Heritable Agriculture, an AI-driven crop improvement company spun out of Google X, has secured a $4.98 million grant from the Gates Foundation to develop a new initiative aimed at accelerating climate-resilient crop development for smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries.
The funding will support the “Joint AI-driven Smallholder Omics aNalytics” (JASON) project, which will integrate artificial intelligence with multiple “omics” technologies and related datasets to identify gene targets and climate-adapted germplasm to help crops withstand rising heat and drought.
Heritable said the effort is designed to build AI-based tools that can translate raw sequence data into actionable insights faster, enabling researchers and product developers to pinpoint functional alleles and generate higher-confidence edit targets. The company expects the approach to shorten traditional breeding and development timelines, a priority as climate volatility intensifies and yield losses mount in regions where farmers often have limited resources to adapt.
The company also framed the grant as validation of its broader mission to apply AI, genomics, and remote sensing across crops, traits, and geographies, with an emphasis on global food security outcomes. The initiative aligns with the foundation’s stated objective of using digital innovation to reduce climate-related yield loss in smallholder agriculture.
In describing the problem JASON intends to tackle, Heritable emphasized the vulnerability of rain-fed smallholder systems to prolonged drought and extreme heat, pointing to cascading impacts such as crop failure, lost income, rising debt burdens, food insecurity, and displacement. By accelerating the identification of resilient genetic traits and integrating multiplex-editing designs into development pipelines, the company aims to deliver improved germplasm to farmers who need it most faster.
Heritable is based in San Carlos, California, and focuses on using advanced genomics, remote sensing, and AI to address challenges in crop development and food security worldwide.
KEY QUOTES
“This project will allow us to stand up a cloud-based AI genomics engine, dramatically accelerating the discovery and deployment of climate-resilient germplasm.”
Tim Beissinger, CTO, Heritable Agriculture
“We anticipate cutting conventional breeding cycle time, transforming raw sequence data into high-confidence edit targets.”
Tim Beissinger, CTO, Heritable Agriculture
“This investment from the Gates Foundation shows strong support for our approach of combining AI, remote sensing, and omics data for global impact.”
“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, all at the same time. I am so proud, and excited, to be working with the Gates Foundation on such an important and impactful project.”
Brad Zamft, CEO, Heritable Agriculture
