FoodShot Global is digging up innovation for soil health as part of its first prize competition

FoodShot Global, a prize platform devoted to transforming the world’s food and agriculture industries, has awarded the first round of prizes for its Innovating Soil 3.0 competition.

Trace Genomics, a startup developing an analytics service for soil health to optimize the use of farmland, has received an undisclosed investment from FoodShot’s investment partner, S2G Ventures.

Additional awards of $250,000 were given to Keith Paustian to speed up the global adaptation of his COMET tool systems, which provide farmers with metrics and information on regenerative farming; and Gerlinde De Deyn, for her work studying biodiversity over time.

A $35,000 award was given to Dorn Cox to support the development of his open-source data project that will look to catalog knowledge around agriculture techniques and distribute that information freely to a global community of farmers.

“I founded FoodShot Global envisioning a new way to harness the power of innovation, capital, and the collaborative spirit of the world’s leading stakeholders to effect change,” said FoodShot Global founder and chairman Victor Friedberg. “We chose to start with soil because any future that imagines 10 billion people eating healthy and sustainably with equal access will require healthy soil. The three people we announced today are all groundbreakers whose inspired work lays the foundation for the next generation of solutions to the urgency we now face as a civilization. I couldn’t be more impressed and inspired by these inaugural FoodShot Global award winners and look forward to sharing what they’re doing with a larger audience.”