Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $444,000 over three years to the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) to support research on optimizing plant protein for use in plant-based meat. This funding is intended to support protein optimization in chickpeas, led by NuCicer, and research into improving corn zein’s functionality for plant-based meat, led by Professor Bruce Hamaker of Purdue University. Both projects were submitted as part of FFAR’s request for proposals, which Open Philanthropy co-funded in April 2020.
This falls within Open Philanthropy's focus area of farm animal welfare. The chickpea portion of this research represents a match of a similar grant from the scientific research program.