WASHINGTON, D.C. – A bill that would amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to authorize the USDA secretary to improve agricultural productivity by modernizing and centralizing data infrastructure and analysis is currently before the 117th Congress.

The Agricultural Innovation Act of 2022, introduced May 11 by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and John Thune (R-S.D.), will serve to improve conservation outcomes, and accelerate the development of carbon and other ecosystem service markets by collecting, analyzing and providing data for the purpose of improving the implementation of USDA programs.

“As the economic backbone of rural communities across our state, farmers and producers deserve the most up-to-date resources possible to inform their operations,” Klobuchar said. “This bipartisan legislation will provide farmers with better access to comprehensive USDA data, ensuring they are able to use the most effective conservation practices for boosting productivity and improving crop yield.”

The Ag Innovation Act would allow the USDA secretary to identify, collect, link and analyze data relating to the impacts of conservation practices on enhancing crop yields, soil health and farm profitability. A new online conservation and farm productivity data center would store operational, transactional and administrative program databases for use by the USDA in providing technical assistance to farmers and improve USDA program implementation.

The legislation has been endorsed by the National Corn Growers Association, American Farmland Trust, the AGree Coalition and many more conservation, ecological and agriculture-related organizations. Deborah Atwood, AGree executive director and Meridian Institute Senior Fellow, released the following statement:

“AGree commends the leadership of Sens. Klobuchar and Thune in order to get the Ag Innovation Act introduced in the Senate. USDA has an abundance of data that can be leveraged to better inform conservation farming practices across the country. We are eager to see the passage of this bill so that it can catalyze the modernization of agriculture data collection, storage and analysis that will drive innovation for the agriculture sector, enhance resilience and improve economic and environmental benefits for farmers and American taxpayers.”

Modernizing U.S. agricultural data infrastructure will better equip farmers and the USDA with tools to adapt, innovate and ensure a food-secure future given the increasingly dynamic conditions in which the sector operates, according to the Washington D.C.-based Data Foundation (www.datafoundation.org).

“Data innovation is necessary to address a growing number of critical short and long-term food and agricultural issues, including agricultural production, environmental sustainability, nutrition assistance, food waste, supply chain disruptions, and food and farm labor. Though many farmers are already collecting production data about their farms that can help solve these issues, this information remains mostly unavailable to other farmers, policymakers, and USDA due to a number of issues,” noted the Foundation, which issued a study, “Modernizing Agriculture Data Infrastructure to Improve Economic and Ecological Outcomes,” on May 3.

“USDA has a vital, yet unrealized, leadership role to play in facilitating data collection, utilization, sharing and research. The lack of a clear mandate across agencies, some gaps in authorities, and privacy concerns have hindered USDA’s innovative use of data, including the department’s ability to facilitate needed research to support decision-making,” according to the Data Foundation study.

Under the current data collection system, it can be difficult for producers to actualize soil health and conservation practices, said Levi Neuharth, chairman of the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition. “With the Agriculture Innovation Act, the ability to make use of the extensive, real-world data that USDA already collects to show that healthy land management practices make producers more profitable and more resilient to volatile changes in weather and the markets would be helpful,” he said.

The study may be found on the Data Foundation’s website.