The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut is part of U.S. government’s strategy to fight hunger and poverty around the world. In 2016, Congress passed the Global Food Security Act, a law that recognizes it is in this country’s national security interest to promote global food security, resilience, and nutrition.

The law called for a national strategy to combat hunger, and Feed the Future is an integral part of that strategy, bringing together all aspects of American ingenuity to empower farmers in partner countries to produce nutritious food for their people.

Through the Peanut Innovation Lab and approximately two dozen other Innovation Labs, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) utilizes the expertise of top U.S. universities to solve food production, storage, processing and marketing challenges that prevent partner countries from producing enough food. These Innovation Labs aren’t physical buildings, but networks of researchers in the United States and abroad working together to improve food security and reduce poverty in key countries.

Dave Hoisington, who has led the Peanut & Mycotoxin Innovation Lab at UGA since 2013 and holds a joint appointment as senior research professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at UGA, continues as director.