A Brighter Future for Georgia Farmers
'Greater Yield' drives and applies university ingenuity to benefit agriculture, food production
Georgia farmers and food producers face many challenges – some of which can be solved by researchers at Georgia’s universities.
But these researchers need guidance and early investment to bring their effective inventions to the farm. GRA provides both in a special initiative called Greater Yield to support Georgia’s leading industry, agribusiness.
Greater Yield is an extension of GRA’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship program, a 22-year effort to launch startup companies around discoveries made in Georgia’s university labs. The initiative provides an essential bridge between university researchers and Georgia’s ag and food production industries.
How the Greater Yield Initiative works
As they work to feed the world and provide other essential products, today’s poultry, livestock, dairy and crop farmers in Georgia need innovation more than ever:
- A shortage of available labor has required more efficiencies in operations.
- New technologies are needed to safeguard the health of animals and make crops more resistant to drought and disease.
- The demand for food and other ag products has made it critical to optimize the time and conditions for harvesting, processing and delivery.
University researchers are inventing new technologies to address these and other needs aimed at benefiting Georgia’s ag and food businesses. Through Greater Yield, GRA helps the researchers move from exploration to real-world usage.
This effort involves:
- Identifying and evaluating technologies at the universities
- Providing seed funding (phase 1 and 2 grants, phase 3 loans)
- Monitoring the progress of startup development through milestones
- Delivering a curriculum to faculty and their students related to various steps involved in creating a startup company
- Providing seasoned mentors to newly launched companies and their CEOs
- Sharing knowledge and making connections to potential investors and/or customers
- Staging an annual summit to showcase projects and companies
A history of helping Georgia farmers
Launched in 2020, Greater Yield adds an important dimension to the storied dynamic between Georgia’s universities and farmers/food producers.
The University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and others have long developed tools and processes to advance agriculture in our state. Greater Yield builds on this legacy by engaging more university researchers in the effort and focusing on advanced technology that creates real value.
We also strive to link these researchers with farmers, producers and the ag/food industry to help move technologies out of the lab. More about new university inventions benefiting farmers and food producers >
Measures and metrics
To evaluate the success of the Greater Yield Initiative, GRA:
- Tracks the number of new companies started
- Tracks both venture capital investment and grants to startup companies
- Tracks the creation of jobs in the startups
- Tracks new licensing deals in ag tech between universities and existing Georgia companies
- Assesses the competitive advantage [consider using the word impact; we track more than competitive advantage] provided to growers, processors and other businesses
