Compeer Financial, a Mankato-based farm-credit cooperative, has announced a $1 million commitment to the University of Minnesota’s Hormel Institute in Austin to fund research into the relationship between food and human diseases such as cancer.

The gift will establish the Farm to Wellness Research Fund and enable the institute to study the connections between agriculture, nutrition, and human health outcomes. The fund aims to help improve the health and well-being of communities across the Midwest and beyond, with particular interest in the underserved rural communities where Compeer operates. In addition, the commitment will establish a research laboratory—to be named for Compeer in recognition of the gift—and help the institute attract additional partners.

“[This gift continues Compeer’s] faithful, generous support and vision supporting research that is so critical and underfunded,” said Hormel Institute assistant director for faculty affairs Leena Hilakivi-Clarke. “The first research project done with these funds will determine how soy foods and milk consumption in adolescent girls will cut later breast cancer risk by up to 50 percent.”

The funding was directed from Compeer’s Agriculture and Rural Initiative, a donor-advised fund that supports the company’s corporate giving program, which has supported research at Hormel since 2012.

“When I first came across the Hormel Institute and its research on foods that can prevent and control cancer, the strong connection between our organizations and what we could achieve was clear,” said Compeer chief mission officer John Monson. “Thanks to our member-owners, we can now support the important work of the Hormel Institute’s food scientists in a major way.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Alex Raths)