The Berkeley Food Institute Seed Grant Program supports innovative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research projects that are aligned with the mission of BFI: to empower new food and agriculture leaders with capacities to cultivate diverse, just, resilient, and healthy food systems. Grant recipients are engaged in critical, cross-functional research projects at UC Berkeley and beyond. 

Between 2013 and 2016, BFI provided more than $336,000 in funding through 13 faculty research seed grants including 57 principal investigators and 49 collaborators. Read a summary of those research projects here. During those first three years, BFI focused funding on smaller seed grants to support innovative ideas across a range of issues. 

The Seed Grant Program returned for the 2021-22 funding cycle and offered two tiers of funding: research grants capped at $100,000, and collaboration grants capped at $10,000. BFI gave preference to proposals that examine at least one of two cross-cutting urgent themes: adaptation to climate change and agri-food systems inequality. 

BFI is not currently accepting grant applications for the Seed Grant Program.

Past recipients of the BFI Seed Grant Program are listed below. 

2022

• The Implications of Cultivation Systems and Climates on Pathogen Diversity and Coffee Resilience
• Upena of Pilina: Revitalizing Connections Between Kānaka ‘Ōiwi Food Systems and Arthropods
• Building Effective Partnerships for Safe and Effective Biodigesters

2016

• Gender Dynamics and SNAP Enrollment
• Rethinking School Lunch in Oakland

2015

• The Berkeley Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax
• Engaging Indigenous Farmworkers in Promoting Occupational Health and Safety
• Fostering Food Security, Biocultural Diversity, and Health
• Home and Harvest
• Improved Farm Labor Conditions
• The Millet Project

2014

• An Agroecological Survey of Urban Farms
• Building an Evidence Base for SNAP Policy
• Making the Road by Mapping
• Reaping Without Sowing
• The Subminimum Wage