ReferenceA map, a dataset, or a directory. It makes no recommendation.
Funders & Commissioners of Research
This page maps the bodies that fund or commission the research the rest of the directory runs on: federal competitive programs, federal in-house capacity, producer checkoffs, state programs, foundations, industry money, and development funders. Every entry is a pointer to the research directory that already describes the funder in its subject, filed here by the door a reader would knock on.
The shape, before the roster. Money reaches gluten-free brewing science by riding inside crop, breeding, food-science, and health grants. Across nineteen directories we have found one US public funder whose scope is brewing itself, one producer board that has contracted gluten-free malt work, and no funder anywhere whose object is gluten-free malting as a field. That is the finding this page exists to make checkable.
Start by what you need
The door decides the instrument, and the instrument decides who can knock. A federal intramural body (ARS, FGIS) takes cooperative agreements, not applications; a competitive program (AFRI, NSF) takes a university proposal with a principal investigator; SBIR takes a small business; SARE takes a producer; a checkoff takes a contract or an RFP response; a state program takes a state nexus; a foundation takes an invitation or a program call. Find your door on the roster before you write anything.
If you brew or malt commercially, the realistic routes are SBIR for research and development, Value-Added Producer Grants for the malting step, and a checkoff contract where your grain has a board; the sorghum feasibility contract on this page is the documented precedent. Help and Resources is the site's route map.
If you grow, SARE producer grants fund the on-farm trial, and your state checkoff is your board; the growers page carries the bodies you already belong to. Growers
If you are at a university, AFRI and the Pennsylvania program are the two funders on this page whose published scope reaches malting and brewing research; the researchers page carries the groups who have won from them. Researchers
If you brew at home, the money on this page goes to universities and producers; the practitioner routes (crowdfunded science, micro-grants, extension) are on the homebrew research page, with the one closed door named so nobody wastes an application on it. Homebrew and home malting
If you are a funder reading this, the open questions specified well enough to fund are on Research Asks, and the field's gaps by subject are on the Coverage Map.
The rules every directory runs on, what an entry is, what a listing means, and who owns a person, are on one page: How the directories work. Corrections and removals: contact us.
| Name | What | Category | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDA NIFA — AFRI | The federal competitive agricultural research program whose plant-products, food-science, and food-safety priority areas reach… | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-09-07 |
| USDA NIFA — SBIR/STTR | The small-business route: Phase I research and development awards for a brewery, malthouse, or kit developer rather than a… | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-09-07 |
| USDA SARE | NIFA-funded regional programs whose Producer Grants fund on-farm trials at a scale a grower or a home maltster could use,… | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-09-07 |
| USDA Value-Added Producer Grants | Planning and working-capital funding for producers adding value to a raw commodity; | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-09-07 |
| USDA NIFA: the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative and AFRI Sustainable Agricultural Systems | Two programs behind the buckwheat projects on this site. | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-10-17 |
| National Science Foundation | Basic-science federal money traceably in maize genetics, teff domestication genomics (through DBI-2213983, the Water and Life… | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-09-07 |
| US Department of Energy — Biological and Environmental Research | Funds sorghum genomics and bioenergy-crop research, including the Danforth Center's sorghum programs. | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-09-07 |
| National Institutes of Health, via NIDDK | The federal funder whose portfolio covers celiac disease research; | The roster · Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) | 2026-09-07 |
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | Not a grant-maker: USDA's intramural arm, doing research in its own laboratories. | The roster · Federal in-house capacity (cooperative agreements, not grant applications) | 2026-09-07 |
| USDA FGIS | Federally maintained grain inspection infrastructure, public capacity a brewery uses without owning it. | The roster · Federal in-house capacity (cooperative agreements, not grant applications) | 2026-09-07 |
| FDA | Funds the CFSAN research that documented why gluten measurement fails in fermented products, the agency paying for the science… | The roster · Federal in-house capacity (cooperative agreements, not grant applications) | 2026-09-07 |
| USDA NIFA capacity funds (Hatch and multistate research) | Formula money to land-grant experiment stations rather than competitive awards: the documented line behind UNL's proso millet… | The roster · Federal in-house capacity (cooperative agreements, not grant applications) | 2026-10-17 |
| United Sorghum Checkoff Program | The national producer-funded sorghum board: research, market development, new uses. | The roster · Producer checkoffs and boards (contracts and RFPs; grower dollars) | 2026-09-07 |
| Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission and Texas Sorghum | The state producer bodies funding sorghum research and promotion in the two largest sorghum states. | The roster · Producer checkoffs and boards (contracts and RFPs; grower dollars) | 2026-09-07 |
| The rice boards | Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi checkoffs, the Rice Foundation, and the USA Rice Federation: the… | The roster · Producer checkoffs and boards (contracts and RFPs; grower dollars) | 2026-09-07 |
| The corn checkoff network | The National Corn Growers Association and the state boards (Iowa, Missouri, Illinois documented here): the deepest… | The roster · Producer checkoffs and boards (contracts and RFPs; grower dollars) | 2026-09-07 |
| Montana Wheat and Barley Committee | The state checkoff that published the Montana State koji-malt research under its own "Your Checkoff Dollars at Work" banner,… | The roster · Producer checkoffs and boards (contracts and RFPs; grower dollars) | 2026-09-07 |
| Pennsylvania Malt and Brewed Beverage Industry Promotion Program | The one US public funder in this directory whose scope is brewing itself rather than a crop: up to $1M a year for promotion,… | The roster · State programs | 2026-09-07 |
| Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station | The state station behind the $150,000, three-year Reno award to malt and brew sorghum, the one funded gluten-free malting… | The roster · State programs | 2026-09-07 |
| Arkansas Research Alliance | Its 2025 bonus Impact Grant of $20,250 went to Scott Lafontaine at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station for… | The roster · State programs | 2026-10-17 |
| Missouri Agricultural and Small Business Development Authority | Value-added and development finance in Bard's home state. | The roster · State programs | 2026-09-07 |
| McKnight Foundation — Collaborative Crop Research Program | The one US foundation documented behind four of this family's grains: tef grants since the 1990s, Fonio I and II, and BYU's… | The roster · Foundations and philanthropy (by invitation or program call) | 2026-09-07 |
| Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | The Hy-Gain sorghum program (concluded 30 June 2026, per its site), the $4.9M Danforth teff gene-editing grant, and CIMMYT's… | The roster · Foundations and philanthropy (by invitation or program call) | 2026-09-07 |
| Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture | The field's one long-horizon private funder of teff: the Tef Improvement Project continuously since 2006, most recently with a… | The roster · Foundations and philanthropy (by invitation or program call) | 2026-09-07 |
| Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research | Non-profit co-funder of public-private agricultural research, with traceable maize money at Iowa State and Cornell. | The roster · Foundations and philanthropy (by invitation or program call) | 2026-09-07 |
| The Carlsberg Foundation | The brewing world's oldest research funder: a fixed 8% of its annual grants goes to the laboratory that brewed the 100% fonio… | The roster · Foundations and philanthropy (by invitation or program call) | 2026-09-07 |
| Brewers Association | Industry research grants aimed at beer rather than at a crop, the rarest kind of money in this directory. | The roster · Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) | 2026-09-07 |
| ASBC Foundation | The society's funding arm: method development and graduate scholarships, the route by which an academic version of this site's… | The roster · Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) | 2026-09-07 |
| The enzyme majors' own R&D | Novonesis, dsm-firmenich, and IFF development programs, industry money answering industry questions; | The roster · Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) | 2026-09-07 |
| Suntory Global Spirits and the Scotch industry | A $5M founding gift built the largest US academic distilling research capacity; | The roster · Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) | 2026-09-07 |
| The Birkett Mills | The buckwheat miller credited in trade coverage with financing variety development in the Koto era: the family's clearest case… | The roster · Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) | 2026-09-07 |
| Anheuser-Busch Foundation | The brewer's foundation, whose money traceably reaches rice brewing research at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station:… | The roster · Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) | 2026-10-17 |
| Perry Brothers Seed | Otis, Colorado. Colorado State University thanks the company for "their generous funding of this research" on its proso millet… | The roster · Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) | 2026-10-17 |
| Beyond Celiac and the Celiac Disease Foundation research programs | Patient organizations that fund and promote research rather than only supporting patients, the funding route closest to the… | The roster · Patient-side research money | 2026-09-07 |
| Gluten Intolerance Group | Parent of GFCO; the patient organization whose certification program funds the scheme, and which publishes primary laboratory… | The roster · Patient-side research money | 2026-09-07 |
| USAID — Feed the Future | The funder of the Sorghum and Millet Innovation Lab at K-State, whose cooperative agreement, "Sorghum and Millet Research… | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-10-17 |
| European Union framework programs | Horizon 2020 in fonio (EWA-BELT) and the pseudocereals (PROTEIN2FOOD, €8.8M behind quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat), and… | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-09-07 |
| Australian Research Council and NHMRC | The Australian public funders behind the University of Queensland proteomics group (Schulz), which carries ARC and NHMRC… | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-08-26 |
| CNPq, CAPES and FAPERGS (Brazil) | Brazil's national research council, its graduate-training agency, and Rio Grande do Sul's state research foundation. | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-10-17 |
| GRDC — Grains Research and Development Corporation | Australia's grower-and-government grains investor, behind the national sorghum pre-breeding program and the Queensland quality… | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-09-07 |
| The Japanese national programs | JSPS KAKENHI, the single most frequent funder in koji-mould science; | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-09-07 |
| Mexico City's science secretariat | Public science money reaching corn brewing in the crop's homeland, the pigmented-corn beers research; | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-09-07 |
| Fondo Semilla | Argentina. A national seed fund for early-stage ventures; | The roster · Development and international funders | 2026-10-14 |
| The AFRI request-for-applications cycle | NIFA's annual competitive program, the calendar that sets when university proposals on these grains can be written. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The SARE regional councils | Four regional programs, each with its own administrative council and producer-grant window. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The USDA SBIR/STTR program | The small-business cycle, with its own phases and technical-assistance add-on. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The Sorghum Checkoff research RFP | The producer board's request-for-proposals cycle, paused for 2026 pending evaluation. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The Pennsylvania program's application window | The state's annual call for malt and brewed-beverage promotion and research. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The Brewers Association research grants | The industry body's annual research and service grants. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The ASBC Foundation and MBAA scholarship cycles | The two brewing societies' funding windows for graduate work and technical training. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The Collaborative Crop Research Program | McKnight's program structure, through which the tef and fonio grants ran with their partner networks. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| FFAR's public-private matching model | The foundation's mechanism: public money released against industry match. | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The FAO international years | Quinoa's 2013 year and the 2023 International Year of Millets, the UN platforms that turned attention into funding for four of… | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-09-07 |
| The Sorghum and Millet Innovation Lab | The K-State lab whose USAID cooperative agreement ran from 2013 to July 21, 2023, per USAspending: the pooled vehicle through… | Bodies & gatherings | 2026-10-17 |
The roster — who pays, by the door they answer43 entries
— Federal competitive programs (grants; a university or a small business applies) —
USDA NIFA — AFRI. The federal competitive agricultural research program whose plant-products, food-science, and food-safety priority areas reach every grain and every wing on this site; the standing route above the individual awards. Subjects: sorghum, millet, rice, buckwheat, quinoa and amaranth, teff, homebrew and home malting · Verified 2026-09-07; subjects added 2026-10-17
USDA NIFA — SBIR/STTR. The small-business route: Phase I research and development awards for a brewery, malthouse, or kit developer rather than a university. Subjects: homebrew and home malting, testing and certification · Verified 2026-09-07
USDA SARE. NIFA-funded regional programs whose Producer Grants fund on-farm trials at a scale a grower or a home maltster could use, including value-added products, and a 2026 Northeast trial of millet and buckwheat varieties for gluten-free flour (SARE ONE26-469). Subjects: homebrew and home malting, buckwheat, millet, distilling, koji and grown enzymes, process and equipment, traditional fermentation, yeast and fermentation · Verified 2026-09-07; subjects added 2026-10-17
USDA Value-Added Producer Grants. Planning and working-capital funding for producers adding value to a raw commodity; malting your own grain is the program's own definition of value added. Subject: homebrew and home malting · Verified 2026-09-07
USDA NIFA: the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative and AFRI Sustainable Agricultural Systems. Two programs behind the buckwheat projects on this site. OREI funds Washington State's "More Bang for your Buckwheat" (award 2024-51300-43049, $3.3M, September 2024 to August 2028), and AFRI Sustainable Agricultural Systems funds the $10M Soil to Society project (award 2021-68012-35955, September 2021 to August 31, 2027 on the award record), which names buckwheat and quinoa among its six target crops. Subjects: buckwheat, quinoa and amaranth · OREI award record · Soil to Society award record · Verified 2026-10-17
National Science Foundation. Basic-science federal money traceably in maize genetics, teff domestication genomics (through DBI-2213983, the Water and Life Interface Institute award on desiccation tolerance that the teff studies acknowledge, not a teff-specific grant), the pseudocereal marker work, and an I-Corps award on sorghum (2637103). Subjects: corn, teff, quinoa and amaranth, sorghum · NSF DBI-2213983 · Verified 2026-09-07; WALII and sorghum added 2026-10-17
US Department of Energy — Biological and Environmental Research. Funds sorghum genomics and bioenergy-crop research, including the Danforth Center's sorghum programs. Subject: sorghum · Verified 2026-09-07
National Institutes of Health, via NIDDK. The federal funder whose portfolio covers celiac disease research; the antibody methods the testing wing runs on originate in clinical immunology. Through South Carolina's INBRE network (NIH 5P20GM103499) it also supported the Coastal Carolina millet fermentation and volatiles study (2026), per that paper's deposited funder record, beside Coastal Carolina University's Department of Chemistry and Gupta College of Science. Subjects: celiac and health, testing and certification, flavor and sensory, yeast and fermentation, millet · the millet study · Verified 2026-09-07; INBRE added 2026-10-17
— Federal in-house capacity (cooperative agreements, not grant applications) —
USDA Agricultural Research Service. Not a grant-maker: USDA's intramural arm, doing research in its own laboratories. On this site it is the Madison micro-malting program behind the published screening, the Grain Quality unit on sorghum, the New Orleans sensory unit, and the NRRL culture collection. Subjects: sorghum, flavor and sensory, koji and grown enzymes · Verified 2026-09-07
USDA FGIS. Federally maintained grain inspection infrastructure, public capacity a brewery uses without owning it. Subject: testing and certification · our FGIS page · Verified 2026-09-07
FDA. Funds the CFSAN research that documented why gluten measurement fails in fermented products, the agency paying for the science that complicates its own rule. Subject: testing and certification · Verified 2026-09-07
USDA NIFA capacity funds (Hatch and multistate research). Formula money to land-grant experiment stations rather than competitive awards: the documented line behind UNL's proso millet breeding, the Hatch projects named on the Penn State gluten-free brewing papers (PEN04522, PEN04624, PEN04650, PEN04831, per their deposited funder records), and the NE9 multistate genebank project (October 2018 to September 2023, listed as inactive) under which buckwheat accessions were conserved. Subjects: millet, internal enzymes, buckwheat · Penn State, Beverages 2021 · NE9 on NIMSS · Verified 2026-10-17 for the Penn State and NE9 records; the millet line carries its own date
— Producer checkoffs and boards (contracts and RFPs; grower dollars) —
United Sorghum Checkoff Program. The national producer-funded sorghum board: research, market development, new uses. Its research RFP is paused for 2026 pending evaluation. Disclosure: in 2021 the Checkoff contracted Bard's Brewing, the company this site's founder ran, for a $24,970 feasibility study piloting specialty sorghum malt; the one company award this site can document. Subjects: sorghum, process and equipment · Verified 2026-09-07
Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission and Texas Sorghum. The state producer bodies funding sorghum research and promotion in the two largest sorghum states. Subject: sorghum · Verified 2026-09-07
The rice boards. Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi checkoffs, the Rice Foundation, and the USA Rice Federation: the richest producer-funding apparatus of any gluten-free grain, funding the Arkansas malting evaluations and none of it yet aimed at malting as a program. Subjects: rice, koji and grown enzymes · Verified 2026-09-07
The corn checkoff network. The National Corn Growers Association and the state boards (Iowa, Missouri, Illinois documented here): the deepest producer-funding apparatus in American agriculture, with, as far as we have found, not one dollar aimed at malting or brewing. Subject: corn · Verified 2026-09-07
Montana Wheat and Barley Committee. The state checkoff that published the Montana State koji-malt research under its own "Your Checkoff Dollars at Work" banner, associating itself with the only US academic koji program we have found. The published paper's deposited funders are Brazil's CNPq and CAPES, so the banner is an association rather than a funding statement we can trace. Subject: koji and grown enzymes · the paper · Verified 2026-09-07; funder record added 2026-10-17
— State programs —
Pennsylvania Malt and Brewed Beverage Industry Promotion Program. The one US public funder in this directory whose scope is brewing itself rather than a crop: up to $1M a year for promotion, marketing, and research strengthening Pennsylvania's malt and brewed-beverage industries, and the funder of the Penn State unmalted-grain work. Subjects: internal enzymes, process and equipment, millet · Verified 2026-09-07
Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station. The state station behind the $150,000, three-year Reno award to malt and brew sorghum, the one funded gluten-free malting study on a US campus. Disclosure: this site's founder wrote a letter of support on the USDA proposal that funded the wider Reno program (DR-0073). Subjects: traditional fermentation, homebrew and home malting · Verified 2026-09-07
Arkansas Research Alliance. Its 2025 bonus Impact Grant of $20,250 went to Scott Lafontaine at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station for "Optimizing Rice Extract for Brewing Efficiency and Economic Growth in Arkansas," with the Anheuser-Busch Foundation as industry partner. Subject: rice · AAES, 2025 · Verified 2026-10-17
Missouri Agricultural and Small Business Development Authority. Value-added and development finance in Bard's home state. Subject: sorghum · Verified 2026-09-07
— Foundations and philanthropy (by invitation or program call) —
McKnight Foundation — Collaborative Crop Research Program. The one US foundation documented behind four of this family's grains: tef grants since the 1990s, Fonio I and II, and BYU's quinoa and amaranth genomics. Subjects: teff, fonio, quinoa and amaranth · Verified 2026-09-07
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Hy-Gain sorghum program (concluded 30 June 2026, per its site), the $4.9M Danforth teff gene-editing grant, and CIMMYT's drought-tolerant maize: the same foundation at three points of the family. Subjects: sorghum, teff, corn · Hy-Gain · Verified 2026-09-07; Hy-Gain status 2026-10-17
Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. The field's one long-horizon private funder of teff: the Tef Improvement Project continuously since 2006, most recently with a further 2.75 million Swiss francs. Subject: teff · Verified 2026-09-07
Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research. Non-profit co-funder of public-private agricultural research, with traceable maize money at Iowa State and Cornell. Subjects: sorghum, corn · Verified 2026-09-07
The Carlsberg Foundation. The brewing world's oldest research funder: a fixed 8% of its annual grants goes to the laboratory that brewed the 100% fonio beer. Subjects: external enzymes, fonio · Verified 2026-09-07
— Industry and society money (aimed at beer, rare here) —
Brewers Association. Industry research grants aimed at beer rather than at a crop, the rarest kind of money in this directory. Subjects: yeast and fermentation, flavor and sensory · Verified 2026-09-07
ASBC Foundation. The society's funding arm: method development and graduate scholarships, the route by which an academic version of this site's open questions gets a person paid to work on them. Subjects: testing and certification, flavor and sensory · Verified 2026-09-07
The enzyme majors' own R&D. Novonesis, dsm-firmenich, and IFF development programs, industry money answering industry questions; the largest of them is foundation-anchored through the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Subject: external enzymes · Verified 2026-09-07
Suntory Global Spirits and the Scotch industry. A $5M founding gift built the largest US academic distilling research capacity; Heriot-Watt's centre records substantial support from the brewing and distilling industries. Subject: distilling · Verified 2026-09-07
The Birkett Mills. The buckwheat miller credited in trade coverage with financing variety development in the Koto era: the family's clearest case of a grain's own industry paying for its science. Subject: buckwheat · Verified 2026-09-07
Anheuser-Busch Foundation. The brewer's foundation, whose money traceably reaches rice brewing research at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station: $130,000 donated to station researchers in 2026, including projects on the shelf stability of rice formats in lager and on how agricultural practices shape rice quality for value-added uses, brewing included; it was also the industry partner on a 2025 Arkansas Research Alliance grant. Neither announcement mentions malting. Subject: rice · AAES, 2026 · Verified 2026-10-17
Perry Brothers Seed. Otis, Colorado. Colorado State University thanks the company for "their generous funding of this research" on its proso millet variety trials at Akron, Colorado and Sidney, Nebraska; it is the one private funder the trial page names. Subject: millet · CSU proso millet testing · Verified 2026-10-17
— Patient-side research money —
Beyond Celiac and the Celiac Disease Foundation research programs. Patient organizations that fund and promote research rather than only supporting patients, the funding route closest to the people the 20 ppm threshold exists to protect. Subjects: celiac and health, testing and certification · patient organizations · Verified 2026-09-07
Gluten Intolerance Group. Parent of GFCO; the patient organization whose certification program funds the scheme, and which publishes primary laboratory research. Subject: testing and certification · Verified 2026-09-07
— Development and international funders —
USAID — Feed the Future. The funder of the Sorghum and Millet Innovation Lab at K-State, whose cooperative agreement, "Sorghum and Millet Research Program" (AID-OAA-A-13-00047), ran from July 23, 2013 to July 21, 2023, with $27,698,175 obligated per USAspending; the lab's site now presents the work as the Global Collaboration on Sorghum and Millet, and we have not confirmed the current funding behind it. The fonio directory also records a West Africa Trade & Investment Hub co-investment in the Yolélé–Mali Shi fonio chain; its status after USAID's 2025 restructuring is unconfirmed. Subjects: millet, sorghum, fonio · USAspending award record · Verified 2026-10-17
European Union framework programs. Horizon 2020 in fonio (EWA-BELT) and the pseudocereals (PROTEIN2FOOD, €8.8M behind quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat), and thirteen EU-funded projects in the Cork program that anchors the enzyme wings. Subjects: fonio, quinoa and amaranth, internal enzymes · Verified 2026-09-07
Australian Research Council and NHMRC. The Australian public funders behind the University of Queensland proteomics group (Schulz), which carries ARC and NHMRC support and whose 2023 work identified the α-glucosidase shaping sorghum wort fermentability. Subjects: internal enzymes, flavor and sensory, yeast and fermentation · the group · Verified 2026-08-26 (carried from the subject pages)
CNPq, CAPES and FAPERGS (Brazil). Brazil's national research council, its graduate-training agency, and Rio Grande do Sul's state research foundation. They fund the Porto Alegre (UFRGS) work applying enzymes across brewing stages and measuring residual gluten (CNPq 405418/2021-3; FAPERGS 21/2551-0002270-1 and 22/2551-0000397-4), and, per the paper's deposited funder record, the Montana State barley-koji study (CNPq 141486/2018-0; CAPES 001 and 88887.572582/2020-00). Subjects: external enzymes, koji and grown enzymes · UFRGS study (PMC) · MSU koji paper · Verified 2026-10-17
GRDC — Grains Research and Development Corporation. Australia's grower-and-government grains investor, behind the national sorghum pre-breeding program and the Queensland quality work adjacent to the proteomics. Subjects: sorghum, internal enzymes · Verified 2026-09-07
The Japanese national programs. JSPS KAKENHI, the single most frequent funder in koji-mould science; JST's ERATO; NEDO. Subject: koji and grown enzymes · Verified 2026-09-07
Mexico City's science secretariat. Public science money reaching corn brewing in the crop's homeland, the pigmented-corn beers research; the sorghum-koji studies were likewise funded from Mexico rather than by the US sorghum industry. Subjects: corn, koji and grown enzymes · Verified 2026-09-07
Fondo Semilla. Argentina. A national seed fund for early-stage ventures; per a 2022 Argentine government profile, its 2019 award let Ovunque Maltería commission the design of its equipment and run the laboratory trials that developed its malting protocols for gluten-free grains. Government profile, 2022 · Maltsters · Verified 2026-10-14
Bodies & gatherings — the programs and cycles a funder runs through11 entries
P2 test: would someone in this role convene it, sit on it, or set its terms? A funder's bodies are its own program cycles and the platforms that pool money.
The AFRI request-for-applications cycle. NIFA's annual competitive program, the calendar that sets when university proposals on these grains can be written. AFRI · Verified 2026-09-07
The SARE regional councils. Four regional programs, each with its own administrative council and producer-grant window. SARE grants · Verified 2026-09-07
The USDA SBIR/STTR program. The small-business cycle, with its own phases and technical-assistance add-on. SBIR/STTR · Verified 2026-09-07
The Sorghum Checkoff research RFP. The producer board's request-for-proposals cycle, paused for 2026 pending evaluation. Research page · Verified 2026-09-07
The Pennsylvania program's application window. The state's annual call for malt and brewed-beverage promotion and research. Program page · Verified 2026-09-07
The Brewers Association research grants. The industry body's annual research and service grants. Research grants · Verified 2026-09-07
The ASBC Foundation and MBAA scholarship cycles. The two brewing societies' funding windows for graduate work and technical training. ASBC · MBAA scholarships · Verified 2026-09-07
The Collaborative Crop Research Program. McKnight's program structure, through which the tef and fonio grants ran with their partner networks. CCRP · Verified 2026-09-07
FFAR's public-private matching model. The foundation's mechanism: public money released against industry match. FFAR · Verified 2026-09-07
The FAO international years. Quinoa's 2013 year and the 2023 International Year of Millets, the UN platforms that turned attention into funding for four of this family's grains. FAO millets · Verified 2026-09-07
The Sorghum and Millet Innovation Lab. The K-State lab whose USAID cooperative agreement ran from 2013 to July 21, 2023, per USAspending: the pooled vehicle through which development money reached US-led sorghum and millet research. Its site now presents the work as the Global Collaboration on Sorghum and Millet. The lab · USAspending award record · Verified 2026-10-17
How this role connects — role to role
Seeded from the research directories' edges, written role to role, each with its evidence link.
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Funders and researchers: the money reaches the field by riding inside other grants. No funder on this page names gluten-free malt enzyme development as its object; the enzyme work at Cork, Queensland, and Penn State rode inside malting, breeding, and food-science awards. Internal enzymes · Researchers
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Funders and growers: the checkoff is the grower's own money, and it funds the grower's own questions. Sorghum, rice, and corn boards fund agronomy and markets; none has funded malting as a program, and millet, buckwheat, teff, and fonio have no board at all. Growers · Millet
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Funders and researchers: brewer money now reaches a gluten-free grain's brewing science directly. The Anheuser-Busch Foundation funded Arkansas rice projects on rice quality and performance in brewing in 2026, and was the industry partner on a 2025 Arkansas Research Alliance grant to optimize rice extract for brewing; neither announcement mentions malting. AAES, 2026 · Rice · Researchers
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Funders and maltsters: the value-added instruments exist and nobody here has applied. VAPG and SBIR fit a malthouse's shape exactly; the homebrew research page records the routes and the absence of applicants. Maltsters · Homebrew and home malting
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Funders and maltsters abroad: seed money can pay for a malthouse's method. Per Argentina's national government, the gluten-free maltery Ovunque used a 2019 Fondo Semilla award to commission the design of its equipment and to run the laboratory tests behind its malting protocols. Argentina.gob.ar, 2022 · Maltsters
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Funders and brewers: the only money aimed at beer comes from beer. The Brewers Association and the ASBC Foundation fund beer questions; every public funder funds a crop, and one state program funds an industry. Brewers · Flavor and sensory
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Funders and breeders: the outer-ring grains are funded for breeding and almost never for malting. Syngenta, Gates, and McKnight money built teff's genomes and varieties; the malting science those varieties would need has no sponsor we have found, and, as of 2026-10-17, the only funded malting work on any of these grains we have found is incidental to its funders' scope: a Sicilian regional project behind the 2023 CREA malting screen that included teff, and one 2026 Chinese bench study on quinoa. Breeders · Teff
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Funders and labs: the decisive testing finding was paid for in-house, abroad. CSIRO's mass spectrometry established ELISA's suppression problem; FDA's own CFSAN work documented why the measurement fails in fermented food. Labs and certifiers · Testing and certification
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Funders and patient organizations: the patient side funds research directly and certification indirectly. Beyond Celiac and the Celiac Disease Foundation run research programs; GIG's certification fees fund the scheme brewers are judged by. Patient organizations · Celiac and health
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Funders and suppliers: the enzyme industry funds its own science, and the biggest player is a foundation's. Three majors run development programs; the largest is controlled by the Novo Nordisk Foundation; the Carlsberg Foundation funds the laboratory that brewed the fonio beer. Suppliers · External enzymes
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Funders and homebrewers: the money goes to universities and producers, not practitioners. The homebrew page's documented routes for a practitioner are crowdfunding, micro-grants, and extension precedent, not any program on this roster. Homebrewers and home maltsters
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Funders and this site: two disclosures. Bard's held a Sorghum Checkoff feasibility contract, and this site's founder supported the USDA proposal behind the Reno program; both are stated where the site cites that work (DR-0073). Sorghum
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Funders and the producing countries: policy funded the biggest conversion program in history. Nigeria's 1988 barley import ban forced two brewers to fund sorghum conversion research; South Africa's CSIR funded the assays the whole field inherited. Traditional fermentation
Who's missing — the honest gaps
No funder of gluten-free malting as a field. Every program above funds a crop, a disease, an industry, or a process class; none names gluten-free malt or its enzyme development as its object. The claim is tested against this roster, and it holds.
One brewing-scoped US public funder, in one state. Pennsylvania's program is the only public money on this page whose scope is brewing itself. A brewery or maltster outside Pennsylvania has no public program aimed at its work.
No producer board for four of the eight grains. Millet, buckwheat, teff, and fonio have no checkoff; their research leans on federal and foundation money and on associations that market rather than fund.
The outer ring is funded for everything except malting, with two incidental exceptions. Teff, fonio, quinoa, and amaranth carry breeding, genomics, processing, and market-access funders. As of 2026-10-17 the only malting money we have found touching them is incidental to its scope: a Sicilian regional project funded the 2023 CREA multi-grain malting screen that included teff, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China supported a 2026 bench study that malted and brewed four quinoas (quinoa and amaranth). We have found no sponsor of fonio or amaranth malting research.
This page's own limit. It lists funders the research directories documented while mapping their subjects; it is not a search of every program that could fund this work. A funder missing here is a gap in our reading first. Tell us.
Corrections and removals: contact us. Entries publish without prior notice; requests are acted on when they arrive.
Page established 2026-09-07 from funder entries this site already holds across the research directories (C5 of the 2026-09-03 discovery run; DR-0084) · updated 2026-10-17.