Letter

Dear Chairman Harris, Chairman Heinrich, Ranking Member Bishop, and Ranking Member Hoeven:

As your committees consider Appropriations for the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies for Fiscal Year 2024, we, the undersigned organizations, companies, and institutions respectfully request $50 million for the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA).

Advanced research agencies have been effectively deployed in defense, energy, and health to tackle the biggest challenges facing these industries in novel and groundbreaking ways. Established in the 2018 Farm Bill and modeled after successful advanced research agencies like DARPA and ARPA-E, AgARDA will foster research, development, and technology transfer resulting in significant benefits across the U.S. food and agriculture value chain.

The power of an advanced research program lies in its unique selection process to identify innovative ideas and technologies, allowing significant achievements to occur more rapidly than in a conventional research setting. By fully funding AgARDA, Congress can respond to our most pressing challenges: herbicide-resistant weeds, threats from plant and animal pests and diseases, rising costs and limited availability of inputs, inefficiencies in planting, harvesting and processing, and vulnerabilities to increasingly extreme weather.

Our food and agricultural system is vast, complex, and interconnected. Shocks from natural disasters, geopolitical instability, and labor and supply chain disruptions have shown us that now, more than ever, we need a radically different approach to achieving solutions. AgARDA can reach across the boundaries of traditional scientific disciplines and draw from industries of the future – nanotechnology, quantum computing, and machine learning – to sustainably increase the quantity and quality of our food supply.

The U.S. food and agricultural enterprise is at a crossroad: continue to underinvest in research and innovation or support a robust, diverse public agricultural research portfolio that will transform our
agricultural system and maintain U.S. global leadership. AgARDA can be a key component of that future, but we can’t wait, the time to invest is now.

As Congress looks for ways to respond to the challenges facing the U.S. food and agricultural system, we urge you to fund AgARDA at $50 million in FY2024. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Agricultural & Applied Economics Association
American Association of Mycobacterial Diseases
American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges
American Dairy Science Association
American Farm Bureau Federation
American Farmland Trust
American Feed Industry Association
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Seed Trade Association
American Society for Horticultural Science
American Society for Microbiology
American Society for Nutrition
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Animal Science
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Soybean Association
American Veterinary Medical Association
Animal Health Institute
Aquatic Plant Management Society
Biotechnology Innovation Organization
Colorado State University
Corn Refiners Association
Council for Agricultural Science and Technology
Crop Science Society of America
CropLife America
E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs)
Ecological Society of America
Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative
Entomological Society of America
Environmental Defense Fund
Eversole Associates
Farm Journal Foundation
FASS
Florida Tomato Exchange
Institute of Food Technologists (IFT)
International Alliance for Phytobiomes Research
International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium
Kansas State University
Michigan State University AgBioResearch
Mycobacterial Diseases of Animals – Multistate Initiative
National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research
National Corn Growers
National Council of Farmer Cooperatives
National Milk Producers Federation
National Pork Producers Council
Natural Resources Defense Council
North American Craft Maltsters Guild
North American Meat Institute
North Central Weed Science Society
Northeastern Weed Science Society
Pet Food Institute
Plant Based Products Council
Resilient Agriculture Coalition
Soil Science Society of America
Southern Weed Science Society
Spark Climate Solutions
Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) Foundation
Synergistic Hawaii Agriculture Council
The Breakthrough Institute
UF/IFAS
Weed Science Society of America
Western Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors
Western Society of Weed Science

cc:
The Honorable Patty Murray
The Honorable Susan Collins The Honorable Kay Granger
The Honorable Rosa DeLauro

Date Sent:

March 8, 2023

Sender:

Agricultural Coalition

Subject:

Support for Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA) in Fiscal Year 2024