The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has unveiled a new program that seeks to advance threat detection and warning capabilities for protecting crops such as corn, rice and wheat from damage.
The Foundational Security for Food Systems program will be an 18-month, two-phase research effort to test the feasibility of a pathway-based approach in determining crop damage.
“Similar to how a person can have any one of thousands of viruses long before certain common symptoms present, we’re interested in finding the earliest signs those pathways are active before symptoms show up in cereal crops,” explained Molly Jahn, FS2 program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office.
“FS2 will investigate the ability to create detection and warning protocols based on pathways with observable plant-level effects including signatures that are detectable remotely,” Jahn continued.
DARPA is expected to release the full FS2 program details and instructions for interested proposers on SAM.gov before a virtual information session about the program on Jan. 17. The agency will award $1 million in total funding to the winning party.
FS2 is part of DSO’s Disruptioneering initiative, which seeks to accelerate scientific discoveries by focusing on smaller, targeted projects and issuing awards less than 90 days after solicitation.
