The Bezos Earth Fund has announced grants totaling $57 million in support of food systems transformation to address climate change and biodiversity loss.

Awarded as part of a $1 billion commitment to tackle the food system’s impact on climate and nature, grants will help address the way the food systems produce, process, package, ship, consume, and waste, which contributes to one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Commitments include $30 million for efforts to make livestock more sustainable, $16.3 million to protect the Brazilian Amazon by limiting deforestation, $8.3 million to promote climate-smart agricultural practices, and $2.6 million to catalyze food systems transformation. Recipients include Global Methane Hub, which was awarded $5.1 million for the Enteric Methane R&D accelerator to strengthen an ecosystem of research efforts on methane reducing technologies in cattle; CGIAR, which will receive $15.5 million in support of food security, identifying grasses and forages containing methane reducing compounds, and deploying them in high-emitting livestock systems in the Global South; Wageningen University, which was awarded $5 million to establish standard approaches and strategies for a concerted global effort to breed next-generation low-methane cattle; and The Nature Conservancy, which will receive $8 million to work with public- and private-sector actors in Pará, Brazil, to establish a statewide animal-based traceability system.

“We cannot afford for food to be on the sidelines of climate and nature conversations any longer. Food is a victim, problem, and solution in the climate and nature crises, and we must raise its profile in the discussion,” said Bezos Earth Fund president and CEO Andrew Steer. “We applaud countries raising their ambitions, prioritizing food in their climate goals, and urge them to go bigger and bolder. We need to do things differently to feed a growing global population without degrading the planet, and now is the moment for action.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/pixelfusion3d)