On December 10, the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released a broad agency announcement (BAA) for its Cornucopia program. Cornucopia is a funding opportunity focused on how to produce palatable food from microorganisms such as bacteria, microalgae, and fungi using minimal inputs. The program will span four years and will be broken up into three phases and three focus areas. The focus areas include Domestication of Microbes for Human Consumption; Tailor-ability of Microbial-Origin Food; and Integrated System Demonstrations for Military Use Cases. All three focus areas must be addressed in all three phases. The program’s objective is to develop systems that will produce nutritious and edible food for warfighters in remote settings and on extended missions in ways that overcome current obstacles with the supply chain and nutritional quality. Full proposals are due February 7, 2022, at 4:00 PM EST. Proposers are strongly encouraged to submit abstracts, which are due December 20, 2021, at 4:00 PM EST.
Sources and Additional Information:
- The program description can be found at https://sam.gov/opp/9dd26a362da941a2912611567c6201f1/view.
- The BAA is available at https://sam.gov/api/prod/opps/v3/opportunities/resources/files/de8017f55eb24c0187c98399ba68b970/download?&token=.
Physiological studies on growth and dry matter production of crops that grow under unfavorable climatic conditions, specifically food grain crops.