Nutritional and Environmental Challenges at the local and regional levels. The projects proposals will have to specify how these outcomes will be realized with research in one or combination of the following themes.
  • Mapping and Enhancing Landraces: Epigenetic responses to environmental stress.
  • Securing Plant and Animal Proteins: Crop-livestock system to enhance agroecosystem resilience.
  • Millets, Tubers and Tree Crop Staples: Reviving Regional Food cultures/varieties for Climate Adaptation.
  • Soil Health and Biodiversity.

Eligibility Criteria

• This RFA is India-led and proposals are solicited from Indian nationals having good scientific record and working within the country in established academic institutions, research institutions, agricultural research institutions, not-for-profit organizations/trusts/foundations, or companies.
  • The proposal should have a clearly defined plan with details of proposed activities, specific milestones and timelines, and the budget estimates. The proposal must be budgeted clearly indicating the budget components to carry out each proposed activity on a milestone basis.
  • Research proposals will be supported financially at recognised academic institutions, universities, national laboratories and other recognized R&D institutions having all the necessary facilities to carry out the proposed research. They also encourage partnerships with researchers of national/international expertise, subject to the call guidelines.
• Note: Please read the following carefully to understand the category you will be applying under and the documentation that may be requested should your proposal be selected for further financial due diligence. This call is open to,
  • Indian Academic – If the applicant is an Indian academic scientist, researcher, or PhD student (citizen of India), they must be willing to incubate at a recognized incubator and submit a letter of intent for the same.
  • Companies – Companies incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 2013 having a minimum of 51 percent Indian ownership.
  • Limited Liability Partnership – Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) incorporated under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 having a minimum half of the persons who subscribed their names to the LLP document as its Partners should be Indian citizens.
  • Indian institution/universities/public research organization – Academic institutions established in India and having NAAC/UGC/AICTE or any equivalent recognition certificate or any other Public/Government supported organization.
  • Society/Trust/ NGO/Foundation/Association – Society/Trust/ NGO/Foundation/Association established in India under the relevant Indian Law having at least half of the stakeholders (partners/ trustees/ members/associates etc.) as Indians.

Ineligible

• They will not consider funding for proposals that:
  • Do not demonstrate actionability and scalability to support impacted communities in India to adapt and be resilient to the effects of climate change on agriculture.
  • Do not demonstrate a pathway to sustainable impact and scalability.
  • Are not linked to or have no plan to engage relevant key stakeholders and decision makers from the affected communities.

For more information, visit Grand Challenges.