RELEASE: Breakthrough Institute Endorses Agricultural Soil Research Bill

Washington, DC — August 13, 2025 — The Breakthrough Institute is pleased to support the Advancing Research on Agricultural Soil Health Act. Breakthrough applauds Senators Tina Smith (D-MN) and Todd Young (R-IN) for their leadership in introducing this legislation which would enable the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to lead in developing consistent, science-based, and standardized soil carbon measurement methodologies.

If passed, this legislation will enable USDA to leverage existing programs, under Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, Agriculture Research Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service, to develop new tools to better measure, monitor, report, and verify (MMRV) greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration and then analyze changes in these measures over time and across agricultural lands.

​​“By catalyzing the development of new tools and predictive models to measure, monitor, report, and verify soil carbon, this legislation will enable USDA and the private sector to better direct funds to management decisions with the most potential for soil carbon sequestration. These investments in large-scale data analysis and on-farm demonstration trials are needed to give U.S. producers greater insights to optimize regionally-relevant practices that sequester carbon, increase soil health, and improve agricultural productivity,” said Emily Bass, Breakthrough’s Director of Federal Policy for Food & Agriculture.

By directing the USDA to support on-farm demonstration projects through the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program and Conservation Innovation Grant On-Farm Trials, this legislation will help ensure that management systems and tools for greenhouse gas emission and carbon sequestration MMRV are cost-effective for producers. We urge Congress to support funding for improved technologies, practices, and modeling that will help address the limits of soil carbon sequestration by passing this bill.

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Media Contact:

Emily Bass

Director of Federal Policy, Food and Agriculture

emily@thebreakthrough.org