Growing Peanuts That are as Resilient as They are Delicious

UGA Peanut Innovation Lab Receives $15 Million Federal Grant to Fight World Hunger

In terms of being able to stand up to harsh conditions, peanuts are a tough nut to crack. That’s why so many farmers around the world grow them—the plant adapts to poor soils and produces a crop even in droughts. The benefits don’t stop there. Peanuts are also shelf-stable, nutritious, don’t require expensive fertilizer, and people like to eat them. Smallholder farmers can grow them on modest plots and cook the nuts into traditional dishes or sell the crop for money to send their kids to school.

To leverage the power of this unique crop, the U.S. government partners with the University of Georgia to solve problems faced by farmers. On April 12, 2023, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and UGA announced a five-year extension of their collaborative research and outreach work in peanut innovation.

Image of a professor showing a student the roots of a peanut crop out in the field.

Our mission in CAES is to support the creation of sustainable food systems both here and abroad.
CAES Dean and Director Nick T. Place

Image of men, representing a mix of diversities, walking through a peanut field, looking down at the crops.

The $15 million grant from USAID will allow the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut, which is headquartered in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES), to scale up the findings from previous research and get the technology into farmers’ fields.

“We are so pleased that USAID has chosen to continue their funding of the Peanut Innovation Lab for another five years,” said CAES Dean and Director Nick T. Place. “Our mission in CAES is to support the creation of sustainable food systems both here and abroad—the important work done through this program is a critical part of that mission, and we are excited to see what results come out of the Peanut Innovation Lab during this next funding cycle.”

While UGA has hosted international peanut research for decades, the Peanut Innovation Lab embarked on the most recent round of projects in 2018. The lab has managed two dozen research projects led by UGA scientists as well as researchers at a dozen other U.S. universities, including Virginia Tech, North Carolina State University, Penn State, Texas Tech, University of California-Santa Barbara and others.

Some of the lab’s research involves making stronger peanut plants—varieties that can survive disease or drought. Other studies focus on creating small machines or educational programs to help farmers and processors, designing products to bring the nutritional benefits of peanuts to consumers, or understanding the gender and age dynamics that lead farmers to make the decisions that they do.

Malawi, a small landlocked country in southern Africa, is diversifying its crop production from tobacco, which is in decline, to peanuts. Working with companies, local universities and the Malawian government, the Innovation Lab has helped to build the value chain for peanuts. In 2021, 10,000 farmers received improved seed and science-based training, resulting in higher yield and a better-quality harvest.

Plant diseases continue to pose major problems for farmers around the world, particularly in places where herbicides and pesticides aren’t affordable. Finding genes that make the plant naturally resistant to disease is the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable solution for the farmer. Sometimes it’s the only tool to control a disease.

Researchers in UGA’s Wild Peanut Lab are creating varieties from relatives of the cultivated peanut. Those wild cousins have genetic strengths that the domesticated peanut lost, so by breeding the two and selecting the right offspring, plant breeders can get a variety that has all the traits consumers want, like flavor, with the disease resistance farmers need.

By working with the Peanut Innovation Lab, the Wild Peanut Lab has been able to partner with plant breeders from across Africa to test out varieties made from the wild species.

“The Peanut Innovation Lab has created a solid network of breeders and basic researchers throughout East, West and Southern African countries. With this network, we are able to disseminate information and materials to be tested in these different countries in a systematic way,” said Soraya Leal-Bertioli, who leads the Wild Peanut Lab with her husband, David Bertioli. “We feel that the Wild Peanut Lab’s mission of expanding peanut genetic diversity for food security in Africa is now an attainable goal.”