This bill expands and enhances the United States-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, commonly known as the BARD Fund, which has operated since 1977 to support joint agricultural research between American and Israeli scientists. The legislation modifies the fund to expand its scope beyond just U.S. and Israeli participation to include countries that signed the Abraham Accords Declaration and Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel. The bill creates a new BARD Fund Accelerator program designed to fast-track mid-stage agricultural research projects and provide technical guidance and consulting services to participating scientists. The legislation authorizes eight million dollars annually for fiscal years 2026 through 2030 for the core BARD Fund activities and an additional twelve million dollars per year for the same period to fund the new Accelerator program, totaling twenty million dollars yearly in new funding for the initiative.
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