In February, the USAID-funded Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was told to shut down, ending 12 years of work developing a global soybean value chain spanning Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and Australia.
SIL director Pete Goldsmith scraped together short-term funding from the university to keep the lab running through April 15, what was expected to be its final day.
As reported in a SIL news release, at the eleventh hour, a $1.02 million donation came through from an anonymous donor via Founders Pledge, a global nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs in high-impact giving. The gift will keep the lab and its core staff operating for another year.
While a long-term federal investment is still needed to restore SIL’s original scope and ensure continuity of research at the university, the extension gives Goldsmith and his team time to finish critical projects and search for sustainable funding.
“We will use the gift to restart our efforts with our partners and clients bringing soybean to the Lower Shire Valley of southern Malawi — diversifying the Lower Shire economy and leveraging recent World Bank irrigation investments,” Goldsmith, an emeritus professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, said in the release.
SIL and local partners had just started laying the foundation for soybean production in this low-elevation, high-heat region, where growing conditions are especially difficult.
“SIL’s efforts were strategically positioned to expedite the registration of new varieties for both rainy-season and dry-season production, an advancement that would mark a significant milestone in Malawian agriculture,” said Bruce Carruthers, who consults for Agricane in southern Malawi. “The cessation of SIL’s involvement would have resulted in a slowdown of variety development and release, ultimately delaying the introduction of improved genetic material into the agricultural sector.”
While the lab’s impact is deeply rooted in African agricultural development, Goldsmith said its reach extends far beyond.
“Africa is the last frontier for soybean. It’s one of the fastest-growing areas and has huge potential. But someone has to go in and de-risk commercial interests. That’s what SIL does,” he said. “We go in and de-risk, build the market and reduce uncertainty so that farmers in trade can follow on. And it’s not just farmers, it’s traders, it’s processors. We’ve been very effective at it. Without us, there’s no plan B.”
