ADM Cares supports 3 ADMI projects for 2022-23

Three postharvest loss-related research projects totaling $120,000 were recently selected for funding through ADM Cares, ADM’s social investment program, which directs funds to organizations that drive meaningful social, economic, and environmental progress around the world.

Two of the proposals build on ADMI’s previous work to reduce postharvest losses in India and Bangladesh. The third gives us a springboard to future work in Indonesia. All three projects allow ADMI to continue partnerships with researchers at the University of Illinois and abroad.

• Addressing postharvest losses with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in India – Continuing to advance ADMI’s food systems approach to postharvest losses, we will work with FPOs to target grain aggregators who work directly with smallholder farmers on postharvest management. Using the learning from a needs assessment, the project will pilot and test multiple solutions at various points of grain and oilseed value chains with FPOs and farmer groups to reduce losses. The project includes ongoing partnerships with Madhu Viswanathan (Loyola Marymount University) and with ACES alumna Usha Barwale-Zehr’s company Grow Indigo, an India-based digital ag platform.
• Entrepreneurial training for young people in Bangladesh: Mechanized drying – Mechanized grain drying has the potential to greatly reduce losses for smallholder farmers, especially during the rainy season. At the same time, unemployment for those under age 35 in the country is very high, and agriculture sector participation is shrinking. This project will allow Illinois researchers Samantha Lindgren and Ph.D. student Ghaida Alrawashdeh from the College of Education and Keilin Jahnke from the Technology Entrepreneurship Center to partner with long-time ADMI collaborators and researchers at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) to train rural youth entrepreneurs to start service businesses with the BAU-STR grain dryer.
• Public-private-producer partnerships in Indonesia’s agricultural sector: Can resilient producers lead to resilient value chains? – AgReach at the University of Illinois will lead this project seeking a better understanding of the effect of PPP partnerships and their effect on the resilience of smallholders and value chains. Working with Indonesia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Bogor Agricultural University, Paul McNamara and Anna Snider will explore the effect of the program on the resilience of smallholder farmers and value chains. Lessons learned in this project will guide the design of future partnerships for the Government of Indonesia and private sector companies in cocoa and other value chains.

ADMI and our partners appreciate the ongoing support from the Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) and ADM Cares.