Less than 10 months after the University’s Soybean Innovation Lab was briefly closed following government funding revocations, the Gates Foundation has given the lab $1.5 million to “strengthen and expand soybean commercialization across sub-Saharan Africa,” according to a Thursday press release.
President Donald Trump began cutting funding to the United States Agency for International Development — SIL’s primary source of funding since its 2013 creation — in January. Since then, the agency has gradually reduced its operations and is now fully closed.
In March, SIL Director and professor in ACES Peter Goldsmith told The Daily Illini the lab was forced to close, and its 30 members were let go. The next month, a $1 million donation from the nonprofit organization Founders Pledge allowed Goldsmith and six employees to return and continue work on one project for a year.
USAID provided nearly all of SIL’s $3 million in annual funds, allowing the lab’s efforts to reach 31 countries. Since its shutdown, SIL has only been working in four countries.
Now, this extra $1.5 million will give the lab two years of funding toward a different project. Specifically, the Gates Foundation’s gift will be used for SIL’s Pan-African Soybean Variety Trials.
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The program “allows new soybean varieties to be tested, registered, and commercialized across multiple countries simultaneously,” per the release. It also gives farmers across most of Africa faster access to new and improved soybean varieties.
According to its website, PAT has been responsible for bringing 15 new soybean varieties to market in Ghana, Mali, Kenya, Cameroon and Malawi. Goldsmith said that with this donation, he aims to bring at least 10 new soybean varieties to markets in southern and eastern African regions by 2027.
