Climate change is already impacting agriculture and forestry production in the U.S. However, these sectors also hold the key to adaptation and mitigation. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is at the forefront of addressing these challenges and developing solutions. Understanding the implications of climate change in agriculture and forestry is crucial for our nation to forge ahead with effective strategies and outcomes, ensuring our food and shelter resources remain secure.

Currently, the atmosphere contains more key greenhouse gasses (nitrous oxides, carbon dioxide, methane) than ever in history thanks to human activities. Industrial, agricultural, and deforestation practices add to the abundance of these critical gasses that are warming our planet. This has become more noticeable through more frequent severe weather and natural disasters with record heat waves, droughts, tornadoes, and rainfall. In 2023, global climate records of temperatures were broken and hit the highest in the last 174 years. Ocean temperatures are reaching record levels, along with major melts in ice sheets. All these changes will affect forestry and agriculture in profound ways. Crop damaging insects and diseases, along with other stresses caused by extreme changes, will also have cascading effects.

Adjustments or adaptations in response to climate change have progressed globally, with planning and implementation across multiple sectors and regions. While much attention is being paid to reforestation and reducing deforestation, gaps still exist and will need continued attention and financial input to address current and future challenges. Agriculture and forestry are two sectors worth exploring as they can open up climate adaptation and mitigation solutions that have positive cascading benefits across regions.

Challenges in the Agriculture and Forestry Sector

Agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions through several activities, such as burning crop residues, soil management and fertilization, animal manure management, and rice cultivation. In addition, agriculture requires significant amounts of energy for vehicles, tractors, harvest, and irrigation equipment. Agriculture involves complex systems that include inputs of fertilizers and chemicals, management decisions, social factors, and interactions between climate and soil.

Most agriculture operations need fertilizers to produce goods, but the management and specific use of fertilizers need further focus. According to the Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, agriculture contributes 9.4% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Agriculture is particularly vulnerable to climate change because many operations are exposed to climatic changes in the natural landscape. There has been widespread economic damage in agriculture due to climate change. Individuals and farms have been affected by flooding, tornadoes, extreme wildfires, droughts, and excessive rains. Loss of property and income, human health, and food security is real for agriculture producers. Adverse impacts will continue to be felt in agricultural systems, particularly in crop production, water availability, animal health, and pests and diseases.

Forestry is a major industry in the U.S. and plays a key role in regulating the climate by transferring carbon within ecosystems and the atmosphere^.. Forests remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and store it in trees and soils. Forestry has seen a decline in the last few decades due to development and cropland expansion. The decline in forestry acres affects essential services such as air purification, regulating water quantity and quality, wood products for shelter, outdoor recreation, medicines, and wildlife habitat. Many Indigenous people and Tribal Nations depend on forest ecosystems for food, timber, culture, and traditions. Effective forest management is crucial for human well-being and is influenced by social and economic factors.

Land cover types and distribution of the United States. Forest lands have decreased in the last two decades. (Source: Fifth National Climate Assessment)

Forests are affected by climate change on local or regional levels based on climate conditions such as rainfall and temperature. The West has been significantly affected, with higher temperatures and drought leading to more wildfires. Higher temperatures come with higher evaporation rates, leading to drier forests that are susceptible to fires. The greater amount of dry wood causes extensive fires that burn more intensely. Fire activity is projected to increase with further warming and less rain. Since 1990, these extensive fires have produced greater greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Other regions of the country with forests that typically receive more rain, like the southeast and northeast, are challenging to predict fire hazards. Other climate change effects include insects, diseases, and invasive species, which change forest ecosystems’ growth, death, and regeneration. Various degrees of disruption can impact a forest’s dynamics.

Current Adaptation Approaches in Agriculture and Forestry

Since agriculture’s largest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is agriculture soil management, emphasis is being placed on reducing emissions from this process. Farmers are tilling less and using cover crops to keep the ground covered, which helps soils perform the important function of carbon storage. These techniques can also help lower soil temperatures and conserve moisture. In addition, those working in the agriculture sector are taking measures to adapt to the changing climate by developing crops that can withstand higher temperatures and water stress. Ecosystem-based solutions such as wetland restoration to reduce flooding have also been effective. Another potential solution is agroforestry, in which trees are planted, and other agricultural products are grown between the trees or livestock is grazed within a forestry system. This system provides shade to the animals and enhances biodiversity. It protects water bodies by keeping the soil covered with vegetation throughout the year. The perennial vegetation also stores carbon in above-ground vegetation and below-ground roots.

In the forestry space, land managers and owners are developing plans to adapt to climate challenges by building adaptations in key areas such as relationships and connections of land stewardship, research teamwork, and education curriculum. Several guides, assessments, and frameworks have been designed to help private forest owners, Tribal lands, and federally managed forests. Tribal adaptation plans also include Tribal values and cultural considerations for forests. The coasts will be adapting to more frequent flooding, and relocation of recreation areas in vulnerable areas is being planned. In major forestry production areas in the West, forestry agencies are developing plans for prescribed burning to keep dead wood lower, eliminate invasive species, and enable fire-adapted ecosystems to thrive, all while reducing severe wildfires. Thinning forests and fuel removal also help with reducing wildfire risk.      

While both sectors have made progress in quickly adjusting their practices, much more needs to be done to ensure that land managers and affected communities are better prepared for both the short-term and long-term effects of climate change. The federal government, through USDA, can drive adaptation efforts to help these communities.

Current Policy

The USDA created the Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan in response to Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, which requires all federal agencies to develop climate adaptation plans in all public service aspects, including management, operations, missions, and programs. 

The adaptation plan focuses on key threats to agriculture and forestry, such as:

• Outreach and education to promote the adoption and application of climate-smart strategies;
• Investments in soil and forest health to build resilience across landscapes;
• Building access to climate data at regional and local scales for USDA and stakeholders and leveraging USDA Climate Hubs to support USDA in delivering adaptation science, technology, and tools; and
• Increasing support and research for climate-smart practices and technologies to help producers and land managers.

Many USDA agencies have developed actions to address the impacts of climate change in different mission areas of USDA. These adaptation plans provide information for farmers, ranchers, forest owners, rural communities, trade and foreign affairs on ways to address the impact of climate change that affects them the most. For example, farm and ranch managers can use COMET Farm, a user-friendly online tool co-developed by Colorado State University and USDA that helps compare land management practices and account for carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

USDA has invested $3.1 billion in Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, encompassing 141 projects that involve small and underserved producers. The diverse projects are matched financially with non-federal funds and include over 20 tribal projects, 100 universities, including 30 minority-serving institutions, and others. The goals of the federal and private sector funding include:

• Developing markets and promote climate-smart commodities;
• Piloting cost-effective and innovative methods for understanding, monitoring, and reporting greenhouse gas emissions; and
• Providing technical and financial assistance to producers to implement climate-smart production practices such as reduced tillage and cover crops. 

The USDA Forest Service has also developed its own Climate Adaptation Plan that comprehensively incorporates climate adaptation into its mission and operations. The Forest Service has cultivated partnerships with the Northwest Climate Hub, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, University of Washington, and the Climate Impacts Group to develop tools and data to help with decision-making, evaluations, and developing plans for implementation. One notable example is the Sustainability and Climate website, which provides information on adaptation, vulnerability assessments, carbon, and other aspects of land management. 

Conclusion

While sustained government incentives can help drive adaptation efforts, it is important for everyone to play a role in adapting to climate change, especially in the agriculture and forestry sectors. Purchasing products that are grown sustainably and in climate-smart ways will help protect natural resources and support these communities. Understanding the significance of resilience against climate changes and disruptions is crucial, both in the short and long term. These challenges require collaborators to work together to creatively solve problems in addressing greenhouse gas contributions. Climate models can help solve complex problems and test different scenarios and solutions. As the Fifth National Climate Assessment of the United States notes, greenhouse gas concentrations are increasing, global warming is on the rise, and climate change is currently happening. The choices we make now can have a significant impact on our future.

The Federation of American Scientists values diversity of thought and believes that a range of perspectives — informed by evidence — is essential for discourse on scientific and societal issues. Contributors allow us to foster a broader and more inclusive conversation. We encourage constructive discussion around the topics we care about.

On May 1, 2023, a devastating dust storm  – the result of severe wind erosion –  propelled soil across highway I-55, causing numerous accidents, injuries, and loss of life. The factors that led to this erosion event were excessive tillage, exposed soils, and windy conditions. In response, the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation published an article proposing a “Soil Health Act,” to improve conservation agriculture policy.  

Most erosion is a direct result of human activities, such as leaving the soil bare for extended periods and excessive tillage in agricultural fields. Extreme weather events exacerbate soil erosion, with large wind erosion events damaging crops and causing air pollution in nearby communities. Water erosion can strip productive topsoil from cropland, reducing crop productivity and depositing sediment in water bodies. The Fifth National Climate Assessment further confirms that extreme weather is on the rise.

The United States boasts some of the most productive soils globally, particularly in the Midwest region, known as the corn belt. This vast expanse of farmland, which drains into the Mississippi River and eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico, is a crucial part of our country’s agricultural landscape. However, this network of soil and water, while offering significant benefits, also poses significant challenges if not properly cared for.

Map of U.S. major agriculture cropland areas in dark green. These regions also have highly productive soils. The Midwest soils of Iowa, southern Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, southern Wisconsin, and Ohio are globally significant breadbasket soils. (Source: National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017).

Wind erosion in the left photo is active in many regions of the country, leading to poor soil conditions for agricultural production. Water erosion takes productive topsoil and applied fertilizers and chemical products used off cropland as it heads toward streams. (Source: Jodie McVane (left) and Rodale Institute (right))

Fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and other products can enter water sources through two primary pathways: soil and chemical losses. Chemical losses can contaminate groundwater by moving down through the soil profile. Contaminated groundwater flows into private and public water supply wells , with many wells having high nitrate levels from commercial fertilizers and animal applications of manure. Nitrates can pose health risks to infants, cause toxic anemia, and how red blood cells deliver oxygen to the cells and tissues. In adults, reproductive health issues and certain cancers are also possible. And it’s not just nitrates: Atrazine, a common chemical used to control weeds, is found in many drinking wells across the U.S.

When soil erodes it takes nitrates, atrazine, and other contaminants away from land surfaces and into surface waterways, leading to water quality problems and soil sediment pollution. Many land managers try to avoid creating runoff, but agricultural practices leaving soils exposed with no plant residues and erosive storms make this a common occurrence. Soil erosion impacts can also be experienced as sedimentation and murky waters in recreational water bodies, roads covered with mud, and dirty snow covered with wind-blown soils, all of which affect everyday life and are undesirable for fish and plants. The lack of soil protection during the non-crop growing season in the U.S. has caused soil erosion and degradation of precious resources, diminishing the ability to grow food, fiber, and wood and provide clean water. Thus, erosion affects long-term production and economic viability for farms.

Protecting Our Soils Through Conservation Agriculture

Fortunately, we can find solutions through conservation agriculture–a system of farming practices, which includes cover crops and reduced tillage, that protects soil and prevents both soil and chemical losses. Growing plants year-round can address soil loss by keeping the soil covered with plants known as cover crops like corn, soybean, and cotton. Others, like grasses, legumes, and forbs can be grown for seasonal cover. Reduced tillage from cover crops can be beneficial in several different ways:

They control erosion, build healthy soils, and improve water quality. Cover crops planted during these periods can scavenge unused fertilizers from the previous crop and prevent nutrients from reaching surface and groundwater systems. Reducing tillage or switching to no-till cropping systems can also increase soil structure and aid in water infiltration, helping water get into the soil instead of running off.

When soils have many soil organisms with a favorable habitat, they can break down chemical pollutants effectively before reaching groundwater. Cover crops can also play a vital role in absorbing nitrates or other contaminants. Studies have shown that cover crops can reduce nitrates by 48% before they reach subsurface waters. Reduced tillage can provide habitats for these organisms by reducing soil disturbance. 

Cover crops capture sunlight and use plants’ photosynthetic processes to capture carbon in plant shoots and root systems. Much carbon is stored in our soils through plant roots. When the plants die, their roots remain in the soil, keeping the carbon sequestered. Excessive tillage breaks soil structure and releases carbon. Reduced tillage and no-till cropping systems allow soils to better maintain their carbon content.

Diverse cover crop species can be mixed, which leads to the diversification of plant roots and above-ground biomass. Furthermore, diversity above ground also means diversity below ground for soil organisms. Grasses can also be utilized alone to effectively suppress weeds and protect against erosion. Cover crops can capture carbon and increase carbon storage in soils, so planting cover crops yearly is important. (Source: Jodie McVane)

Federal and State Government Incentives to Expand Conservation Agricultural Practices     

Overall, cover crop use is low in the United States and varies depending on established social norms, soils, climate, primary crops, outreach programs, and conservation technical assistance. According to the USDA Economic Research Service, cover crop use increased from 3.4% of U.S. cropland in 2012 to 5.1% in 2017. The increase is positive, but millions of cropland acres can still benefit from applying cover crops and reduced tillage. While the use of conservation agriculture is an individual land manager’s choice and overall cover crop remains low, the USDA report notes that there has been some progress and positive trends. Continued incentives from both federal and state governments will be crucial to encourage wide adoption of conservation agricultural practices. 

Many USDA programs provide cost-sharing incentives to farmers who voluntarily encourage using cover crops, reducing tillage, planting grasslands, and diversifying crop rotations. The Farm Bill provides funding to assist farmers through the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) programs, such as the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). In addition to the Farm Bill, the Inflation Reduction Act provided additional funds to USDA-NRCS through these same programs to promote Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry Mitigation activities. The Inflation Reduction Act makes nearly $20 billion additional dollars available over five years for these programs. Current federal policy allows these programs to fund conservation practices for 3-5 years on a typical farm. Some states are also leading in incentivizing land managers to apply cover crops. States providing monetary incentives include Maryland, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia.

A mix of cover crops of grasses and broadleaves in the fall after a corn crop in the Midwest. (left photo) A cereal ryegrass cover crop holds the soil in place with fibrous root systems and protects the soil surface from water or wind erosion while suppressing weeds. (right photo) (Source: Jodie McVane)

Current Gaps and Proposed Policies

We will need lasting policies and sustainable funding  to ensure the long-term adoption of conservation agricultural practices. Current voluntary conservation programs only provide funding for a 5-year period, which does not guarantee that farmers will permanently transition to conservation agriculture practices.

The federal government should incentivize the adoption of soil health practices and conservation agriculture widely across the United States in three ways:     

Fund organizations that can provide educational events for farmers, consultants, policy groups, and consumers. These organizations are valuable and promote farmer-led education and peer-to-peer mentoring. Farmers enjoy learning from other farmers along with research experts.

Reward farmers who adopt conservation agriculture systems by providing long-term payments for continued use of conservation practices. Farmers who adopt these practices would benefit from their ecosystem services, such as building soil carbon, improving water quality, maintaining stable soil structure, and increasing water infiltration, which could significantly impact the health of our cropland acres.

Provide a reduction-based premium discount in the Federal Crop Insurance program for agricultural commodity producers that use risk-reduction farming practices, including cover crops. A discount on the insurance premium can have a lasting effect and provide a continued financial incentive to perform conservation on farms. 

Soil is the foundation of our national health, providing food, homes, fibers, and the structural foundations for everyday life. Soils filter water for clean drinking, safe fishing, and other recreational activities, enabling our farms, factories, homes, schools, universities, and state and federal governments to access clean water; the widespread adoption of conservation agricultural practices to protect soils is key to ensuring food security for current and future generations in the United States. Healthy soils can protect not only our national treasure but also our national security and ability to care for our citizens. 

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Imagine driving around the country and seeing continuous vegetation growing, protecting soils, capturing carbon, and protecting our water resources. It would be a different landscape in our nation and, over the years, could improve the culture of agriculture.

The Federation of American Scientists values diversity of thought and believes that a range of perspectives — informed by evidence — is essential for discourse on scientific and societal issues. Contributors allow us to foster a broader and more inclusive conversation. We encourage constructive discussion around the topics we care about.

Innovations in agriculture will play an increasingly important role in America’s quest to ensure resilient and sustainable production of food, medicine, and bioenergy products. Biotechnology, spurred by advances such as cheap sequencing, offers a realm of possibilities for novel agricultural inputs, such as more targeted pesticides that are less toxic and less likely to cause tolerance, less carbon-intensive alternatives to fertilizers, and more climate-resilient crop varieties. 

However, research and development of new agricultural biotech products can be expensive and time-consuming, due to the large physical scale and long timelines of field trials. At the same time, federal funding for agriculture research has historically paled in comparison to funding for defense, energy, and human health. For example, in 2022, the NIH’s R&D budget was more than 16 times that of the USDA’s. 

The Biden administration has demonstrated its recognition of the need to accelerate research and development in agricultural biotechnology, featuring it prominently in 2022’s Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy. Additionally, a bill to expand authorization of funding for a moonshot USDA research grant program, AgARDA (Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority), has broad bipartisan support. At the same time, there has been a commensurate increase in private funding. 

While this multi-front surge in enthusiasm and investment is welcome, many challenges remain in translating money, ideas, and laboratory results to the field and the market, including communication between the various stakeholders in agricultural biotechnology R&D. To better understand industry priorities and potential barriers to progress, we spoke to members of the executive team of Fall Line Capital (FLC), a venture capital (VC) and private equity firm that invests in food/agriculture startups. Fall Line’s investments include new biopesticides (Greenlight, Micropep), functional microbes (Pluton, Wild Microbes), and new equipment (Guardian Agriculture, Rantizo, LUMO), in addition to managing a farmland portfolio. As lifelong farmers as well as agriculture technology (agtech) investors, Clay Mitchell and Scott Day offer a multifaceted perspective on the current landscape.

We then outline actions for government actors that can address the challenges identified in our interview, in three key areas: regulatory oversight, federal R&D funding, and bioliteracy.

Q: What can the U.S. government do to provide a supportive landscape for new agricultural biotechnology?

Fall Line Capital: I think the biggest hurdles are regulatory. If the government wants to be truly supportive and innovative, it should be working to revamp the convoluted regulatory environment. The current system wasn’t designed to handle all the new technology being developed with novel mechanisms of action, so hurdles to creating and commercializing stifle innovation even more than they did in the past. 

Looking at new technology like RNA– and micropeptide-based pesticides, it’s been a difficult process to get those products registered, even though they should be embraced: compared to conventional pesticides, they have the potential to be highly specific to the target organism and minimally toxic to non-target organisms. During GreenLight’s discussions with the EPA to register their RNAi biopesticide for tackling invasive potato beetles, the EPA seemed to understand that this sort of technology is the future, but movement through the registration approval process was slow nevertheless; the application sat there for five 5 years. There were dozens of other biological pesticide product applications, and the EPA had to give every application the same level of scrutiny, even if many were obviously ineffective. There’s pressure to register more biological products as a prominent alternative to traditional chemical products, despite generally low efficacy. This clutters up the process, and the EPA was already short-staffed after extensive attrition during COVID. 

A substantial amount of the innovation is coming from small companies like Greenlight that don’t have the resources (which many of the large incumbent ag companies have) to navigate the current registration programs and protocols, which are spread across multiple agencies involved in regulating biotechnology: the USDA, EPA, and FDA. There needs to be a new concierge resource beyond what the Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation currently provides, that could direct you to the right office, the right registration process, as well as appropriate funding opportunities and legal resources.

Q: What do you think are currently the most pressing challenges in agriculture?

FLC: Pest resistance continues to be a very serious concern in agriculture, so new and effective control measures need to be continually developed for all pests: weeds, insects, disease. There are two major pests of concern for my own farm in Western Canada. First, herbicide-resistant kochia weed, which has become a huge problem in the last five years all across the world. No one’s sure how exactly it spread so quickly. Second, flea beetles are decimating cruciferous crops. RNAi-based insecticides could be very effective here, if we can achieve sufficient persistence of the insecticide and avoid impacting non-target species.

In terms of challenges to agriculture-based businesses, there’s a lack of funding right now for getting tech to market. Funding for agtech from VC firms fell last year, as it did for most forms of tech. This was  following a very strong period of agtech funding for the previous two years, during which we saw over-investment in several sectors, such as alternative meat and indoor farming. At the same time, agtech companies typically have long timelines to product launch and need more funding than just one VC can provide. Right now, many companies who come to Fall Line for money are just looking for short-term “bridge funding” so they can make payroll and buy time until they can demonstrate enough progress to raise a successful “series” round with good valuation and favorable investment terms. And no one is going public right now.

Q: What are common knowledge gaps for agtech startups regarding farmers’ needs?

FLC: Agtech startups are often centered around a great idea or technology that’s looking for a problem to solve — but it’s hard for a specific technology to meet the needs of a variable problem. Farmers’ needs and priorities (e.g. pests, nutrients, etc.) are incredibly diverse, varying dramatically by crop and location, even from one field to the next on the same farm, or even within the same field. Today, it is very hard to get an accurate understanding of what is needed or desired at the farm level because there is no easy way to connect with growers on a broad scale. Farm papers have diminished in popularity just like mainstream papers, radio has diminished as well. Unless you have the email address or cell phone number of a farmer, it is hard to connect directly with them now, and most farmers don’t like doing surveys of any type anyway — and those that do aren’t that representative of the industry. I think this is why most types of polls are becoming less accurate as it is increasingly more difficult to get a representative sample of opinions. 

Farmers can be hesitant to adopt new technologies, since the risk can be high. And once they’ve been burned once by a product that failed to work as advertised, they’re unlikely to be willing to trust that company, or even that type of product, in the future. For example, last year, North Dakota State University scientists coordinated a large-scale field trial where it showed in a large field trial that most new biological products aimed at improving nitrogen-fixation in non-legume crops were ineffective at increasing yield. In general, the efficacy of biologicals can vary greatly depending on the exact field conditions, making it hard to reliably achieve the advertised result. There’s a huge jump from greenhouse results to field trials, another huge jump from field trials to commercial fields. But when a product’s value is obvious, farmers actually embrace new technology very quickly: both GMO crops and GPS achieved widespread adoption in a very short period of time.

Finally, technology developers should keep in mind that problems can be solved by old or simple technology. When people think about controlled-environment farming, their minds jump to fancy things like vertical farming — but with irrigation and mulch films, you’re 90% of the way there. Simply by adding a mulch film to heat the soil, farmers can greatly extend the growing season in northern climates by a month. This approach allowed us us to substantially increase the yield from our corn fields in Wisconsin.

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This conversation illustrates a clear need for change in three key areas:

Federal funding for agricultural R&D

Given the unreliability of private market funding for agricultural biotechnology R&D, which often entails long turnaround times and low margins relative to traditional tech companies, substantial federal funding through research programs such as AgARDA is vital for accelerating R&D. AgARDA, based on the ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency model, would allow the USDA to support the development of transformative technologies for focus areas of its choosing. However, despite its popularity, AgARDA, which was first authorized in the 2018 Farm Bill for $50 million annually for FY2019-2023, only received $2m in that timeframe. The USDA requested $5m for AgARDA in FY2022 and again in FY2023; it only received $1m each year. By contrast, ARPA-H, the human health equivalent, was authorized in FY2022 and immediately received its full $1 billion authorization, followed by $1.5b in FY2023. 

The USDA has published an implementation framework for AgARDA. Unfortunately, misalignment between USDA and Congress appears to be preventing AgARDA from being fully funded to its authorized levels. Members of the Congressional agriculture committees want the USDA to show that it has made progress with the $2m it has received before they allocate additional funding, namely the appointment of a dedicated director and initiation of a pilot program with calls for grant proposals. However, the USDA has deemed the $2m insufficient to support long-term staff or a formal grant program, especially since the appropriations require annual renewal. The current impasse means that no AgARDA projects have been rolled out, despite the pressing nature of the research priorities identified by the USDA.  

The following steps should be taken for AgARDA to achieve its full potential:

• USDA should produce a formal report to Congress of how it utilized the $2m thus far allocated.
• Congress should ensure that the bill to expand AgARDA authorization from $50m to $100m is passed as part of the upcoming Farm Bill.
• USDA should request, and Congress should approve, funding up to its full authorization for AgARDA in its FY2026 budget. Additionally, the appropriations should be granted on a three-year basis, like ARPA-H’s appropriations, to permit greater runway.

Regulatory oversight

The U.S. regulatory system for biotechnology needs to be a) expanded, with funding for a larger agency staff to process applications quickly; b) updated, to be flexible such that it can accommodate new-to-market technologies; and c) coordinated, to streamline approval processes. 

The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) addresses these unmet needs in its interim report. First, NSCEB is “considering options to facilitate higher staffing levels”; this should be made a priority. 

Second, concerning regulatory oversight, NSCEB identified three potential paths for improvement:

• discrete changes to individual statutes to reduce redundancies and gaps in biotechnology oversight; 
• a single, unified regulatory process to assess any novel risks associated with biotechnology products relative to their conventional counterparts; and 
• a hybrid approach that legislatively mandates coordination while facilitating individual agency review and risk assessment. 

Of these, the hybrid approach would likely provide the greatest flexibility. In contrast, discrete changes to individual statutes will likely involve slow, piecemeal changes that can easily become outdated again. While a unified regulatory process may be more streamlined, the report’s phrasing creates a sharp binary delineation between biotech and conventional that does not reflect reality. Such a delineation could engender a lot of wasted time debating biotech versus conventional classification for a given product. 

Finally, to address intra- and interagency coordination, the NSCEB presented two Farm Bill amendments that deserve Congressional support: the Biotechnology Oversight Coordination Act and the Agriculture Biotechnology Coordination Act.

Bioliteracy and agricultural education

Market demand and regulations are informed by consumer perceptions, which then impact R&D decisions. For example, fear of consumer and regulatory backlash can dissuade companies from investing in new genetic engineering technology for developing new plant varieties, despite their potential to improve agricultural sustainability. Increased bioliteracy across the American public would help consumers, businesses, and policymakers alike better understand new biotechnologies and engage with the burgeoning bioeconomy. This is a need that the NSCEB has also highlighted. At the K-12 level, improvements could comprise updating science curriculums to include contemporary topics like gene editing, as well as amending civics curriculums to better explain the modern functions of regulatory agencies. In addition, agricultural education can be embedded into biology and earth science curriculums to reconnect the public at large with the realities faced by producers. Similar to computer science literacy improvements through standard setting and funding, bioliteracy can be improved through state-level education initiatives.

The Federation of American Scientists values diversity of thought and believes that a range of perspectives — informed by evidence — is essential for discourse on scientific and societal issues. Contributors allow us to foster a broader and more inclusive conversation. We encourage constructive discussion around the topics we care about.

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration has consistently prioritized consumer protection, invigorating rural communities and natural technologies that address climate change. These three priorities are embodied in this proposal and present an opportunity for a bipartisan win-win. Agriculture directly connects rural Americans with urban ones and is central to practical climate solutions. But as biotechnology advances, consumers face a myriad of new ingredients and labels to parse through at the supermarket. These labels, including ‘organic’ and ‘non-GMO,’ can often be confusing. There are competing views about the proper regulatory framework that will provide the highest nutrition to the most citizens at the lowest possible cost while respecting the environment. Comprehensive food labeling regulation reform can help consumers avoid deceptive marketing and allow farmers and grocers to compete fairly. In addition, it can be a tool to leverage the marketplace to implement climate-friendly solutions.

There are two possible approaches to implementing this reform: The best alternative would be to pass legislation that expands the BE labeling program, enhancing the labeling authority of USDA, strengthening Truth-in-Advertising laws, and providing a legal framework to address misleading claims across Federal agencies. Alternatively, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is already empowered to enforce existing Truth-in-Advertising laws. It can use this authority to reinforce the USDA’s existing labeling programs to ensure that consumer information aligns with scientific evidence. 

Challenge and Opportunity

In the past 50 years, the idea of “health foods” has gone mainstream. Despite the lack of hard scientific evidence, the term has morphed from denoting foods that help individuals avoid diet-related diseases to marketing foods that claim to help every American live healthier. This change in the market has also generated healthy profit margins for certain grocery retailers.¹ But the distinction is more than marketing—most physicians now agree that there is a strong relationship between diet and disease based on scientific evidence. For example, scientific communities agree that specific ingredients like saturated fats can affect health. To ensure consumers can make informed choices about these ingredients, their presence is explicitly listed on the FDA’s nutrition labels.

Unfortunately, the zealous proponents of health foods have gone beyond advocacy of ingredients the medical establishment deems “healthy.” Foods whose heritage can be traced to intentional genetic modification in a modern laboratory are ominously labeled as “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs). Although this label has taken on a negative connotation, it’s simply a descriptor and, by itself, cannot convey whether or not a product is “healthy.” Such labeling is like singling out children born using modern in vitro fertilization and treating them differently than children conceived “naturally”! Conflating the nutritional composition of food with its genetic heritage allows marketers to extract a premium for foods labeled “non-GMO” while failing to acknowledge the actual health benefits of some GMOs.

In 2016, Congress established the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS), a US federal law that mandates “BE” labeling for bioengineered foods. These foods contain genetic material not accessible via breeding, added using in vitro recombinant DNA techniques. This law empowers USDA to specify whether ingredients should be labeled BE depending on their supply chains and to define analytical tests that establish whether labeling is necessary. These analytical tests allow the agency to define bioengineered products precisely. While GMO and BE foods may overlap, the two labels are inconsistent and have different criteria specified by different organizations. 

Science has weighed in on GMO/BE foods, and numerous studies have shown no health risks associated with the consumption of GMO/BE foods.² Indeed, bioengineering improves the nutritional content of some foods. For example, low linoleic acid canola oil has less trans-fat, a dietary component associated with increased rates of heart disease. In such cases, the nutritional differences are reflected on food labels following FDA guidelines. In addition, bioengineering can reduce the number of agricultural chemicals needed to prevent spoilage, eliminating potentially toxic residues and food waste. But marketers of “health(y) foods” have spent millions to support “non-GMO” labels that are unrelated to health while continuing to sow irrational fears to help maintain their margins.

To make matters worse, marketers have added to the confusion by labeling certain foods with another vague descriptor, “organic”. Organic farming is a cultivation practice that avoids synthetic pesticides and artificial fertilizers. It is how the crops are grown, not what. But even the USDA’s National Organic Program (65 FR 80547. 12/21/2000)³ conflates the two, specifying that even animals fed with GMO feed cannot be labeled USDA Organic! From a scientific perspective, it is inaccurate to consider any GMO an “ingredient” because the genes themselves are present in minuscule amounts and can be fully digested. The changes are in the code, not the composition. They are made up of natural building blocks, as are the proteins produced.

Further, because farm animals digest food to these components, any “pass-through” of GMO characteristics would require extraordinary proof. While it is impossible to prove a negative, there is no evidence of adverse consumer reactions (even among those with severe food allergies) to GMOs themselves. For this reason, USDA’s BE designation expressly excludes animals fed with bioengineered foods (NBFDS, Sec 293(a)(2)(A)]. The current regulatory regime around bioengineered foods, organic farming, and GMOs is inconsistent and requires reform. Consumers deserve objective and relevant information about the foods they consume, but current sources of information can be inaccurate or incomplete.. As consumers have become more health- and origin-conscious, corporations have seized on this awareness to promote their products. Unfortunately, health(y) food marketers often use scientifically tenuous and potentially deceptive labels. Corporations fund academic researchers and non-governmental organizations to conduct independent research to legitimize these marketing messages, often as philanthropic, tax-advantaged donations.

While such funding is not necessarily nefarious, it can confuse consumers and undermine more trusted and objective sources of nutrition information – federal agencies. The Government’s responsibility is to provide accurate ratings that support fact-based competition. Free and fair competition in the marketplace has long been the objective of Federal regulations. While corporations should be allowed to differentiate their goods in the eye of the consumer, they shouldn’t be allowed to instill irrational fear of health hazards lacking robust scientific support. This is not unique to the agricultural industry – in fact, it is the core of the regulatory framework for pharmaceuticals.

Corporations currently exploit the hodgepodge rating system, but it can be improved through Government regulation. As shown in the figure, surveys show that U. S. consumers trust Government ratings more than any other source except for “experts” and find such ratings to be more understandable, particularly in contrast to those expressed by experts.

Figure 1

Data from Rupprecht, CDD, et al., “Trust me? Consumer trust in expert information on food product labels”, Food and Chemical Toxicology 137 (2020) 111170, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2020.111170

There is an opportunity for regulatory improvement in the food labeling space, both legislatively and through executive action. Because USDA labeling covers agricultural food sources (including Bio-Engineered and Organic labels), adding a non-Bio Engineered label would further enable consumers to make an informed choice. The dissonance between BE and USDA Organic labels should also be resolved by removing the prohibition on using BE/GMO sources as a condition of Organic labeling. However, this is an issue that must be corrected legislatively.

Furthermore, because of the significant market advantages gained through advertising unsubstantiated health claims, market players have taken to the courts, where dozens of lawsuits have been filed against USDA, attempting to force the Department’s labels to support spurious health claims due to ambiguities in the legal definitions of both “organic” and “bioengineered”. Affirming that USDA is empowered by statute to determine specific criteria for its own labels when legislative language is ambiguous will help negate any claims to the contrary. 

Plan of Action

Food labeling is central to the flow of accurate and unbiased information from farm to table. Currently, two primary agencies are responsible for food labeling, USDA and FDA (under HHS), and one agency is responsible for truth in advertising, FTC (under Commerce). These responsibilities are split: USDA covers farm products, FDA covers nutrition, and FTC prosecutes false advertising. The recommended actions below will improve coordination among these agencies, produce a more uniform response to labeling issues, and increase consumer confidence in and knowledge of the food they purchase.

Because food labels are often relied upon during a purchase decision in the grocery aisle, the Bioengineered Food Labeling Standard established in 2016⁴ and mandated in 2022⁵ should be strengthened. Specifically:

Action	Consequence
Congress should pass legislation removing redundancy in USDA’s Organic and BE labeling requirements.	Simple, mutually exclusive legal definitions will lead to more explicit decisions by the judiciary.
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service should certify a non-BE label through independent laboratory analysis to supplement its BE labeling program.	Accountability to a laboratory analytical standard for content, rather than a judgment call by a non-profit NGO, will provide clarity.
The Secretary of Commerce should direct FTC to prosecute false advertising for improperly labeled Organic or non-GMO consumer goods	Impartial & objective treatment of consumer-facing advertising allows consumers to choose based on their needs.

Congress should pass legislation removing redundancy in USDA’s Organic and BE labeling requirements. 

Although this may be a more long-term solution, the current regulatory regime is confusing and conflates agricultural methods with content. Congress should take up this issue in future Farm Bills and appropriations cycles and develop clear, mutually exclusive legal definitions. This will create more transparent labels for consumers and lead to more explicit decisions by the judiciary in marketing lawsuits. 

USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service should certify a non-Bioengineered label. 

AMS currently oversees the assignment of BE labels. Through independent laboratory analysis, the agency should also offer a service to firms to certify a non-BE label, using the NBFLS criteria. USDA already has analytical laboratories and staff conducting spot inspections of meat producers. These capabilities could be leveraged to confirm a non-BE label. In addition, producers who wish to label their goods as “non-BE” would be willing to pay an evaluation fee comparable to fees paid to non-governmental certification agencies, so the budgetary impact should be minimal. Alternatively, because the NBFLS establishes methods that can be performed in certified testing facilities, USDA’s resources could be deployed to spot-check the claims. Further, because non-BE labeling would not be mandatory, producers can choose to remain silent on the content of their goods if their bioengineered content is unknown.

Any ingredients with known health benefits should appear on the FDA nutrition label, and any marketer that uses either Organic or non-GMO labeling without adhering to USDA’s authorities should be prosecuted for false advertising.

For budgetary purposes, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) are allocated approximately $1.7B and $1B, respectively. Additional staffing needs would likely be minimal because spot inspections of manufacturing facilities are already part of their routine.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should increase enforcement of ‘Truth-in-Advertising’ regulations to prosecute improperly labeled Organic or non-GMO foods. 

Another angle agencies could take to support a more coordinated approach to consumer protections is through prosecution of improperly labeled Organic or non-GMO foods. While USDA would maintain the responsibility of conducting spot inspections, the FTC would be responsible for enforcing any transgressions through False Advertising Laws.⁶ 

There is already precedent for this type of enforcement. Between 2003 and 2010, FTC successfully removed spurious health claims made by POM Wonderful, a marketer of pomegranate juice and related products, despite a vigorous appeal mounted by the company. While this example rejected false advertising based on specific health claims, it could also be extended to false advertising based on general health claims.

Conclusion

This proposal presents a more coordinated framework for food labeling regulations and would have wide-ranging effects. Among the stakeholders are farmers (both large and small), national grocery chains, food processing companies, agricultural biotechnology companies (particularly those that use laboratory-derived technologies that do not result in a “Bio-Engineered” label), and alternative protein companies that create consumer goods using processes developed in laboratories (e.g., Impossible Foods). In addition, various organizations, such as the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), have filed amicus briefs in lawsuits that target USDA labeling. There is significant interest in improving the current system.

In addition to providing the protection that consumers deserve, this proposal has health and climate impacts. Nutrition and health are tightly linked, and consumers know for themselves what foods are likely to aggravate their health outcomes. Accurate labeling empowers consumers to decide for themselves about their individual needs, to the extent that consumers believe that non-BE foods are more nutritious. Constraining both seed and method to organic, non-GMO can have a demonstrable negative impact on the climate mitigation capabilities of agricultural practices.

As suggested above, language suggesting that using seeds descended from laboratory methods of genetic modification anywhere in the chain precludes organic production methods should be eliminated. This can be more accurately communicated using two different labeling permutations, “organic & BE” and “organic & non-BE.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Doesn’t the current non-GMO labeling provide the same information?

No. The Non-GMO Project (the NGO responsible for certifying the labels) has extensive, published criteria that suggest that there is a precise definition of a GMO. But, unfortunately, there isn’t one: It’s a gray area whose definition is scientifically imprecise, to the extent that it is defined differently in the US than in the EU (for example). In particular, the Project’s definition is so broad that any food determined (by the Project) to be “unnatural”, including processes and products traced to the use of a genetically modified organism, can be denied a label. In contrast, the USDA’s BE Label is scientifically precise and focused on an analytical criterion that can be objectively determined in the laboratory.

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What is an example where foods currently labeled non-GMO would be labeled BE?

Probably none. It’s hard to tell because, as mentioned above, The Non-GMO Project’s labeling criteria are subjective. According to their criteria, determining a new GMO is intrusive and requires surveillance of its entire development path. In contrast, determining a BE label requires inspection (much like the USDA’s meat grades), albeit in a laboratory setting.

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What is an example where foods not currently labeled as non-GMO would be labeled non-BE?

Because The Non-GMO Project label includes processes and derivatives, foods such as the plant-based Impossible Burger could be labeled non-BE, even though the process involves a GMO, disqualifying it from their labeling. (A GMO is used to create the meat flavor of the protein, which is purified before blending.)

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Will The Non-GMO Project have a role?

Of course! Because they already monitor new GMOs, this non-profit can help guide USDA inspectors to foods that should be labeled as BE but are not. In addition, they can guide analytical procedures that can be used to ascertain whether a given food product is, in fact, BE.

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What does food labeling have to do with climate change?

Agriculture is a globally significant enterprise that can both capture and release greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Under the current scheme, improving the efficiency of agricultural practices involving GMO processes is discouraged because of the stigma. Innovations such as PivotBio’s enhanced nitrogen fixation organism (a GMO that reduces the amount of fertilizer needed) may be avoided by farmers because of a fully-justified fear of being labeled.

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Summary

Ensuring the sustainability and resiliency of American food systems is an urgent priority, especially in the face of challenges presented by climate change and international geopolitical conflicts. To address these issues, increased federal investment in new, sustainability-oriented agricultural technology is necessary in order to bring greater resource conservation and stress tolerance to American farms and fields. Ongoing advances in bioengineering research and development (R&D) offer a diverse suite of genetically engineered organisms, including crops, animals, and microbes. Given the paramount importance of a secure food supply for national well-being, federal actors should promote the development of genetically engineered organisms for agricultural applications. 

Two crucial opportunities are imminent. First, directives in the Biden Administration’s bioeconomy executive order provide the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) a channel through which to request funding for sustainability-oriented R&D in genetically engineered organisms. Second, renewal of the Farm Bill in 2023 provides a venue for congressional legislators to highlight genetic engineering as a funding focus area of existing research grant programs. Direct beneficiaries of the proposed federal funding will predominantly be nonprofit research organizations such as land grant universities; innovations resulting from the funded research will provide a public good that benefits producers and consumers alike. 

Challenge and Opportunity

The resiliency of American agriculture faces undeniable challenges in the coming decades. The first is resource availability, which includes scarcities of fertile land due to soil degradation and of water due to overuse and drought. Resource availability is also vulnerable to acute challenges, as revealed by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine war on the supply of vital inputs such as fertilizer and gas. The second set of challenges are environmental stressors, many of which are exacerbated by climate change. Flooding can wipe out an entire harvest, while the spread of pathogens poses existential risks not only to individual livelihoods but also to the global market of crops like citrus, chocolate, and banana. Such losses would be devastating for both consumers and producers, especially those in the global south. 

Ongoing advances in bioengineering R&D provide technological solutions in the form of a diverse suite of genetically engineered organisms. These have the potential to address many of the aforementioned challenges, including increasing yield and/or minimizing inputs and boosting resilience to drought, flood, and pathogens. Indeed, existing transgenic crops, such as virus-resistant papaya and flood-tolerant rice, demonstrate the ability of genetically engineered organisms to address agricultural challenges. They can also address other national priorities such as climate change and nutrition by enhancing carbon sequestration and improving the nutritional profile of food. 

Recent breakthroughs in modifying and sequencing DNA have greatly enhanced the speed of developing new, commercializable bioengineered varieties, as well as the spectrum of traits and plants that can be engineered. This process has been especially expedited by the use of CRISPR gene-editing technology; the European Sustainable Agriculture Through Genome Editing (EU-SAGE)’s database documents more than 500 instances of gene-edited crops developed in research laboratories to target traits for sustainable, climate-resilient agriculture. There is thus vast potential for genetically engineered organisms to contribute to sustainable agriculture. 

More broadly, this moment can be leveraged to bring about a turning point in the public perception of genetically engineered organisms. Past generations of genetically engineered organisms have been met with significant public backlash, despite the pervasiveness of inter-organism gene transfer throughout the history of life on earth (see FAQ). Reasons for negative public perception are complex but include the association of genetically engineered organisms with industry profit, as well as an embrace of the precautionary principle to a degree that far exceeds its application to other products, such as pharmaceuticals and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, persistent misinformation and antagonistic activism have engendered entrenched consumer distrust. The prior industry focus on herbicide resistance traits also contributed to the misconception that the technology is only used to increase the use of harmful chemicals in the environment. 

Now, however, a new generation of genetically engineered organisms feature traits beyond herbicide resistance that address sustainability issues such as reduced spoilage. Breakthroughs in DNA sequencing, as well as other analytical tools, have increased our understanding of the properties of newly developed organisms. There is pervasive buy-in for agricultural sustainability goals across many stakeholder sectors, including individual producers, companies, consumers, and legislators on both sides of the aisle. There is great potential for genetically engineered organisms to be accepted by the public as a solution to a widely recognized problem. Dedicated federal funding will be vital in seeing that this potential is realized.

Plan of Action

Recommendation 1: Fund genetically engineered organisms pursuant to the Executive Order on the bioeconomy.

Despite the importance of agriculture for the nation’s basic survival and the clear impact of agricultural innovation, USDA’s R&D spending pales in comparison to other agencies and other expenditures. In 2022, for example, USDA’s R&D budget was a mere 6% of the National Institutes of Health’s R&D budget, and R&D comprised only 9.6% of USDA’s overall discretionary budget. The Biden Administration’s September 2022 executive order provides an opportunity to amend this funding shortfall, especially for genetically engineered organisms.  

The Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy explicitly embraces an increased role for biotechnology in agriculture. Among the policy objectives outlined is the call to “boost sustainable biomass production and create climate-smart incentives for American agricultural producers and forest landowners.” 

Pursuant to this objective, the EO directs the USDA to submit a plan comprising programs and budget proposals to “support the resilience of the United States biomass supply chain [and] encourage climate-smart production” by September 2023. This plan provides the chance for the USDA to secure funding for agricultural R&D in a number of areas. Here, we recommend (1) USDA collaboration in Department of Energy (DoE) research programs amended under the CHIPS and Science Act and (2) funding for startup seed grants. 

CHIPS and Science Act

The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act aims to accelerate American innovation in a number of technology focus areas, including engineering biology. To support this goal, the Act established a new National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative (Section 10402). As part of this initiative, the USDA was tasked with supporting “research and development in engineering biology through the Agricultural Research Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture programs and grants, and the Office of the Chief Scientist.” Many of the initiative’s priorities are sustainability-oriented and could benefit from genetic engineering contributions. 

A highlight is the designation of an interagency committee to coordinate activities. To leverage and fulfill this mandate, we recommend that the USDA better coordinate with the DoE on bioengineering research. Specifically, the USDA should be involved in the decision-making process for awarding research grants relating to two DoE programs amended by the Act.

The first program is the Biological and Environmental Research Program, which includes carbon sequestration, gene editing, and bioenergy. (See the Appendix for a table summarizing examples of how genetic engineering can contribute sustainability-oriented technologies to these key focus areas.)

The second program is the Basic Energy Sciences Program, which has authorized funding for a Carbon Sequestration Research and Geologic Computational Science Initiative under the DoE. Carbon sequestration via agriculture is not explicitly mentioned in this section, but this initiative presents another opportunity for the USDA to collaborate with the DoE and secure funding for agricultural climate solutions. Congress should make appropriating funding for this program a priority.

Seed Grants

The USDA should pilot a seed grant program to accelerate technology transfer, a step that often poses a bottleneck. The inherent risk of R&D and entrepreneurship in a cutting-edge field may pose a barrier to entry for academic researchers as well as small agricultural biotech companies. Funding decreases the barrier of entry, thus increasing the diversity of players in the field. This can take the form of zero-equity seed grants. Similar to the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s seed grant program, which awards $200+ million R&D funding to about 400 startups, this would provide startups with funding without the risks attached to venture capital funding (such as being ousted from company leadership). The NSF’s funding is spread across numerous disciplines, so a separate agricultural initiative from the USDA dedicated to supporting small agricultural biotech companies would be beneficial. These seed grants would meet a need unmet by USDA’s existing small business grant programs, which are only awarded to established companies.

Together, the funding areas outlined above would greatly empower the USDA to execute the EO’s objective of promoting climate-smart American agriculture.

Recommendation 2: Allocate funding through the 2023 Farm Bill.

The Farm Bill, the primary tool by which the federal government sets agricultural policy, will be renewed in 2023. Several existing mandates for USDA research programs, administered through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture as competitive grants, have been allocated federal funding. Congressional legislators should introduce amendments in the mandates for these programs such that the language explicitly highlights R&D of genetically engineered organisms for sustainable agriculture applications. Such programs include the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, a major competitive grant program, as well as the Specialty Crop Research Initiative and the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative. Suggested legislative text for these amendments are provided in the Appendix. Promoting R&D of genetically engineered organisms via existing programs circumvents the difficulty of securing appropriations for new initiatives while also presenting genetically engineered organisms as a critically important category of agricultural innovation.

Additionally, Congress should appropriate funding for the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA) at its full $50 million authorization. Similar to its counterparts in other agencies such as ARPA-E and DARPA, AgARDA would enable “moonshot” R&D projects that are high-reward but high-risk or have a long timeline—such as genetically engineered organisms with genetically complex traits. This can be especially valuable for promoting the development of sustainability-oriented crops traits: though they are a clear public good, they may be less profitable and/or marketable than crops with consumer-targeted traits such as sweetness or color, and as such profit-driven companies may be dissuaded from investing in their development. The USDA just published its implementation strategy for AgARDA. Congress must now fully fund AgARDA such that it can execute its strategy and fuel much-needed innovation in agricultural biotechnology. 

Conclusion

Current federal funding for genetically engineered organism R&D does not reflect their substantial impact in ensuring a sustainable, climate-smart future for American agriculture, with applications ranging from increasing resource-use efficiency in bioproduction to enhancing the resilience of food systems to environmental and manmade crises. Recent technology breakthroughs have opened many frontiers in engineering biology, but free market dynamics alone are not sufficient to guarantee that these breakthroughs are applied in the service of the public good in a timely manner. The USDA and Congress should therefore take advantage of upcoming opportunities to secure funding for genetic engineering research projects.

Appendix

Biological and Environmental Research Program Examples 

Research focus area added in CHIPS and Science Act	Example of genetic engineering contribution
Bioenergy and biofuel	Optimizing biomass composition of bioenergy crops
Non-food bioproducts	Lab-grown cotton; engineering plants and microbes to produce medicines
Carbon sequestration	Improving photosynthetic efficiency; enhancing carbon storage in plant roots
Plant and microbe interactions	Engineering microbes to counter plant pathogens; engineering microbes to make nutrients more accessible to plants
Bioremediation	Engineering plants and microbes to sequester and/or breakdown contaminants in soil and groundwater
Gene editing	Engineering plants for increased nutrient content, disease-resistance, storage performance
New characterization tools	Creating molecular reporters of plant response to abiotic and biotic environmental dynamics

Farm Bill Amendments 

Agriculture and Food Research Initiative

One of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)’s focus areas is Sustainable Agricultural Systems, with topics including “advanced technology,” which supports “cutting-edge research to help farmers produce higher quantities of safer and better quality food, fiber, and fuel to meet the needs of a growing population.” Furthermore, AFRI’s Foundational and Applied Science Program supports grants in priority areas including plant health, bioenergy, natural resources, and environment. The 2023 Farm Bill could amend the Competitive, Special, and Facilities Research Grant Act (7 U.S.C. 3157) to highlight the potential of genetic engineering in the pursuit of AFRI’s goals. 

Example text: 

Subsection (b)(2) of the Competitive, Special, and Facilities Research Grant Act (7 U.S.C. 3157(b)(2)) is amended—

(1) in subparagraph (A)—

(A) in clause (ii), by striking the semicolon at the end and inserting “including genetic engineering methods to make modifications (deletions and/or insertions of DNA) to plant genomes for improved food quality, improved yield under diverse growth conditions, and improved conservation of resource inputs such as water, nitrogen, and carbon;”;

(B) in clause (vi), by striking the “and”;

(C) in clause (vii), by striking the period at the end and inserting “; and”; and

(D) by adding at the end the following: 

“(viii) plant-microbe interactions, including the identification and/or genetic engineering of microbes beneficial for plant health”

(2) in subparagraph (C), clause (iii), by inserting “production and” at the beginning;

(3) in subparagraph (D)– 

(A) in clause (vii), by striking “and”;

(B) in clause (vii), by striking the period at the end and inserting “; and”; and

(C) by adding at the end the following: 

“(ix) carbon sequestration”.

Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative

The goal of this initiative is to understand the function of plant genes, which is critical to crop genetic engineering for sustainability. The ability to efficiently insert and edit genes, as well as to precisely control gene expression (a core tenet of synthetic biology), would facilitate this goal.

Example text:

Section 1671(a) of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (7 U.S.C. 5924(a)) is amended—

1. In subparagraph (4), by inserting “and environmental” after “achieve advances in crops and animals that generate societal”; and
2. In subparagraph (5), by inserting “genetic engineering, synthetic biology,” after “to combine fields such as genetics, genomics,”

Specialty Crop Research Initiative

Specialty crops can be a particularly fertile ground for research. There is a paucity of genetic engineering tools for specialty crops as compared to major crops (e.g. wheat, corn, etc.). At the same time, specialty crops such as fruit trees offer the opportunity to effect larger sustainability impacts: as perennials, they remain in the soil for many years, with particular implications for water conservation and carbon sequestration. Finally, economically important specialty crops such as oranges are under extreme disease threat, as identified by the Emergency Citrus Disease Research and Extension Program. Genetic engineering offers potential solutions that could be accelerated with funding. 

Example text:

Section 412(b) of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 (7 U.S.C. 7632(b)) is amended—

1. In paragraph (1), by inserting “transgenics, gene editing, synthetic biology” after “research in plant breeding, genetics,” and—
   1. In subparagraph (B), by inserting “and enhanced carbon sequestration capacity” after “size-controlling rootstock systems”; and
   2. In subparagraph (C), by striking the semi-colon at the end and inserting “, including water-use efficiency;”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the definition of a genetically engineered organism? What is the difference between genetically engineered, genetically modified, transgenic, gene-edited, and bioengineered?

Scientists usually use the term “genetic engineering” as a catch-all phrase for the myriad methods of changing an organism’s DNA outside of traditional breeding, but this is not necessarily reflected in usage by regulatory agencies. The USDA’s glossary, which is not regulatorily binding, defines “genetic engineering” as “​​manipulation of an organism’s genes by introducing, eliminating or rearranging specific genes using the methods of modern molecular biology, particularly those techniques referred to as recombinant DNA techniques.” Meanwhile, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)’s 2020 SECURE rule defines “genetic engineering” as “techniques that use recombinant, synthesized, or amplified nucleic acids to modify or create a genome.” The USDA’s glossary defines “genetic modification” as “the production of heritable improvements in plants or animals for specific uses, via either genetic engineering or other more traditional methods”; however, the USDA National Organic Program has used “genetic engineering” and “genetic modification” interchangeably. 

“Transgenic” organisms can be considered a subset of genetically engineered organisms and result from the insertion of genetic material from another organism using recombinant DNA techniques. “Gene editing” or “genome editing” refers to biotechnology techniques like CRISPR that make changes in a specific location in an organism’s DNA. 

The term “bioengineered” does carry regulatory weight. The USDA-AMS’s National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS), published in 2018 and effective as of 2019, defines “bioengineered” as “contains genetic material that has been modified through in vitro recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) techniques; and for which the modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature.” Most gene-edited crops currently in development, such as those where the introduced gene is known to occur in the species naturally, are exempt from regulation under both the AMS’s NBFDS and APHIS’s SECURE acts.

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What are some examples of genetic engineering methods?

Though “genetic engineering” has only entered the popular lexicon in the last several decades, humans have modified the genomes of plants for millennia, in many different ways. Through genetic changes introduced via traditional breeding, teosinte became maize 10,000 years ago in Mesoamerica, and hybrid rice was developed in 20th-century China. Irradiation has been used to generate random mutations in crops for decades, and the resulting varieties have never been subject to any special regulation.

In fact, transfer of genes between organisms occurs all the time in nature. Bacteria often transfer DNA to other bacteria, and some bacteria can insert genes into plants. Indeed, one of the most common “genetic engineering” approaches used today, Agrobacterium-mediated gene insertion, was inspired by that natural phenomenon. Other methods of DNA delivery including biolistics (“gene gun”) and viral vectors. Each method for gene transfer has many variations, and each method varies greatly in its mode of action and capabilities. This is key for the future of plant engineering: there is a spectrum—not a binary division—of methods, and evaluations of engineered plants should focus on the end product.

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How are genetically engineered organisms regulated in the United States?

Genetically engineered organisms are chiefly regulated by USDA-APHIS, the EPA, and the FDA as established by the 1986 Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology. They oversee experimental testing, approval, and commercial release. The Framework’s regulatory approach is grounded in the judgment that the potential risks associated with genetically engineered organisms can be evaluated the same way as those associated with traditionally bred organisms. This is in line with its focus on “the characteristics of the product and the environment into which it is being introduced, not the process by which the product is created.”

USDA-APHIS regulates the distribution of regulated organisms that are products of biotechnology to ensure that they do not pose a plant pest risk. Developers can petition for individual organisms, including transgenics, to be deregulated via Regulatory Status Review.

The EPA regulates the distribution, sale, use, and testing of all pesticidal substances produced in plants and microbes, regardless of method of production or mode of action. Products must be registered before distribution. 

The FDA applies the same safety standards to foods derived from genetically engineered organisms as it does to all foods under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The agency provides a voluntary consultation process to help developers ensure that all safety and regulatory concerns, such as toxicity, allergenicity, and nutrient content, are resolved prior to marketing.

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How do genetically engineered crops work?

Mechanisms of action vary depending on the specific trait. Here, we explain the science behind two types of transgenic crops that have been widespread in the U.S. market for decades. 

Bt crops: Three of the major crops grown in the United States have transgenic Bt varieties: cotton, corn, and soybean. Bt crops are genetically engineered such that their genome contains a gene from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. This enables Bt crops to produce a protein, normally only produced by the Bt bacteria, that is toxic to a few specific plant pests but harmless for humans, other mammals, birds, and beneficial insects. In fact, the bacteria itself is approved for use as an organic insecticide. However, organic applications of Bt insecticides are limited in efficacy: since the bacteria must be topically applied to the crop, the protein it produces is ineffective against insects that have penetrated the plant or are attacking the roots; in addition, the bacteria can die or be washed away by rain. 

Engineering the crop itself to produce the insecticidal protein more reliably reduces crop loss due to pest damage, which also minimizes the need for other, often more broadly toxic systemic pesticides. Increased yield allows for more efficient use of existing agricultural land. In addition, decreased use of pesticides reduces the energy cost associated with their production and application while also preserving wildlife biodiversity. With regards to concerns surrounding insecticide resistance, the EPA requires farmers who employ Bt, both as a transgenic crop and as an organic spray, to also plant a refuge field of non-Bt crops, which prevents pests from developing resistance to the Bt protein.

The only substantive difference between Bt crops and non-Bt crops is that the former produces an insecticide already permitted by USDA organic regulations. 

Ringspot-resistant rainbow papaya: The transgenic rainbow papaya is another example of the benefits of genetic engineering in agriculture. Papaya plantations were ravaged by the papaya ringspot virus in the late 1900s, forcing many farmers to abandon their lands and careers. In response, scientists developed the rainbow papaya, which contains a gene from the virus itself that allows it to express a protein that counters viral infection. This transgenic papaya was determined to be equivalent in nutrition and all other aspects to the original papaya. The rainbow papaya, with its single gene insertion, is widely considered to have saved Hawaii’s papaya industry, which in 2013 accounted for nearly 25% of Hawaii’s food exports. Transgenic papaya now makes up about 80% of the Hawaiian papaya acreage. The remaining comprise non-GMO varieties, which would have gone locally extinct had it not been for transgenic papayas preventing the spread of the virus. The rainbow papaya’s success has clearly demonstrated that transgenic crops can preserve the genetic diversity of American crops and preserve yield without spraying synthetic pesticides, both of which are stated goals of the USDA Organic Program. However, the National Organic Program’s regulations currently forbid organic farmers from growing virus-resistant transgenic papaya.

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How have recent biotechnology breakthroughs accelerated the development of new crops?

With the advent of CRISPR gene-editing technology, which allows scientists to make precise, targeted changes in an organism’s DNA, new genetically engineered crops are being developed at an unprecedented pace. These new varieties will encompass a wider variety of qualities than previously seen in the field of crop biotechnology. Many varieties are directly aimed at shoring up agricultural resilience in the face of climate change, with traits including tolerance to heat, cold, and drought. At the same time, the cost of sequencing an organism’s DNA continues to decrease. This makes it easier to confirm the insertion of multiple transgenes into a plant, as would be necessary to engineer crops to produce a natural herbicide. Such a crop, similar to Bt crops but targeting weeds instead of insects, would reduce reliance on synthetic herbicides while enabling no-till practices that promote soil health. Furthermore, cheap DNA sequencing facilitates access to information about the genomes of many wild relatives of modern crops. Scientists can then use genetic engineering to make wild relatives more productive or introduce wild traits like drought resilience into domesticated varieties. This would increase the genetic diversity of crops available to farmers and help avoid issues inherent to monocultures, most notably the uncontrollable spread of plant diseases. 

At present, most crops engineered with CRISPR technology do not contain genes from a different organism (i.e., not transgenic), and thus do not have to face the additional regulatory hurdles that transgenics like Bt crops did. However, crops developed via CRISPR are still excluded from organic farming.

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What are examples of genetically engineered organisms currently on the market or in active development that address sustainability issues?

• Improving sustainability and land conservation: potatoes that are slower to spoil, wheat with enhanced carbon sequestration capacity 


• Increasing food quality and nutrition: vegetables with elevated micronutrient content 


• Increasing and protecting agricultural yields: higher-yield fish, flood-tolerant rice


• Protecting against plant and animal pests and diseases: blight-resistant chestnut, HLB-resistant citrus


• Cultivating alternative food sources: bacteria for animal-free production of protein

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Which agricultural stakeholders are engaged in genetic engineering R&D and will benefit from federal funding?

The pool of producers of genetically engineered crops is increasingly diverse. In fact, of the 37 new crops evaluated by APHIS’s Biotechnology Regulatory Service under the updated guidelines since 2021, only three were produced by large (>300 employees) for-profit corporations. Many were produced by startups and/or not-for-profit research institutions. USDA NIFA research grants predominantly fund land-grant universities; other awardees include private nonprofit organizations, private universities, and, in select cases (such as small business grants), private for-profit companies.

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Why are GMOs so often vilified?

Historically, the concept of GMOs has been associated with giant multinational corporations, the so-called Big Ag. The most prevalent GMOs in the last several decades have indeed been produced by industry giants such as Dow, Bayer, and Monsanto. This association has fueled the negative public perception of GMOs in several ways, including: 

• Some companies, such as Dow, were responsible for producing the notorious chemical Agent Orange, used to devastating effect in the Vietnam War. While this is an unfortunate shadow on the company, it is unrelated to the properties of genetically engineered crops.


• Companies have been accused of financially disadvantaging farmers by upholding patents on GMO seeds, which prevents farmers from saving seeds from one year’s crop to plant the next season. Companies have indeed enforced seed patents (which generally last about 20 years), but it is important to note that (1) seed-saving has not been standard practice on many American farms for many decades, since the advent of (nonbioengineered) hybrid crops, from which saved seeds will produce an inferior crop, and (2) bioengineered seeds are not the only seeds that can be and are patented.

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Over the past several years, instability has been a national and global constant. The COVID-19 pandemic upended supply chains and production systems. Floods, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, and fires have imposed catastrophic consequences and forced people to reconsider where they can safely live. Russia’s war with Ukraine and other geopolitical conflicts have forced countries around the world to scramble for reliable energy sources.

Congress must act decisively to fortify the United States against these and future destabilizing threats. Priorities include revitalizing U.S. agriculture to ensure a dependable, affordable, and diverse food supply; improving disaster preparation and response; and driving development and oversight of critical environmental technologies.

Revitalizing U.S. Agriculture. Every society needs a robust food supply to survive, thrive, and grow. But skyrocketing food prices and agricultural supply-chain disruptions indicate that our nation’s food supply may be on shaky ground. Congress can take measures to rebuild a world-leading U.S. agricultural sector that is sustainable amid evolving external pressures.

A first step is to invest in agricultural innovation and entrepreneurship. The 2018 Farm Bill created the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA) as a driver of transformative progress in agriculture, but failed to equip the institution with a key tool: prize authority. Prizes have proven to be force multipliers for innovation dollars invested by many institutions, including other Advanced Research Projects Agencies (ARPAs). It would be simple for Congress to extend prize authority to AgARDA as well.

Prize authority at AgARDA would be especially powerful if coupled with additional support for agricultural entrepreneurship. Congress should fund the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the Minority Business Development Administration (MBDA) with $25 million per year for five years to jointly develop a “Ground Up” program to help Americans start small businesses focused on sustainable agriculture.

We must also begin viewing our nation’s soil as a strategic resource. Farmers and ranchers cannot succeed without good places to plant crops and graze livestock. But our nation’s fertile soil is being lost ten times faster than it is being produced. At this rate, many parts of the country will run out of arable land in the next 50 years. Some places—such as the Piedmont region of the eastern United States—already have. States including New Mexico, Illinois, and Nebraska have already introduced or passed legislation to preserve and restore soil health; Congress should follow their example. A comprehensive soil-health bill could, for instance, create bridge-loan projects for farmers transitioning to soil-protective farm practices, expand the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) program to cover such practices, fund USDA Extension offices to provide related technical assistance, and support regenerative agriculture in general.

Finally, Congress should extend funding for two programs that are delivering clear benefits to U.S. food systems. With major food production concentrated in five states, often far from major population centers, the farm-to-table pathway is extraordinarily susceptible to disruptions. The American Rescue Plan Act created the Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program to help small- and medium-sized enterprises strengthen this pathway, including through “aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storing, transporting, wholesaling or distribution of food.” This program should be continued and resourced going forward. In addition, the Bioproduct Pilot Program studies how materials derived from agricultural commodities can be used for construction and consumer products. This program increases economic activity in rural areas while also lowering commercialization risks associated with bringing bio-based products to market. Congress should extend funding for this program (currently set to expire after FY 2023) for at least $5 million per year through the end of FY 2028.

Improving Disaster Preparation and Response. Every year, Americans lose billions of dollars to natural hazards including hurricanes, wildfires, floods, heat waves, and droughts. We know these disasters will happen…yet only 15% of federal disaster funding is invested to blunt their effects. In particular, current disaster policy and practice lacks incentives for local governments to proactively reduce risks.

Congress can address this failure by amending aspects of the Stafford Act of 1988. In particular, Congress should redefine the disaster threshold in ways that factor in local capacity and ability to recover. Congress should also consider (i) reducing the federal cost share for disaster response, (ii) implementing other incentive models that may induce better local hazard-reduction decisions and improve long-term resilience, and (iii) strengthening existing incentive programs. For example, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) could be improved by requiring local governments to take stronger actions to qualify for reduced insurance rates and increasing transparency about how community ratings are calculated. 

Disaster management response is not the sole purview of FEMA. For example, the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program positions the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a primary disaster-response funder. To ensure efficiency and prevent duplication of effort, Congress must clarify the role of each federal agency involved in disasters.

Congress should also ensure adequate research funding to investigate evidence-based and cost-effective disaster mitigation and response strategies. A useful first step would be doubling the interagency Disaster Resilience Research Grant (DRRG) program, which already supports researchers in groundbreaking modeling, simulations, and solutions development to protect Americans from the most catastrophic consequences.

Driving Development and Oversight of Critical Environmental Technologies. Environmental technologies are critical to ensure energy and resource security. Congress can use market-shaping mechanisms to pull critical environmental technologies, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), forward. Operation Warp Speed demonstrated breakthrough capacity of federally backed advance market commitments (AMCs) to incentivize rapid development and scaling of transformative technologies. Building on this example, Congress should authorize a $1 billion AMC for scalable carbon-removal approaches—providing the large demand signal needed to attract market entrants, and helping to advance a clean all-of-the-above energy portfolio. This approach could then be extended to other environmentally relevant applications, such as building infrastructure to enable next-generation transportation.

Congress must also ensure responsible deployment and reasonable oversight of new environmental technologies. For instance, DOE recently launched an ambitious “Carbon Negative Shot” to foster breakthroughs in carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technology, and is also leading an interagency CDR task force pursuing the advancement of many CDR approaches. But we lack a national carbon-accounting standard and tool to ensure that CDR initiatives are being implemented consistently, honestly, and successfully. Congress should work with the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to address this assessment gap.

Similarly, the IRA appropriates over $405 million across federal agencies for activities including “the development of environmental data or information systems.” This could prove a prescient investment to efficiently guide future federal spending on environmental initiatives—but only if steps are taken to ensure that these dollars are not spent on duplicative efforts (for instance, water data are currently collected by 25 federal entities across 57 data platforms and 462 data types). Congress should therefore authorize and direct the creation of a Digital Service for the Planet “with the expertise and mission to coordinate environmental data and technology across agencies”, thus promoting efficiencies in the data enterprise. This centralized service could be established either as a branch of the existing U.S. Digital Service or as a parallel but distinct body.

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Summary 

Smallholder farmers and their households account for more than 2 billion people—almost one-third of humanity and more than two-thirds of the world’s poor. Smallholder farmers are the economic engine of local livelihoods and critical local sources of nutrition and food security. Their persistently low agricultural productivity is a major driver of global poverty and food insecurity. Many known agricultural practices and technologies could improve farmers’ yields and incomes, but systemic barriers and information gaps hamper their adoption. Today, with the rapid growth of mobile phone penetration throughout the developing world, we are in a unique moment to deploy new digital technologies and innovations to improve food security, yields, and livelihoods for 100 million smallholder farmers by 2030.

To spearhead USAID’s leadership in digital agriculture and create a global pipeline from tested innovation to scaled impact, USAID should launch a Digital Agriculture for Food Security Challenge, establish a Digital Agriculture Innovation Fund, and convene a Digital Agriculture Summit to jump-start the process. 

Challenge and Opportunity

Two-thirds of the world’s ultra-poor depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Low productivity growth in this sector is the biggest obstacle to poverty reduction and sustainable food security. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2022 report on The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World estimates that around 2.3 billion people—nearly 30% of the global population—were moderately or food insecure in 2021 and as many as 828 million were affected by hunger. Improving smallholder farmer incomes and local food security is critical to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly ending poverty (SDG 1) and eliminating hunger (SDG 2). Yet smallholder farmers typically harvest only 30%–50% of what they could produce. Smallholder farmers are particularly at risk from climate-driven shocks, and fundamental changes to growing conditions make climate adaptation a key challenge to improving and securing their yields.

More than $540 billion is spent in the agricultural sector each year through public budgets, mostly subsidies on farm inputs and outputs. Of USAID’s over $1 billion annual budget for agricultural aid, much attention is given to direct nutrition and economic assistance as well as institution and market-shaping programs. By contrast, efforts in climate adaptation and food security innovation like the Feed the Future Innovation Labs and Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) rely on traditional, centralized models of R&D funding that limit the entry and growth of new stakeholders and innovators. Not enough investment or attention is paid to productivity-enhancing, climate-adaptation-focused innovations and to translating R&D investment into sustainable interventions and scaled products to better serve smallholder farmers. 

USAID recognizes both the challenge for global food security and the opportunity to advance economic security through evidence-driven, food-system level investments that are climate-driven and COVID-conscious. As directed by the Global Food Security Act of 2016, the U.S. Government Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) 2022–2026 and its counterpart Global Food Security Research Strategy (GFSRS) highlight the potential for digital technologies to play a pivotal role in the U.S. government’s food system investments around the world. The GFSS describes “an ecosystem approach” that prioritizes the “financial viability of digital products and services, rather than one that is driven predominantly by individualized project needs without longer-term planning.” A core part of achieving this strategy is Feed the Future (FTF), the U.S. government’s multi-agency initiative focused on global hunger and food security. Administrator Samantha Powers has committed $5 billion over five years to expand FTF, creating an opportunity to catalyze and crowd in capital to build a thriving, sustainable global agriculture economy—including innovation in digital agriculture—that creates more resilient and efficient food systems.

However, USAID stakeholders are siloed and do not coordinate to deliver results and invest in proven solutions that can have scaled sustainable impact. The lack of coordination means potential digital-powered, impactful, and sustainable solutions are not fostered or grown to better serve USAID’s beneficiaries globally. USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS) works with partners to advance inclusive agriculture-led growth, resilience, nutrition, water security, sanitation, and hygiene in priority countries to help them accelerate and protect development progress. USAID’s FY 2023 budget request also highlights RFS’s continued focus on supporting “partner countries to scale up their adaptation capacity and enhance the overall climate resilience of development programming.” The FTF Innovation Labs focus on advanced agricultural R&D at U.S. universities but do not engage directly in scaling promising innovations or investing in non-academic innovators and entrepreneurs to test and refine user-centered solutions that fall within FTF’s mandate. USAID’s emerging Digital Strategy and Digital Development Team includes specific implementation initiatives, such as a Digital Ecosystem Fund and an upcoming Digital Vision for each sector, including agriculture. USAID is also planning to hire Digital Development Advisors, whose scope aligns closely with this initiative but will require intentional integration with existing efforts. Furthermore, USAID country missions, where many of these programs are funded, often do not have enough input in designing agriculture RFPs to incorporate the latest proven solutions and digital technologies, making it harder to implement and innovate within contract obligations.

This renewed strategic focus on food security through improved local agricultural yields and climate-resilient smallholder farmer livelihoods, along with an integration of digital best practices, presents an opportunity for USAID and Feed the Future. By using innovative approaches to digital agriculture, FTF can expand its impact and meet efficiency and resilience standards, currently proposed in the 2022 reauthorization of the Global Food Security Act. While many known agricultural practices, inputs, and technologies could improve smallholder farmers’ yields and incomes, adoption remains low due to structural barriers, farmers’ lack of information, and limitations from existing agriculture development aid practices that prioritize programs over sustainable agricultural productivity growth. Today, with the rapid pace of mobile phone penetration (ranging between 50% and 95% throughout the developing world), we are in a unique moment to deploy novel, emerging digital technologies, and innovations to improve food security, yields, and livelihoods for 100 million smallholder farmers by 2030.

There are many digital agriculture innovations – for example digital agricultural advisory services (DAAS, detailed below) – in various stages of development that require additional investment in R&D. These innovations could be implemented either together with DAAS or as stand-alone interventions. For example, smallholder farmers need access to accurate, reliable weather forecasts. Weather forecasts are available in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but additional work is needed to customize and localize them to farmers’ needs and to communicate probabilistic forecasts so farmers can easily understand, interpret, and incorporate them in their decision-making. 

Similarly, digital innovations are in development to improve farmers’ linkages to input markets, output markets, and financial services—for example, by facilitating e-subsidies and mobile ordering and payment for agricultural inputs, helping farmers aggregate into farmer producer organizations and negotiate prices from crop offtakers, and linking farmers with providers of loans and other financial services to increase their investment in productive assets.

Digital technologies can also be leveraged to mobilize smallholder farmers to contribute to climate mitigation by using remote sensing technology to monitor climate-related outcomes such as soil organic carbon sequestration and digitally enrolling farmers in carbon credit payment schemes to help them earn compensation for the climate impact of their sustainable farming practices.

Digital agricultural advisory services (DAAS) leverage the rapid proliferation of mobile phones, behavioral science, and human-centered design to build public extension system capacity to empower smallholder farmers with cutting-edge, productivity-enhancing agricultural knowledge that improves their food security and climate resilience through behavior change. It is a proven, cost-effective, and shovel-ready innovation that can improve the resilience of food systems and increase farmer yields and incomes by modernizing the agricultural extension system, at a fraction of the cost and an order of magnitude higher reach than traditional extension approaches. DAAS gives smallholder farmers access to on-demand, customized, and evidence-based agricultural information via mobile phones, cheaply at $1–$2 per farmer per year. It can be rapidly scaled up to reach more than a hundred million users by 2030, leading to an estimated $1 billion increase in additional farmer income per year. USAID currently spends over $1 billion on agricultural aid annually, and only a small fraction of this is directed to agricultural extension and training. Funding is often program-specific without a consistent strategy that can be replicated or scaled beyond the original geography and timeframe. Reallocating a share of this funding to DAAS would help the agency achieve strategic climate and equity global food security goals.  Scaling up DAAS could improve productivity and transform the role of LMIC government agricultural extension agents by freeing up resources and providing rapid feedback and data collection. Agents could refocus on enrolling farmers, providing specialized advice, and improving the relevance of advice farmers receive. DAAS could also be integrated into broader agricultural development programs, such as FAO’s input e-subsidy programs in Zambia and Kenya.

Plan of Action

To spearhead USAID’s leadership in digital agriculture and create a global pipeline from tested innovation to scaled impact, USAID, Feed the Future, and its U.S. government partners should launch a Digital Agriculture for Food Security Challenge. With an international call to action, USAID can galvanize R&D and investment for the next generation of digitally enabled technologies and solutions to secure yields and livelihoods for one hundred million smallholder farmers by 2030. This digital agriculture moonshot would consist of the following short- and long-term actions:

Recommendation 1: Allocate $150 million over five years to kickstart the Digital Agriculture Innovations Fund (DAI Fund) to fund, support, and scale novel solutions that use technology to equitably secure yields, food security, and livelihoods for smallholder farmers. 

The fund’s activities should target the following:

• Digital Agriculture Pilot and Research Fund (DAPR Fund) ($35 million): Provide funding for research, user design, and pilot testing to industry, NGO, and university innovators to create and verify digital innovations like customized weather forecasts, digital extension, microinsurance, microcredit, and local input dealer directories. This could employ the Small Business Innovation Research model and use technical assistance from within the agency and in partner organizations to support the development of promising new ventures or products/services from existing players. 
• Digital Agriculture Scaling and Commercialization Fund ($100 million): Invest in grants or, with collaboration from U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, in equity funding for proven digital agriculture solutions as bridge capital to enhance their scaling to new markets or products. Funding should be directed not only to FTF Innovation Labs solutions but also to those outside the FTF network with a focus on LMIC-founded ventures, digital and technology-enabled startups, and existing footprints in FTF target countries to ensure broader impact. Selected solutions should have demonstrated outcomes in proof of concept and moved into the “demonstrated uptake” phase of the product life cycle. Annual investments should be up to $10 million across a small portfolio of ventures to crowd-in unlocked private capital and foster competitive, sustainable enterprises. Contract authority should be flexible and mission-oriented.
• Market-Shaping and Public-Private Partnerships ($15 million): Create an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) style Tech-to-Market Team, a separate group of staffers working full-time to find marketing opportunities for novel technologies in the innovation pipeline. This group could coordinate new public-private partnerships, like the Nutritious Foods Financing Facility (N3F), which can support the digital agriculture ecosystem for smallholder farmers. This funding would also allow for the hiring of a cadre of dedicated digital development advisors at USAID to spearhead this work in the digital agriculture sector and collaborate with agency country missions in planning and executing RFPs and other agricultural aid programs.

The fund’s investment priorities should align with stated GFSS and GFSRS objectives, including solutions focused on climate-smart agricultural innovation, enhanced nutrition, and food systems, genetic innovation, and poverty reduction. Program activities and funding should coordinate with FTF implementation in strategic priority countries with large agricultural sectors and mature, low-cost mobile networks such as Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan. It should also collaborate with the FTF Innovation Lab and the AIM for Climate Initiative networks.

Recommendation 2: Convene the Digital Agriculture Summit to create an all-hands-on-deck approach to facilitate and accelerate integrated digital agriculture products and services that increase yields and resilience. 

USAID will announce the dedicated DAI Fund, convening its interagency partners—like the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), US Africa Development Foundation (USADF) as well as philanthropy, private sector capital, and partner country officials and leaders to chart these pathways and create opportunities for collaboration between sectors. The Summit can foster a community of expertise and solidify commitments for funding, in-kind resources, and FTF country partnerships that will enable DAI Fund solutions to demonstrate impact and scale. The Summit could occur on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly to allow for greater participation and collaboration with FTF country representatives and innovators. Follow-up activities should include:

• Partner Country Commitments: Secure commitments from FTF partner countries to direct annual funding toward digital infrastructure and the development of a local digital agriculture economy, whether in the form of R&D, implementation, or infrastructure funding.
• Philanthropic and Private Sector Commitments: Following the Grand Challenges model, the Digital Agriculture for Food Security Challenge should seek commitments from philanthropy and private sector funders to expand the funding pool and finance pipelines for startups. Invitation to the Summit would be contingent on commitments of financial support and in-kind resources for digital agriculture innovation.
• SXSAg for Digital Agriculture: Annual gatherings of innovators, investors, and stakeholders to share knowledge and results as well as attract more private capital.
• Innovator Community of Practice: Create a Community of Practice of innovators and experts inside and outside the agency to advise DAI Fund staff and USAID on current challenges in the digital agriculture space for non-established entrants and opportunities for future fund investments. 
• Webinar Series: As a follow-up to the Summit, a webinar series could disseminate knowledge and build institutional buy-in and support for DAAS with key stakeholders within the agency. Subject matter experts from PxD and other service providers can share evidence, use cases, and lessons learned in developing and delivering these services and provide recommendations on how USAID can better incorporate digital agriculture into its operations.

Conclusion

With the exponential adoption of mobile phones among smallholder farmers in the past decade, digital agriculture innovations are emerging as catalytic tools for impact at an unprecedented scale and social return on investment. Devoting a small percentage (~2%–5%) of USAID’s agricultural aid budget to DAAS and other digital agriculture innovations could catalyze $1 billion worth of increased yields among 100 million smallholder farmers every year, at a fraction of the cost and an order of magnitude higher reach than traditional extension approaches.

Achieving this progress requires a shift in strategy and an openness to experimentation. We recommend establishing a Digital Agriculture Innovation Fund to catalyze investment from USAID and other stakeholders and convening a global Digital Agriculture Summit to bring together subject matter experts, USAID, funders, and LMIC governments to secure commitments. From our experience at PxD, one of the world’s leading innovators in the digital agriculture sector, we see this as a prime opportunity for USAID to invest in sustainable agricultural production systems to feed the world and power local economic development for marginalized, food-insecure smallholder farmers around the world.

More from Jonathan Lehe, Gautam Bastian, and Nick Milne can be found at Precision Development.

Frequently Asked Questions

What might a commitment from the Digital Agriculture Summit look like?

Using the reach and power of the US government and its leaders as a platform to convene, multi-sector stakeholders can be brought together to outline a common agenda, align on specific targets, and seek commitments from the private sector and other anchor institutions to spur collective, transformational change on a wide range of issues aligned to the goals and interests of the federal agency and Administration’s priorities. External organizations respond to these calls-to-action, often leading to the development of partnerships (formal and informal), grand challenges, and the building of new coalitions to make financial and in-kind commitments that are aligned with achieving the federal government’s goals. A commitment could be modeled after how the State Department’s convened the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves:

• a financial contribution (e.g.) the U.S. pledged nearly $51 million to ensure that the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves reaches its ‘100 by 20,’ which calls for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020.


• shared expertise: the organization mobilizes experts in a variety of issues: gender, health, security, economics, and climate change to address significant risk factors. The U.S. will also offer assistance to implement cookstoves.


• research and development: the U.S. is committed to an applied research and development effort that will serve as the backbone of future efforts in the field that includes analyzing health and environmental benefits of using clean stoves, developing sustainable technologies, and conducting monitoring to ensure success of the Alliance’s goals. 

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How should the Challenge be designed? What existing models could it mimic?

USAID is a leader in the US government in running open innovation challenges and prizes. Other U.S. government agencies, foreign government aid agencies, and philanthropies have also validated the potential of open innovation models, particularly for technology-enabled solutions. USAID’s Grand Challenges for Development (GCDs) are effective programmatic frameworks that focus global attention and resources on specific, well-defined international development problems and promote the innovative approaches, processes, and solutions to solving them.

Conceived, launched, and implemented in coordination with public and private sector partners, Grand Challenges for Development (see list below) emphasize the engagement of non-traditional solvers around critical development problems. The Grand Challenges for Development approach is a complement to USAID’s current programming methods, with each GCD is led by experts at the bureau level. These experts work directly with partners to implement the day-to-day activities of the program. The Grand Challenges for Development programs show how the power of the framework can be leveraged through a variety of modalities, including partnerships, prizes, challenge grant funding, crowdsourcing, hack-a-thons, ideation, and commitments. The Digital Agriculture for Food Security Challenge could mimic a GCD program like Saving Lives at Birth by providing consistent funding, resources, and energy toward new meaningful, cost-effective breakthroughs to improve lives where solutions are most needed.

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Why should USAID and the U.S. Government lead on digital agriculture rather than national/local governments, the private sector, or other stakeholders?

Information provision, including DAAS, is a difficult product for private sector entities to deliver with a sustainable business model, particularly for smallholder farmers. The ability and willingness to pay for such services is often low among resource-poor smallholder farmers, and information is easily shareable, so it is hard to monetize. National or local governments, on the other hand, have an interest in implementing digital solutions to complement in-person agricultural extension programs and subsidies but tend to lack the technical capacity and experience to develop and deliver digital tools at scale. 

USAID has the technical and institutional capacity to provide digital agriculture services across its programs. It has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in agricultural extension services over the past 60 years and has gained a strong working knowledge of what works (and what doesn’t). Digital tools can also achieve economies of scale for cost relative to traditional in-person agriculture solutions. For instance, in-person extension requires many expenses that do not decrease with scale, including fuel, transportation, training, and most importantly the paid time of extension agents. 

One estimate is that extension agents cost $4,000 to $6,000 per year in low-income countries and can reach between 1,000 to 2,000 farmers each—well above the World Bank recommended threshold of 500 farmers per agent—bringing annual costs to $2–$6 per farmer per year. This estimate assumes a farmer-to-agent ratio well above the World Bank’s recommended threshold of 500:1. In other contexts, it has been estimated as high as $115. We estimate a cost-effectiveness of $10 in increased farmer income for every $1 invested in programs like DAAS, which is an effective return on American foreign development assistance.

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What is the long-term sustainability and scaling model for digital agriculture solutions?

Digital solutions require not only the up-front cost of development and testing but also maintenance and upkeep to maintain effectiveness. Scaling these solutions and sustaining impact requires engaged public-private partnerships to reduce costs for smallholder famers while still providing positive impact. Scaling also requires private capital – particularly for new technologies to support diffusion and adaptation –  but is only unlocked by de-risking investments by leveraging development aid.

As an example, PxD engages directly with national governments to encourage adoption of DAAS, focusing on building capacity, training government staff, and turning over systems to governments to finance the operation and maintenance of systems into perpetuity (or with continued donor support if necessary). For instance, the State Government of Odisha in India built a DAAS platform with co-financing from the government and a private foundation, scaled the platform to 3 million farmers, and transitioned it to the government in early 2022. A similar approach could support scale across other geographies—especially given USAID’s long-standing relationships with governments and ministries of agriculture.

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How does a digital-enabled technology like DAAS help smallholder farmers?

A growing body of evidence shows that DAAS can have a significant impact on farmers’ yields and incomes. Precision Development (PxD) currently reaches more than 7 million smallholder farming households with DAAS in nine countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and there is a well-established market with many other service providers also providing similar services. This research, including several randomized control trials conducted by PxD researchers in multiple contexts as well as additional research conducted by other organizations, shows that DAAS can improve farmer yields by 4% on average in a single year, with benefit-cost ratios of 10:1, and the potential for these impacts to increase over time to create larger gains. 

There is also evidence of a larger impact in certain geographies and for certain crops and livestock value chains, as well as a larger impact for the subset of farmers who use DAAS the most and adopt its recommendations.

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Introduction

The current administration should announce its intention to achieve net-zero soil loss by 2050. This target aligns with President Biden’s plan to “mount a historic, whole-of-Government-approach to combating climate change,”¹ would help fulfill the administration’s commitment to achieving a net-zero-emissions economy by 2050,² and is key to protecting our nation’s agricultural productivity.

Healthy soil is essential to food production. Less well recognized is the vital role that soil plays in climate modulation. Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon repository on the planet, containing three times the amount of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere.³ Soil represents a potential sink for 133 billion tons of carbon (equal to 25 years of U.S. fossil- fuel emissions).^{4 5} Using soil to offset emissions generates significant co-benefits. Carbon sequestration in soil nourishes soil ecosystems by improving soil architecture and increasing water-holding capacity. Deeper and more fertile soil also supports biodiversity and enriches natural habitats adjacent to agricultural land.

Over two-thirds of the United States is grassland, forestland, and cropland.⁶ Land practices that increase the amount of carbon stored underground⁷ present a relatively low-cost means for President Biden’s administration to pursue its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.⁸ But lost soil can no longer serve as a carbon repository. And once lost, soil takes centuries to rebuild. Increasingly extreme climate events and soil-degrading industrial farming practices are combining to rapidly deplete our nation’s strategic soil resources. The United States is losing 10.8 tons of fertile soil per hectare per year: a rate that is at least ten times greater than the rate of soil production.⁹ At this rate, many parts of the United States will run out of soil in the next 50 years; some regions already have. For example, in the Piedmont region of the eastern United States, farming practices that were inappropriate for the topography caused topsoil erosion and led to the abandonment of agriculture.^{10 11} The northwestern Palouse region has lost 40–50% of its topsoil,¹² and one-third of the Midwest corn belt has lost all of its topsoil.¹³

Soil loss reduces crop yields, destroys species’ habitats that are critical to food production, and causes high financial losses. Once roughly half of the soil is lost from a field, crop yields and nutrient density suffer. Maintaining a desired level of agricultural output then requires synthetic fertilizers that further compromise soil health, unleashing a feedback loop with widespread impacts on air, land, and water quality — impacts that are often disproportionately concentrated in underserved populations.

Climate change and soil erosion create a dual-threat to food production. As climate change progresses, more extreme weather events like intense flooding in the northeastern United States and prolonged drought in the Southwest make farmland less hospitable to production. Concurrently, soil erosion and degradation release soil carbon as greenhouse gases and make crops more vulnerable to extreme weather by weakening the capabilities of plants to fix carbon and deposit it in the soil. Halting soil erosion could reduce emissions, and building stable stores of soil carbon will reduce atmospheric carbon.

Prioritizing soil health and carbon sequestration as a domestic response to the climate and food-security crises is backed by centuries of pre-industrial agricultural practices. Before European occupation of tribal lands and the introduction of “modern agricultural practices,” Indigenous peoples across North America used soil protective practices to produce food while enhancing the health of larger ecosystems.¹⁴ Some U.S. farmers adhere to principles that guide all good soil stewardship — prevent soil movement and improve soil structure. Practices like no-till farming, cover cropping, application of organic soil amendments, and intercropping with deep-rooted prairie plants are proven to anchor soil and can increase its carbon content.^{15 16} In livestock production, regenerative grazing involves moving animals frequently to naturally fertilize the soil while allowing plants to recover and regrow. If all farms implemented these practices, most soil erosion would halt. The challenge is to equip farmers with the knowledge, financial incentives, and flexibility to use soil-protective techniques.

This document recommends a set of actions that the federal government — working with state and local governments, corporations, research institutions, landowners, and farmers — can take towards achieving net-zero soil loss by 2050. These recommendations are supported by policy priorities outlined in President Biden’s Discretionary Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2022 and the bipartisan infrastructure deal currently under negotiation in Congress. Throughout, we emphasize the importance of (1) prioritizing storage of stable carbon (i.e., carbon that remains in soils for the long term) and (2) addressing environmental injustices associated with soil erosion by engaging a broad group of stakeholders.

Firm commitments to restore degraded land will establish the United States as an international leader in soil health, help avoid the worst impacts of climate change, strengthen food security, advance environmental justice, and inspire other countries to set similar net-zero targets. The health of our planet and its people depend on soil preservation. Our nation can, and should, lead the way.

Summary

A national regenerative agriculture initiative launched by the federal government could transform how American farmers provide food, fiber, and land stewardship. This initiative would commit to matching what farmers earn growing food and fiber with an equal investment in farmers’ work to rebuild the country’s natural capital.

Regenerative agriculture produces a safe and abundant food supply while building soil health and regenerating natural resources. This approach recognizes the key roles farmers and ranchers have in providing clean air, clean water, and ecosystem services that benefit all society.

A national regenerative agriculture initiative would provide needed investment in rural economies while simultaneously empowering current and future farmers to grow food in ways that improve soil health, ecosystem services, and natural resources. This strategic initiative would support the return of farming as a more widely valued job in America.

To achieve truly regenerative agricultural systems nationwide, the federal government should catalyze new markets and focus federal funding for regenerative agriculture programs, research, and development. Key steps towards this goal include creating a Regenerative Agriculture Advisory Task Force, mobilizing substantial investments to upgrade the agricultural sector, and prioritizing regenerative agriculture as a major theme in agricultural innovation.