DOD and USDA Interagency Research Act

This bill would require 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 manufacturing, and natural resource management. The two departments would sign an agreement to coordinate the work, award grants through a competitive process, and require grant recipients to match the federal grant amount with non-federal funds. Research areas include farm technology, agricultural data and artificial intelligence, biosecurity, supply chain security, drones, and wildfire prevention. The departments could use unspent funds from existing research accounts, would have to report to Congress each year, and data from farmers used in the research would be kept from public disclosure. Courts would be required to defer to the departments' reasonable interpretation of unclear parts of the law.

Full text and official record on Congress.gov

Sponsors

• Jim Banks Republican sponsor
• 1 cosponsors