DARPA Awards $850K to Build Agricultural Threat Detection System
March 6, 2026 · 2 min read
David Almeida
DARPA has awarded $850,000 to Mississippi State University to build a prototype platform for detecting threats to global food systems before they escalate — a signal that the Pentagon is treating agricultural security as a national defense priority.
What AgSENT Will Do
The funding establishes AgSENT, the Agricultural Security Early Notification and Threat Network, which aims to synthesize data streams that currently sit in disconnected silos: atmospheric conditions affecting pathogen transport, supply chain disruptions, political instability indicators, and biological threat intelligence. The system's goal is translating cross-domain signals into actionable alerts for decision-makers.
"Agriculture is a critical component of national security, and the threats to global food supplies are increasingly complex," said Narcisa Pricope, MSU's Associate Vice President for Research and Economic Development, who leads the project.
The research team draws from an unusually broad coalition. Beyond MSU's core group — which includes political scientist Benjamin Tkach and computer science professor Dimitrios Manias — the project involves Virginia Tech, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory.
A Growing DOD Appetite for Ag Security
The award came from DARPA's Biological Technology Office, which has been expanding its portfolio beyond traditional biodefense into food and agriculture. Earlier this year, USDA and the Department of War advanced key components of the National Farm Security Action Plan, signaling coordinated interagency attention to food system vulnerabilities.
For researchers in agriculture, biosecurity, environmental science, and AI-driven threat detection, this award is worth studying closely. DARPA rarely funds one-off projects — initial awards like this often precede larger program announcements in the same domain. Proposals that combine data science with agricultural expertise and national security relevance are well-positioned for future solicitations.
Researchers tracking defense-adjacent grant opportunities in agriculture and biosecurity can monitor upcoming openings on Granted, where in-depth analysis of DARPA funding patterns is available on the blog.