About

Why the Minor Use Foundation Matters

The Minor Use Foundation works to address the market failure that exists for specialty crops. Specialty crops—such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, and spices— are high-value agricultural products that play a vital role in enhancing food security through improved dietary diversity, nutrition, and economic resilience. There is no market-based incentive to register crop protection solutions for these crops but they are crucial to solving food security challenges and hold enormous value in global trade.

The FAO estimates the global value of specialty crops at $517 billion annually, and they face up to 40% yield losses from pests and diseases.

The Foundation’s mission is simple: generate residue data and support regulators to unlock access to modern crop protection tools for specialty crops—boosting yields, safeguarding trade, and advancing sustainable agriculture.

Importance of Specialty Crops

Specialty crops are essential to nutrition security, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity. They are often high-value crops that have cultural importance, or are important for trade and economic growth in developing countries. They are also often overlooked in agriculture since they represent less of a percentage of total tonnage and acreage. The Minor Use Foundation serves specialty crop growers around the world, providing technical assistance and helping set standards that allow them to access international markets.

Learn how Minor Use Foundation projects are creating positive change for growers of nutritious fruits, vegetables, nuts, and spices by watching our Impact Stories video series.

Strategic Plan 2025-2028

Annual Report

About the Minor Use Foundation

The Minor Use Foundation (MUF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with the goals to refine and implement processes for generating global, regional or national residue data to establish Codex Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) (and/or other national MRLs). This will be achieved via collaborative data generation projects, through engagement with global stakeholders including specialty crop growers, grower groups, governments, universities, non-profit and for-profit organizations. The MUF will establish research priorities and coordinate and educate stakeholders, policy makers, legislators and the public on the value and need of technology for minor uses in specialty crops and solicit support necessary to conduct programs. In addition, the Foundation will sponsor the Global Minor Use Summit meetings, facilitate the Global Minor Use Priority Setting meetings, and coordinate with partners to ensure that data generation, JMPR submissions, and CODEX MRL activities are optimized. The MUF works very closely with the IR-4 Project in the United States, United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS), the Canadian Government’s Pest Management Centre, and other stakeholders to accomplish the goals and objectives associated with the Foundation.

• If you would like to learn more about MUF’s research programs, visit our Programs area.
• If you would like to learn more about ongoing MUF’s collaborations, visit our Partners section.
• Learn more about the benefits of the Foundation’s work through our Impact Stories.