HR4865-119

What This Bill Does

The Advancing Research on Agricultural Soil Health Act builds a federal soil-carbon measurement and modeling system. Within 270 days, USDA must develop a standardized methodology for directly measuring soil carbon for research and conservation, after reviewing existing methods and consulting producers, socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, soil carbon experts, nonprofits, academic researchers, and diverse agricultural stakeholders. NRCS must provide multilingual digital and analog guidance for voluntary producer measurement, monitoring, and reporting, including for Conservation Innovation Grants, SARE, the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative, AFRI, and other USDA programs. The bill adds measuring, monitoring, reporting, and verifying soil carbon sequestration and emissions to AFRI; expands soil health demonstration trials to include carbon maintenance, greenhouse gas measurement tools, and five-year trials; and directs on-farm soil carbon sequestration projects. It creates a Soil Carbon Inventory and Analysis Network jointly run by NRCS and ARS to inventory, monitor, and analyze soil organic carbon on public and private cropland, rangeland, pastureland, and wetlands, using sample sites, five-year inventories, privacy protections, and partnerships with 1862, 1890, and 1994 land-grant institutions and other expert research entities. USDA must also develop and maintain user-friendly predictive tools, updated at least annually when needed, that estimate how land management and conservation practices affect atmospheric carbon, methane, nitrous oxide, and soil carbon sequestration, with annual congressional reports. Authorized funding includes $2 million per year for measurement methodology and $500,000 per year for predictive models.

Who Benefits and How

Agricultural producers benefit from standardized soil carbon guidance that can be used voluntarily in conservation and research programs. Socially disadvantaged farmers benefit because USDA must consult them and make guidance available in multiple languages and formats. Soil carbon researchers benefit from interoperable measurement protocols, inventory data, sample-site networks, and AFRI eligibility for measurement and verification tools. Land-grant universities benefit from potential partnerships in the soil characteristics inventory and modeling work. Conservation program participants benefit if USDA tools better estimate soil health, resilience, reduced farm inputs, and greenhouse gas outcomes from land practices. Private soil carbon measurement companies benefit from consultation opportunities and possible demand for measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification expertise.

Who Bears the Burden and How

USDA must create methodology, guidance, updates, inventories, sample-site processes, modeling tools, and annual reports. NRCS and ARS administrators must jointly operate the Soil Carbon Inventory and Analysis Network. Agricultural landowners must authorize sample-site measurements before USDA can collect data on their land. EPA and Energy Department experts must consult on modeling tools and interagency data needs. Federal taxpayers bear the cost of the authorized measurement and predictive-model funding.

Key Provisions

• Requires USDA to develop a direct soil carbon measurement methodology within 270 days.
• Provides voluntary multilingual guidance for producers measuring, monitoring, and reporting soil carbon data.
• Expands AFRI and demonstration trials to include soil carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas measurement, and five-year soil health trials.
• Establishes a Soil Carbon Inventory and Analysis Network for cropland, rangeland, pastureland, and wetlands.
• Requires predictive tools for land-management impacts on carbon, methane, nitrous oxide, and soil carbon sequestration, with annual reports.