U.S. Department of Agriculture — National Institute of Food and Agriculture · General
USDA NIFA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)
USDA's flagship competitive research grant program. Funds fundamental and applied research, education, and extension projects across six AFRI priority areas (plant health, animal health, food safety, sustainable bioenergy, water, childhood obesity prevention).
Whether your institution should pursue this comes down to designation and research scale — not a keyword match. Run your institution and see where you have standing, checked against the rules below.
Program facts
- Typical award
- $150K – $10M
- Non-federal match
- Varies by NOFO
- Eligible entity
- Degree-granting institutions
- Application window
- Annual; deadlines vary by priority area RFA.
- Typical prep time
- 10–18 weeks
- Statutory authority
- Competitive, Special, and Facilities Research Grant Act §2 (7 U.S.C. §3157)
Who is eligible for USDA NIFA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)?
These are the hard rules we check against. If one fails, the program is ineligible — the AI never overrides a rule.
- Institutions of higher education are eligible applicants.
Eligibility broader than IHEs — also includes nonprofit research orgs and federal labs; this entry scopes to the IHE eligibility path. Amounts and timing approximate; verify directly with administering agency.
How Strategic Pursuit scores this program
Run an institution dossier and our AI checks this program against your designations, HERD research scale and federal-share trend, and agency award history — using the same rules, with thresholds tuned to institutional reality. You see where you have defensible standing and where this is a longshot that would burn a limited-submission slot — every designation tied to the law behind it.
The dossier isn't the AI's guesswork — eligibility is decided by the rules, and the numbers come straight from official sources. The answer your reviewer will check line by line.
No credit card. 30-day trial, 3 dossiers, 1 seat.
Related programs
- NSF EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) Track-1 (NSF)$15M – $24M
- NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) (NSF)$400K – $600K
- NSF Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) (NSF)$200K – $3M
- NSF Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) (NSF)$300K – $2.5M
- NSF Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) (NSF)$300K – $2.5M
- NIH Research Project Grant (R01) (NIH)$250K – $500K
Award ranges, match percentages, and windows are approximate.