This bill establishes a formal partnership between the Department of Defense and Department of Agriculture to conduct joint research and development on topics that serve both national security and agricultural interests. The two departments will collaborate on areas including agricultural technology improvements, artificial intelligence applications to farming, biological sciences for disease and disaster resilience, supply chain security, food system protection, precision agriculture innovations, and wildfire management. Research projects will be selected through a competitive merit-review process that can include federal agencies, national laboratories, universities, nonprofits, and private companies, with private sector participants required to match federal grant funding dollar-for-dollar. The bill authorizes the departments to use existing unobligated funds from their research budgets to carry out these activities and requires annual reports to Congress documenting the coordination efforts, achievements, spending, and research security measures, along with a public-friendly version of the report. The Government Accountability Office must review the program's effectiveness at least once every five years.
Take Action
Your position
Add a comment
to comment on this bill.
Annotate the text
Highlight any passage on the Summary or Full Text tab to attach a note. Annotations appear on the Annotations tab.