The Seeding the Future Foundation and Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) announced the 2024 winners of the Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge, which awards a total of $1 million annually for innovations that can transform food systems around the world to be more equitable and lead to safe, nutritious and trusted food using sustainable practices.
This year there were two grand prize winners, each receiving $250,000:
- The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on behalf of its HarvestPlus program won for their development of nutrient-dense porridges for use in school feeding programs in Zambia. These porridges use biofortified traditional food crops that are farmed and produced by women as additional contributions to the household income.
- Naandi Foundation was funded for its implementation of ReGen, a synergistic regenerative agriculture model to support farmers in India transitioning away from conventional, chemical-based farming approaches.
There also were three Growth Grant winners, each receiving $100,000:
- Association 3535 for establishing four solar cooling hubs and offering cold storage as a service to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. These provide smallholder farmers and small-scale fishermen with the ability to keep produce fresh, reducing post-harvest losses and increasing food security and potential income.
- Kopernik for its Pangan Initiative, addressing food insecurity in West Timor, Indonesia. By adopting an innovative approach that prioritizes the return to and use of indigenous farming practices, food preservation technologies and a circular economy approach utilizing black soldier flies to convert organic and food waste into animal feed and compost for farming, the Pangan Initiative will create a more climate-resilient and self-sustaining food system and community.
- Nurture Posterity International for its development of NutriPosh, nutritious and affordable composite flours for use in school feeding programs in Uganda. In addition to providing enhanced nutrition through the inclusion of pumpkin seeds in a stable composite Maize flour, NutriPosh sources ingredients produced through regenerative agricultural practices, utilizes solar powered dehydration technologies in their flour production and uses biodegradable packaging.
Eight Seed Grant winners were announced back in November with each being awarded $25,000. All of these winners were among more than 900 submissions from 78 countries this year.
Since its inception three years ago, the Challenge has attracted more than 2,400 teams of scientists, engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs and multidisciplinary teams from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profits, social enterprises, universities, research institutions as well as small and emerging for-profit enterprises to submit game-changing innovations that will help transform food systems globally.
“When we created the annual Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge, our purpose was – and still is – to create a powerful, steadily growing pipeline of high impact innovations that address the most pressing challenges food systems are facing globally,” says Bernhard van Lengerich, founder of Seeding The Future Foundation. “We encourage impactful innovations that help food systems to be more sustainable, resilient and equitable, and lead to safe and nutritious food that is affordable, appealing and trusted by the end user.”