Key Takeaways
- The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR), Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and Environmental Defense Fund have launched the Resilient Agriculture Finance and Insurance Research Collaborative.
- The initiative aims to develop science-backed finance and insurance solutions that help U.S. farmers adopt resilient practices and manage climate-related risks.
- A request for proposals will open in early 2026; an interactive webinar for interested researchers is scheduled for December 11, 2025 at 2 p.m. ET.
- Research priorities include financing resilient practices, aligning agricultural insurance with climate outcomes, and evaluating how resilience influences farmland and mortgage markets.
- FFAR emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and industry partners to produce actionable insights for U.S. agriculture.
Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research Backs New Collaborative for Resilience-Focused Finance and Insurance
The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR), together with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), has announced the launch of the Resilient Agriculture Finance and Insurance Research Collaborative. The initiative is designed to support the development of innovative financial and insurance tools that strengthen the resilience of U.S. farmers and ranchers facing increasingly volatile weather and economic conditions.
A formal request for proposals will open in early 2026. Ahead of this, researchers are encouraged to register for an interactive webinar on December 11, 2025, to connect with potential collaborators and learn more about the research framework.
Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research Highlights Need for Resilience-Focused Finance Tools
The collaborative will support research that integrates soil health, water-use efficiency, and risk reduction into agricultural finance and insurance systems. Vincent Gauthier, Senior Manager for Climate-Smart Agriculture at EDF, emphasized the urgency of this work:
“U.S. farmers are facing increasingly challenging weather and economic conditions… This critical research collaborative will help shape financing and insurance solutions that enable farmers to invest in practices that boost their resilience and access the coverage they need to support this transition.”
FFAR Outlines Key Priorities for the Research Collaborative
The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research notes that the initiative focuses on three priority areas:
- Financing the Transition to Resilient Practices: Assessing the returns and risk profiles of resilience-focused approaches to inform lending frameworks.
- Aligning Practices With Risk and Insurance Outcomes: Understanding how soil health, water management, and other resilient practices affect yield stability and insurance performance.
- Valuing Resilience in Land and Mortgage Markets: Examining how resilient practices influence farmland value, collateral strength, and long-term loan repayment capacity.
These research areas aim to provide actionable, evidence-based insights that lenders, insurers, and policymakers can adopt.
Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research Emphasizes Cross-Sector Collaboration
Collaboration between researchers and practitioners is central to the initiative’s success. “We are looking for collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches to develop actionable science-backed financial solutions that work for U.S. farmers and ranchers,” said Allison Thomson, Scientific Program Director for Sustaining Vibrant Agroecosystems.
Alan Martinez of Cornell Atkinson added that this collaborative model represents a new approach:
“This effort is about doing research differently. We’re bringing researchers and industry leaders together… essential to moving research to impact.”
The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research notes that further details on funding opportunities will be published on the Cornell Atkinson website leading up to the 2026 RFP. The partners expect the Research Collaborative to play a key role in accelerating financial and insurance innovations that support climate resilience and long-term sustainability across U.S. agriculture.
