Mosquito-resistant uniforms for U.S. military personnel and a bio-refinery that turned a city landfill into an “energy park” are two new developments resulting from investments in scientific research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  The USDA Annual Report on Technology Transfer for FY 2015 includes new agriculture-related discoveries, inventions and processes made by USDA researchers, universities and small businesses with the potential for commercial application.

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), USDA, is announcing the I-FAST prize competition to develop and implement the Innovations in Food and Agricultural Science and Technology (I-FAST) program. NIFA will partner with NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) to provide entrepreneurship training to NIFA grantees under this pilot program. The goals are to identify valuable product opportunities that can emerge from NIFA supported academic research. Over six months, the selected teams will learn what it will take to achieve an economic impact with their particular innovation.