The recently created Center for Global Food Security at Purdue University has announced two grants totaling $10 million in support of its efforts to improve crops for farmers in Ethiopia and Tanzania and to train the next generation of global food security experts in the United States.

The grants include $5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in support of research and the development of programs to combat the parasitic Striga weed, which infests, damages, and destroys sorghum and other major crops in Africa. The four-year, multidisciplinary effort will build on the work of Ethiopian native Gebisa Ejeta, a professor of plant breeding and genetics at Purdue, to further understand the biological interactions between Striga and sorghum. In addition, the center received $5 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to create the U.S. Borlaug Fellows in Global Food Security program, a five-year effort to train U.S. graduate students in food security and global development.

The funding was announced in conjunction with the appointment of Gary Burniske, former director of Mercy Corps' operations in Bogot�, Colombia, as managing director of the center, which will be housed at Discovery Park, home to a cluster of centers leading the university's inter-disciplinary research efforts.

"I envision the center being a catalyst for dramatic improvements in food security by sharing the tremendous wealth of knowledge and innovation generated at Purdue University," said Burniske. "I look forward to working with the Discovery Park team to achieve Purdue's vision as a global leader for solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges we face."