Three agri-food projects in Northern Ireland have been awarded £750,000 of new funding from the Department of Agriculture.
The new funding will support collaborative projects that have been successful under the US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership Programme Agricultural Call 2017.
The three projects include 'Improved Animal Husbandry through Inhibition of Microbial Bile Salt Hydrolase', by Queen’s University Belfast in partnership with University College Cork and University of Tennessee.
'Targeted genome editing to enhance genetic resistance to Mycobacterium bovis infection in domestic cattle populations', by Queen’s University Belfast in partnership with University College Cork and Acceligen/Recombinetics, Inc.
'Development and validation of an on-farm, electronic disease diagnosis platform for cattle', by Queen’s University Belfast in partnership with University College Cork and Georgia Institute of Technology.
Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture (DAERA) has been working in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) in the Republic of Ireland and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify opportunities to co-fund research in areas of shared strategic priority.
The collaboration hopes to expedite solutions to some of the global challenges and opportunities facing agriculture, and will boost local research and expertise to meet the needs of Northern Ireland’s agri-food sector.
The new funding for local scientists, technologists and advisers will play a part in helping farmers face the challenges of an increasingly competitive agri-food and forestry sectors, according to DAERA.
The department is currently on target to meet its objective of identifying 11 new collaborative research projects, contracting at least 11 new postdoctoral scientists based in NI research organisations by December 2018.
