DOD and USDA Interagency Research Act

This bill requires the Department of Defense and the Department of Agriculture to carry out joint research and development on agriculture and food defense, including national security, farm resilience, materials for bio-based manufacturing, and natural resource management. The two departments must sign an agreement to coordinate the work, select projects through a competitive review process, and may make grants that require recipients to match the grant amount with non-federal funds. Research areas include agricultural data and artificial intelligence, PFAS contamination of farmland near military bases, supply chain security, drones, and wildfire prevention. The bill lets the departments use certain unspent research funds, keeps farmer data used in the research from public disclosure, requires annual reports to Congress with a public version, and directs courts to defer to the departments' reasonable interpretation of unclear parts of the law.

Full text and official record on Congress.gov

Sponsors

• Mark B. Messmer Republican sponsor
• 2 cosponsors