Sponsors (7)
The bill strengthens national security and resilience of the food system through clearer roles, information sharing, and targeted exercises, but it also raises compliance costs and administrative burdens for small producers and state/local partners and introduces privacy and centralization risks.
Farmers, food processors, distributors, and supply-chain partners gain a clear federal lead (Secretary of Agriculture) and unified definitions to coordinate and speed responses to cyber incidents that threaten the food supply.
State, local, Tribal, and private-sector partners (via a designated Food and Agriculture ISAC and sector council) receive improved information sharing, practical feedback, and coordinated guidance that improves detection, readiness, and cross-sector incident response.
Farmers, producers, and food businesses get identification of supply-chain and infrastructure gaps so agencies and companies can prioritize fixes to reduce the risk of future food shortages and disruptions.
Small farms and food businesses will likely face new compliance, reporting, and staff-time costs to meet assessments, consultations, exercises, or any recommended federal standards.
Relying on a single federal lead and imposing annual federal-led exercises may centralize decision-making and create bottlenecks or impose recurring administrative burdens on State, Tribal, local, and territorial agencies.
Adopting DHS-style statutory definitions and federal reporting/response frameworks could pull agricultural operators into new federal processes, raising privacy and operational concerns for producers and small businesses.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Mandates biennial agriculture/food cybersecurity risk assessments and five years of annual cross-sector crisis simulation exercises; authorizes $1M/year for exercises.
Official title: To direct the Secretary of Agriculture to periodically assess cybersecurity threats to, and vulnerabilities in, the agriculture and food critical infrastructure sector and to provide recommendations to enhance their security and resilience, to require the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct an annual cross-sector simulation exercise relating to a food-related emergency or disruption, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 26, 2025 by Brad Finstad · Last progress February 26, 2025
Requires the Secretary of Agriculture to run recurring cybersecurity risk assessments and multiagency crisis simulation exercises focused on the agriculture and food critical infrastructure sector. It directs biennial threat-and-vulnerability reports to Congress, mandates cross-sector emergency simulations for five years, and authorizes $1 million per year for exercises from FY2026–FY2030. The law defines covered terms, names the Food and Agriculture Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) as the sector ISAC, requires private-sector consultation, and seeks recommendations to improve resilience, information sharing, and policy coordination across federal, state, Tribal, local, territorial, and private sector participants.