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The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa will lead the new Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Coffee and Cacao, with an initial $8 million obligation for its first year and an agreement that could last up to five years. The multi-institution program will study crop resilience, farm management and processing, but its specific research sites and projects have not been announced.
The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa will lead a new U.S. government-funded research program on coffee and cacao, backed by an initial $8 million obligation for its first year. The U.S. Department of State’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Coffee and Cacao will be co-directed by Clemson University and could operate under an agreement lasting up to five years, creating a new research effort for crops facing disease, drought and other production pressures.
The program is a multi-institution research effort, not a new stand-alone laboratory building. Its work is expected to cover coffee- and cacao-producing regions in the United States, Latin America, Africa and Asia. The announced priorities include breeding varieties with stronger resistance to disease and drought, improving farm management and post-harvest processing, and building research capacity in producing countries.
UH Mānoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience Dean Parwinder Grewal is the program’s principal investigator. Participating coffee-focused organizations include World Coffee Research and the Coffee Quality Institute. The university partners named in the report are UC Davis, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State; Mars, PlantVillage+ and the Synergistic Hawaiʻi Agriculture Council are also participating.
The work is also expected to include economic research to help governments assess where agricultural research investments could have the greatest impact. The State Department announced eight Feed the Future Innovation Labs at U.S. universities on October 15. Other programs in that group address areas including cereals, soil fertility, animal health, peanuts and aquaculture.
Research for Disease and Drought Risks
The program brings federal support to research on two globally traded crops whose production is under pressure from plant disease, drought and climate change. Work on resilient varieties and practical farm methods could matter to producers in Hawaiʻi as well as growers in other producing regions. The program’s stated focus on processing and research capacity also extends beyond crop breeding to how farmers handle harvests and how local institutions can sustain agricultural research.
The funding responds to years of advocacy for greater U.S. public investment in coffee research, but it does not close the broader funding gap identified by the sector. World Coffee Research estimated in a 2023 report that an additional $452 million in annual agricultural research and development funding for a decade would be needed to help maintain global coffee production diversity and quality. That estimate is the organization’s assessment, not the budget for this new program. The first-year $8 million obligation is a distinct federal commitment and should not be read as a solution to the sector-wide shortfall.
For Hawaiʻi, the research has a direct local dimension: the state is the only U.S. state that commercially produces both coffee and cacao. Coffee growers there have faced coffee berry borer and coffee leaf rust, which was first detected in the state in 2020 and later spread statewide. The new program could connect research institutions with producers facing these crop threats, although the projects and locations that will receive work have yet to be specified.
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From Advocacy to Federal Funding
Coffee organizations had pressed for dedicated federal research support for several years. The Synergistic Hawaiʻi Agriculture Council said its administrator, Suzanne Shriner, and World Coffee Research began working with members of Congress in 2020 to make the case for funding focused on coffee and cacao. In 2023, SHAC, WCR, the National Coffee Association and the Hawaiʻi Coffee Association were among the groups supporting federal legislation intended to broaden funding for coffee plant-health research.
The new program also follows disruption to the earlier Feed the Future research structure. Innovation Labs had historically received support through the U.S. Agency for International Development. In 2025, USAID was dismantled under the Trump administration. Before that, the agency had awarded Cornell a five-year, $5.485 million cooperative agreement for a Coffee Improvement Program with WCR; federal award records show $1 million had been obligated before the award was terminated in 2025.
The Hawaiʻi program’s launch through the State Department marks a new federal funding route for this research. Separately, SHAC estimates state coffee production at 20.7 million pounds for the 2025-26 season, down from 23.3 million pounds in 2023-24. The organization says production has declined each year since 2022 and attributes much of the fall to coffee leaf rust.
“The Innovation Lab is designed to transform coffee and cacao science into practical benefits for small farmers in Hawaii, the continental U.S., and around the world.”
— Parwinder Grewal, UH Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience dean and program principal investigator
Sites and Projects Still Pending
The program’s broad priorities and partner institutions have been identified, but specific producing-country research sites and individual projects have not been announced. The available announcement also does not detail how the first-year obligation will be divided among partners, when particular studies will begin, or what measurable outcomes will be used to evaluate the work.
The agreement could run for up to five years, but the source material does not provide a year-by-year funding schedule or confirm the amount of funding beyond the initial first-year obligation. It is also too early to know whether the research will lead to new crop varieties or practices adopted by producers, or how quickly any results might reach farms.
Project Plans and Funding Details
The lab is launching in October 2026, according to the report. As participating institutions develop the program, the next developments to watch are announcements of research locations, project leads and funded work on disease resistance, drought tolerance, farm management and post-harvest processing.
Further information on how the initial $8 million will be allocated, and whether funding will continue in later years of the potential five-year agreement, would clarify the program’s scale. Until those details are released, the confirmed scope is a new federally funded, university-led research partnership with broad international reach rather than a set of fully specified studies.
Key Questions
What is the new Coffee and Cacao Innovation Lab?
It is a multi-institution federal research program led by UH Mānoa and co-directed by Clemson University. It is not a single new laboratory facility.
How much funding has been committed?
The report says the program has an initial $8 million obligation for its first year. The agreement could last up to five years, but a full multi-year funding schedule has not been provided.
What will researchers study?
Priorities include breeding coffee and cacao varieties with greater disease and drought resistance, along with farm management, post-harvest processing, research capacity in producing countries and economic analysis of research investment.
Where will the research take place?
The program is expected to span producing regions in the United States, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Specific country sites and individual projects have not yet been announced.
Why is Hawaiʻi involved?
Hawaiʻi is the only U.S. state that commercially produces both coffee and cacao. Its coffee industry has also faced crop threats including coffee leaf rust and coffee berry borer.
Source: rss
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