Spanning 9,200 acres, Ukulima Farm in South Africa’s Limpopo Province is owned by the Nature Conservation Trust (NCT), a South African registered public benefit organization. NCT operations are fully funded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. HGBF partners with leading university and other research organizations to study agriculture in an environment relevant to the developing world context. Research partners at Ukulima include: AriLife Research at Texas A&M University, the Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO) and the University of Missouri. Ukulima provides housing, land, production equipment, lab facilities and irrigation to its farm partners, and is an operating farm. Research includes developing improved seed varieties suited to different African climates and soils; testing conservation-based production practices including no-till, biologically-based nutrient management, and use of legume-based cover crops; and studying different crops grown under center pivot irrigation.
