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The Massachusetts Agriculture Experiment Station in the UMass Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (CAFE), has awarded funding to five innovative interdisciplinary research teams to develop collaborative projects in sustainable agriculture, food systems and climate resilience.

The projects receiving award funds are:

• “Environmental and Economic Benefits from an Innovative Treatment of Food Waste Digestate”
  PI: Chul Park, Civil & Environmental Engineering
   
• “Optimizing Rhizobacteria for Microbial Sequestration of Heavy Metal Contaminants to Mitigate Uptake from Soil by Food Crops”
  PI: Lauren Andrews, Chemical Engineering
   
• “Quantifying the magnitude of the soil carbon sink in agricultural landscapes”
  PI: Isaac Larsen, Earth, Geographic and Climate Sciences
   
• “Recovering Fertilizers from Freshwater Bodies Impacted by Agricultural Runoff Using a Novel Biofilm System and Repurposing the Recovered Nutrients for Agricultural Use”
  PI: Caitlyn Butler, Civil and Environmental Engineering
   
• “Remediation of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Vegetable Plants and Mitigation of Their Impact on Nutrients and Phytochemicals”
  PI: Meichen Wang, Environmental Health Sciences

The projects have been funded for up to $100,000 for the first year, with the possibility of a second-year extension. 

“The grants were made possible through federal Hatch Capacity funds, whose purpose is to facilitate research across the land grant university system focused on a broad range of topics related to agriculture, food systems, and human health,” says Lynne McLandsborough, interim director of CAFÉ. 

Research proposals were initially requested within areas of inquiry covered by the Hatch Act from multidisciplinary teams with at least one tenure-track faculty member who did not currently have a Hatch Act-funded project.  A review team received 24 pre-proposals representing nearly every college at UMass Amherst. Thirteen teams were invited to submit full proposals and five outstanding proposals were selected for funding based on originality, interdisciplinary team strength and potential for future federal funding.