60 Agricultural Stakeholders Push Congress to Fund AGARDA at $10M
March 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Claire Cummings
A coalition of nearly 60 research institutions and agricultural stakeholders sent a letter to congressional appropriators on March 10 urging them to fund the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority at $10 million for FY2027 — a figure that would more than double the total AGARDA has received since Congress authorized it in the 2018 Farm Bill.
A DARPA for Agriculture That Never Got Off the Ground
AGARDA was modeled after DARPA and ARPA-E to drive high-risk, high-reward agricultural research. Congress authorized $50 million annually from FY2019 through FY2023. The actual appropriation: less than $4 million total across all those years.
The result is an authorized agency that has never been able to hire leadership, build staff, or issue its first competitive solicitation. The coalition's letter to the House and Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittees argues that even the modest $10 million ask would be enough to "appoint leadership, hire staff, and ensure USDA can leverage AGARDA" to address mounting agricultural challenges.
What AGARDA Would Fund
The USDA's strategic framework envisions AGARDA tackling problems that existing USDA research programs aren't structured to solve: reducing high farm input costs, combating emerging pest and disease pressures like New World Screwworm, improving producer profitability, and expanding consumer access to affordable food.
Unlike traditional NIFA competitive grants, AGARDA is designed to fund transformative, cross-cutting projects that bridge the gap between basic research and commercial deployment — the agricultural equivalent of the moonshot programs that made DARPA and ARPA-E transformative.
What Agricultural Researchers Should Watch
If Congress appropriates even the minimum $1 million threshold the coalition identifies, AGARDA would begin standing up operations and could issue its first funding announcements within 12-18 months. Agricultural scientists, particularly those working on precision agriculture, pest resistance, and input-cost reduction technologies, should monitor the FY2027 appropriations process through the House and Senate Agriculture subcommittees. Analysis of emerging USDA funding streams is available on the Granted blog.