Heritable Agriculture Inc., an AI-driven crop improvement company spun out of Google X, has secured a $4.98 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop climate-resilient crops for smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where climate shocks are increasingly threatening food production.
The funding will support the Joint AI-driven Smallholder Omics aNalytics (JASON) project, an initiative that combines artificial intelligence with advanced “omics” technologies—such as genomics—and remote sensing to accelerate the discovery of crop traits that improve tolerance to drought and heat.
The project aims to deliver practical tools that can identify climate-adapted germplasm and high-confidence gene targets, cutting the time it takes to move from discovery to deployable crops.
Heritable says the project aligns closely with the Gates Foundation’s strategy of using digital innovation to reduce climate-related yield losses in smallholder agriculture, a sector that remains highly exposed to erratic weather patterns.
“This project will allow us to stand up a cloud-based AI genomics engine, dramatically accelerating the discovery and deployment of climate-resilient germplasm,” said Tim Beissinger, Chief Technology Officer at Heritable Agriculture. “We anticipate cutting conventional breeding cycle time, transforming raw sequence data into high-confidence edit targets.”
Climate pressure on smallholder farmers
Smallholder farmers in LMICs produce up to 80% of the food consumed locally, yet many rely almost entirely on rain-fed agriculture and have limited access to irrigation, crop insurance, or improved seed varieties. As climate change intensifies, prolonged droughts and rising temperatures are pushing crops beyond their physiological limits.
Drought often results in total crop failure, wiping out household food reserves and eliminating income. Extreme heat, meanwhile, reduces yields, weakens plant health, and increases vulnerability to pests and diseases.
Together, these pressures deepen food insecurity, contribute to malnutrition, and force households into cycles of debt and poverty. In some regions, repeated climate shocks are also driving displacement and eroding decades of development gains.
Against this backdrop, the urgency for faster development of climate-resilient crops has never been greater. Conventional breeding methods can take many years to deliver new varieties—time that many farming communities no longer have.
AI meets crop genomics
Heritable Agriculture’s approach seeks to compress this timeline by using artificial intelligence to analyze vast datasets drawn from both ancient and modern crop genomes. By integrating omics data with environmental and remote sensing information, the company’s AI genomics engine can predict which genes and alleles are most likely to confer resilience under stress conditions such as drought and heat.
The JASON project will establish a cloud-based AI platform capable of mining these datasets at scale. The system is designed to transform raw sequence data into actionable insights, identifying functional gene targets and feeding multiplex-editing designs directly into product development pipelines.
This process, Heritable says, could significantly reduce the path from gene discovery to farmer-ready germplasm—an acceleration that is critical for regions already experiencing severe climate impacts.
“This investment from the Gates Foundation shows strong support for our approach of combining AI, remote sensing, and omics data for global impact,” said Brad Zamft, CEO of Heritable Agriculture. “A project like JASON represents over a decade of hard work from our team members shaping and sculpting a vision of an agricultural company that serves the global community, does good for the world, and builds a scalable business at the same time.”
From innovation to impact
Beyond validating Heritable’s technical capabilities, the grant underscores growing confidence in AI-enabled approaches to agricultural development. Digital tools are increasingly seen as a way to leapfrog traditional constraints, especially in LMICs where resources for long breeding programs are limited but the need for rapid solutions is acute.
By focusing on crops and traits relevant to smallholder farmers, the JASON project aims to deliver tangible benefits where they are most needed. Climate-resilient germplasm could help stabilize yields, protect household incomes, and improve food availability even as weather patterns become more unpredictable.
Heritable emphasizes that accelerating breeding cycles is not just a technical achievement but a social imperative. Faster deployment of resilient crops could help farmers withstand climatic shocks, reduce reliance on emergency aid, and build more sustainable livelihoods.
Project highlights
Key components of the JASON project include:
- AI genomics engine: Establishing a cloud-based platform to mine ancient and modern crop genomes at scale.
- Accelerated breeding: Predicting functional alleles and integrating multiplex-editing designs into product development, significantly reducing the timeline for gene discovery and deployment.
As climate risks continue to mount across Africa and other vulnerable regions, initiatives like JASON point to a future where data-driven innovation plays a central role in safeguarding food systems.
With support from the Gates Foundation, Heritable Agriculture is positioning its AI-powered platform as a catalyst for delivering the next generation of climate-ready crops to the farmers who need them most.
