Cultivating Tomorrow: Driving High Impact Agricultural Innovation with AgARDA

AgARDA Roundtable Discussion Summary and Key Takeaways

Executive Summary

Our nation’s food and agricultural system is vast, complex, and interconnected. The security of this system is of foremost strategic importance. Shocks from extreme weather, unexpected pests and diseases, geopolitical instability, and labor and supply chain disruptions continue to demonstrate the system’s fragility. Emerging threats such as avian flu and other species-jumping diseases, as well as a lack of genetic diversity for staple crops, highlight the issue’s urgency. A federal structure for extramural competitive research can help provide a rapid, large, and coordinated response to these emerging needs. Federal efforts for high impact, mission-oriented, applied technology and R&D are critical to reaching across the boundaries of traditional scientific disciplines and addressing our nation’s most critical agriculture challenges.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA) was created by Congress in the 2018 Farm Bill and adopts the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) model employed by other high impact advanced federal research agencies, such as the Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). DARPA and ARPA-E have seeded investments in trillion-dollar breakthrough innovations, including the internet and GPS. By prioritizing high risk, high reward research, ARPA-style efforts can bring this unique approach to USDA’s R&D mission. As defined in statute, AgARDA can take on higher impact and visionary projects with a mission-driven approach, while building connections with the private sector to facilitate commercial adoption.

This roundtable report is informed by insights from a June 2024 roundtable hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center and ClearPath. This discussion brought together a diverse group of agricultural innovation leaders, including those representing commodity groups, researchers, startups, government agencies, and congressional staff.

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Key Takeaways

AgARDA can be a key research and collaboration tool to maintain U.S. leadership and competitiveness in agriculture by launching high risk, high reward “moonshots” addressing major commercialization challenges. This can be achieved by (1) identifying opportunities to expand existing markets and create new ones, (2) supporting innovative research that leverages cutting-edge technologies, (3) harnessing insights from USDA’s existing data resources, and (4) enhancing collaboration across diverse stakeholders, including academia, farmers and ranchers, industry, trade associations, and nonprofits, involved with the agriculture sector.
AgARDA can leverage both the ARPA model and the USDA network to enhance innovation in the agriculture sector. AgARDA is designed to add new capacity to the existing USDA research ecosystem. With a focus on new market opportunities, AgARDA can help create an agricultural system that does not yet exist. AgARDA could also support agriculture research projects that other ARPA agencies are unable to support. Utilization of USDA’s existing resources and expertise will prioritize producer interests as the agency identifies future challenges and attempts to bridge the “valley of death” between early-stage research and commercialization.
AgARDA can overcome challenges through a series of “first steps” that mobilize current levels of funding and encourage stakeholder collaboration. Challenges to standing up AgARDA include limited autonomy, funding constraints, lack of dedicated leadership, and limited alignment with other ARPA-style programs. The first steps to address these challenges include (1) appointing a director and program managers, (2) convening key agricultural sector collaborators that demonstrate a forward-thinking view and practical perspective on the significant challenges to the sector, and (3) issuing an open call for innovations to form an inaugural program.

Recommendations to Maximize AgARDA’s Impact

Work with the private sector to fill gaps. AgARDA could identify stakeholder alignment on which agricultural challenges it would benefit most from solving by supporting high-risk, potentially transformative technologies that the private sector is not pursuing because of the level of risk involved.
Leverage USDA’s convening power to bring together key participants, identify key challenges, and issue an open call for research proposals to fund initial projects. USDA is unique in its breadth and reach within the agricultural sector. AgARDA could capitalize on these relationships to engage interested parties at a large summit-type convening meant to garner interest and develop future program concepts for AgARDA. After this convening, AgARDA should release an open funding opportunity announcement (FOA), similar to ARPA-E’s inaugural program, to award the best and most innovative ideas in the field.
Identify unique funding opportunities for AgARDA, in addition to congressional appropriations. Many agriculture challenges are also national security or defense challenges. AgARDA could partner with DARPA to jointly support awardees that align with both agencies’ missions. Awardees would then benefit from USDA and Defense Department (DOD) resources.
Establish dedicated leadership at USDA for AgARDA. Without dedicated leadership, it is challenging for AgARDA to gain a foothold as a newly established agency. USDA should appoint a director or acting director. A director would provide the technical and administrative leadership necessary to grow AgARDA from a concept into a functioning organization and to make progress toward achieving AgARDA’s mandated mission and goals. We recommend appointing an acting director who can help AgARDA move from its nascent stage into a supported and mission-driven organization.
Increase AgARDA’s autonomy by aligning AgARDA’s organizational features with other ARPA-style agencies. Autonomy in decision-making and funding priorities is a key aspect of successful ARPA-style programs. Potential areas of alignment to achieve independence include having an AgARDA director who reports directly to the Secretary of Agriculture. Separating AgARDA appropriations and budget requests from other USDA programs or office budgets can help to better align AgARDA with other ARPA-style programs.