Seattle-based Grow Further is channeling $300,000 collected from individual donors and select corporate partners, fueling cutting-edge research & development in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia that will catalyze change for millions. These projects will equip hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers with nutritious climate-resilient crops to fight worsening droughts, hunger, and malnutrition.

Grow Further empowers smallholder farmers in developing countries by directing funds from individual donors to agricultural scientists. These scientists help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change and improve their income and nutrition. This latest targeted R&D funding effort is set to change the lives of more than 4 million smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.

Grow Further (growfurther.org), a young collaborative non-profit “connecting people and ideas for a food-secure future”, is pleased to announce two new grant awards in support of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Over the next five years, nearly $300,000 will be distributed to agricultural scientists to support two innovative food security initiatives.

Grow Further has mobilized donations collected from individual donors and select corporate partners to fund R&D implemented by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), HarvestPlus, and Madda Walabu University.

As is common in medical research but rare in agriculture, individual donors are leading the way in funding research & development, promising to fill in gaps overlooked by large government programs and benefit smallholder farmers.

“We’re looking to not only prevent famine in Ethiopia and keep schoolchildren nourished in Zimbabwe here but also to set an example of how individuals can support and engage with innovation in creating a food-secure future just as they do with food banks or science more generally,” said Grow Further founder and CEO Peter Kelly.

Hailed as a “March of Dimes for food,” Grow Further revolutionizes agricultural philanthropy through the power of individual action. The unique model empowers a diverse community of donors—from students to retirees as well as corporate partners—to play an active role in shaping the future of smallholder farming.

Building upon the success of last year’s inaugural projects, Grow Further is doubling the size of its grant portfolio with these new initiatives in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.

Project 1: Iron-rich, climate resilient pearl millet for Zimbabwe

$211,000 from Grow Further will fund a project for smallholder farms in Zimbabwe. The project will be implemented by ICRISAT, HarvestPlus, and Zimbabwe’s government.

ICRISAT has developed specialized varieties of pearl millet crops that can produce more food with less water, making them the ultimate climate-resilient crops. And thanks to HarvestPlus, these varieties are also more nutritious than standard ones. Through this new grant—made possible by individual donors—Grow Further will fund ICRISAT and HarvestPlus' project to deploy nutrient-dense, biofortified, drought-resistant iron pearl millet to farms throughout Zimbabwe.

An ongoing drought in Zimbabwe has taken a heavy toll, destroying roughly two-thirds of the country’s 2024 maize crop. This new grant by Grow Further will support ICRISAT and HarvestPlus in introducing improved pearl millet varieties to help smallholder farmers address the crisis and promote long-term climate adaptation and food security.

“Because of the resilience, they will be able to get the grain,” ICRISAT Senior Scientist Dr. Henry Fred Ojulong said. “And because of the biofortification, that grain will contain more nutrition. We expect they will get more to eat and get more of the nutrients. So, we’ll be solving the two problems we have of food scarcity and malnutrition.”

“We need pearl millet. But because of the shortage of rain, there is a challenge,” said Siphathisiwe Ncube, a smallholder farmer in Zimbabwe who’s helping design the project. “I will buy the seeds and multiply them so that the whole community will get it. I will be very, very happy.”

Project 2: Year-round wheat harvests in Ethiopia through better irrigation and management

A separate $68,000 grant will fund researchers in Ethiopia to develop more efficient irrigation paired with better wheat varieties to help an estimated 5 million smallholder farmers grow wheat even during the off-season, massively increasing Ethiopia’s annual wheat harvest.

In 2019, Ethiopia’s government began a major initiative to introduce wheat cultivation during the dry season and significantly increase food production, but this new system has been little studied and is far from optimized for productivity or sustainability.

“This grant from Grow Further will be a game-changer for our research team,” said Jemal Abdulkerim Ute, Assistant Professor of Agronomy at Madda Walabu University in Ethiopia. “It will allow us to delve deeper into the complex interactions between climate, irrigation, and wheat varieties, ultimately leading to the development of strategies that can help farmers adapt to the changing environmental conditions and ensure more reliable and resilient wheat production during the off-season.”

“We do not currently have improved seed varieties that are adapted to this area,” said Abdul Hafiz Ahmed, an Ethiopian farmer and partner on this project. “And we do not know how best to apply the water. These are big problems. And we believe the project will solve these things for us.”

About Grow Further

At Grow Further (growfurther.org) we engage farmers, scientists, and individuals in participatory innovation for global food security and sustainable agriculture. Our donors come from different backgrounds, but we all come eager to learn from each other, invest in the future of food, support scientists with overlooked ideas, and help small-scale farmers. Grow Further is an inaugural member of the U.S. Department of State’s Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils VACS Champions program. Learn more at https://growfurther.org/why-we-exist/.