Sponsors (2)
The bill directs modest federal funding to create regional agricultural cybersecurity centers, building research, training, and coordinated defenses for farms while imposing a $125M price tag, possible regional inequities, administrative burdens, and a risk that tools may not be widely adopted or interoperable.
Farmers and agricultural businesses will gain region-tailored cybersecurity research, tools, and incident-response capabilities that improve detection and mitigation of cyberattacks on the food and agriculture sector.
Creates a coordinated national network and a designated university coordinator to share best practices and accelerate adoption of security solutions across regions and stakeholders.
Stakeholders (students, tech workers, and agricultural personnel) will have access to workforce training and education programs using live testbeds, improving cybersecurity skills in the agricultural sector.
Taxpayers will fund an estimated $125 million over five years to establish and run the centers, which may crowd out other federal priorities or require trade-offs in budget allocation.
Smaller farms and communities outside selected regions or institutions may receive less direct benefit if centers concentrate resources, worsening regional and scale-based inequities in cybersecurity access.
If the funded tools and testbeds are not interoperable or broadly shared, industry adoption may lag and R&D investments may fail to deliver widespread improvements in farm cybersecurity.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a NIFA-run grant program to fund five Regional Agriculture Cybersecurity Centers and a coordinating university, with $25M/year authorized for 2026–2030.
Creates a USDA-NIFA competitive grant/cooperative agreement program to fund five Regional Agriculture Cybersecurity Centers that focus on research, development, operations, and workforce training for seed crops, horticulture, animal agriculture, and the agricultural supply chain. The centers will form a national network coordinated by one designated college or university and will be set up in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security. Each center must undertake applied R&D, operate a security operations center (SOC), build sector-specific cybersecurity technologies and testbeds, run attack/defense exercises, and provide education and training. The legislation authorizes $25 million per year for fiscal years 2026–2030 to carry out the program and defines eligible entities as colleges or universities with relevant food/agriculture and cybersecurity programs to coordinate regional partners.
Introduced June 17, 2025 by Zach Nunn · Last progress June 17, 2025