Sixty-five organizations, including AIBS, have sent a letter to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees urging the inclusion of the bipartisan, bicameral Advancing Cutting Edge (ACE) Agriculture Act (S.834, H.R.2385) in the next Farm Bill—a legislative package passed by Congress every five years that sets national agriculture, nutrition, conservation, and forestry policy.
The ACE Ag Act would reauthorize the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), add an additional focus on resilience and mitigation research, and grow its authorization level to more adequately reflect the mission of advanced research programs. AgARDA was established in the 2018 Farm Bill to support high-risk, high-reward research at USDA to address the most far-reaching challenges facing the food and agriculture system.
“The successes of other federal high-risk, high-reward research programs have made significant contributions to the U.S. economy, such as the Internet and Global Positioning Services, and have protected and enhanced vital components of our nation’s defense and energy sectors,” the letter reads. “AgARDA is an opportunity to bring this legacy of transformative innovation to USDA to secure America’s food supply and give our farmers and ranchers the tools they need to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
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