Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut

Hand with peanut seeds

Improving food security through peanuts

About Us

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut works with scientists in the U.S. and four target countries – Senegal, Ghana, Uganda and Malawi – to advance resilient new varieties, value chain improvements, nutrition and the lives of women and youth.

A rich source of protein and fiber, peanuts or groundnuts are a major part of the diet in much of the world. Working with scientists, students, farmers and private sector players across Africa, the Peanut Innovation Lab is making this major food source plentiful and safe.

Building on work that sequenced the peanut genome in 2019, the lab includes portfolio of variety development projects that are finding the genetic diversity of cultivated peanut in Africa and the U.S. and using wild relatives of peanut to add resistance to disease and climate shocks. This knowledge enables African peanut breeders to integrate desirable traits into improved varieties.

On the farm, researchers are testing solutions directly with growers, from improved varieties to better production practices and post-harvest technologies. Nutrition research is documenting how consuming peanut may improve cognition and the microbiome in a person’s gut. 

In special projects and across the entire portfolio of projects, the innovation lab is working to better understand the roles women and youth play in the peanut value chain, so that these groups are empowered and adapt the technologies that come from research.