Sustainable Agriculture Research Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Sustainable Agriculture Research Act amends USDA's Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority, or AGARDA. It adds a definition of precision agriculture: managing, tracking, or reducing crop or livestock inputs such as seed, feed, fertilizer, chemicals, water, and time at a higher level of spatial and temporal detail to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and maintain environmental quality.
The bill also adds a new AGARDA goal for sustainable agriculture and voluntary resilience solutions. The new goal covers agricultural technologies that may address extreme weather effects on crop production, drought and soil water-holding capacity on crop and rangelands, long-term carbon storage through sustainable agriculture, sustainable energy including conventional and advanced biofuels, voluntary adoption of conservation practices that sequester carbon and build on-farm climate resilience, and voluntary adoption of precision agriculture technology.
Who Benefits and How
Sustainable agriculture researchers benefit because the bill makes resilience technology a specific AGARDA goal. Precision agriculture technology companies benefit because their tools are included in the statutory definition and goal. Farmers and ranchers interested in voluntary conservation, drought resilience, soil carbon storage, biofuels, and input efficiency may benefit from future research and technology development. Universities and agricultural research institutions benefit from clearer statutory support for these research areas.
Who Bears the Burden and How
USDA AGARDA administrators must incorporate the new sustainable-agriculture and precision-agriculture goals into research priorities. Grant reviewers and program managers must evaluate projects across a broader list of resilience and technology topics. Federal agricultural research funds may shift toward these priorities and away from competing research areas.
Key Provisions
- Adds a statutory definition of precision agriculture to AGARDA.
- Expands AGARDA goals to include sustainable agriculture and voluntary resilience solutions.
- Directs research attention to extreme weather, drought, soil water capacity, carbon storage, sustainable energy, biofuels, conservation practices, and precision agriculture.
- Provides statutory support for voluntary adoption of conservation and precision-agriculture technologies.
- Requires USDA research administrators to account for the new resilience and sustainability goal.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Adds precision agriculture definitions and a sustainable-agriculture resilience goal to USDA's Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority, covering extreme weather, drought, soil water capacity, carbon storage, sustainable energy, conservation practices, and precision agriculture technology.
Key Policy Areas
Agricultural Research, Sustainable Agriculture, Precision Agriculture, Climate Resilience, USDA
Primary Purpose
Adds precision agriculture definitions and a sustainable-agriculture resilience goal to USDA's Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority, covering extreme weather, drought, soil water capacity, carbon storage, sustainable energy, conservation practices, and precision agriculture technology.
Policy Domains
Section 2 AGARDA sustainable agriculture and precision agriculture goal
Identified Gains
- Sustainable agriculture researchers
- Precision agriculture technology companies
- Universities conducting agricultural research
- Farmers adopting voluntary conservation practices
- Biofuel technology developers
Identified Costs
- USDA AGARDA administrators
- Agricultural research grant reviewers
- Federal agricultural research budget accounts
Sponsors
Joe Neguse
D-CO | Primary Sponsor
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the Subcommittee on Conservation, Research, and Biotechnology.
Mr. Neguse (for himself and Mr. Flood) introduced the following …
Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.
Introduced in House
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Agricultural research grant reviewers, Sustainable agriculture researchers
Positive-direction: Sustainable agriculture researchers
Negative-direction: Agricultural research grant reviewers
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "agarda"
- → USDA Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority
- "researchers"
- → Agricultural researchers and technology developers
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
Managing, tracking, or reducing crop or livestock production inputs at heightened spatial and temporal granularity to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and maintain environmental quality.
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology