A $300 million contract between the USDA and Palantir Technologies will improve U.S. food security, protect against fraud, and make life easier for farmers, the USDA and Palantir said in a press release.
The deal calls for Palantir to modernize agency systems, deploying operation software that will simplify how field staff and farmers receive USDA support. The deal is tied to the overall National Farm Security Action Plan. A previous collaboration produced USDA’s Landmark platform, which will serve as a model and tie into the agency’s One Farmer, One File initiative – a single portal through which farmers report acreage, access services, and receive payments.
“Replacing legacy digital systems used by critical infrastructure and the supply chain is one of the most important steps to protect against cyberthreats from both criminals and nation-states,” Danny Jenkins, a former ethical hacker and ransomware responder who is the CEO and co-founder of ThreatLocker, told The Food Institute.
“These systems are often no longer supported or are filled with vulnerabilities that malicious actors actively exploit. Shifting away from older systems is even more urgent in light of recent advances in AI, which are making it faster, easier, and more damaging than ever to take advantage of those weaknesses.”
USDA expects the platform to be up and running by 2028, TFN reported. The platform will unite the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Risk Management to help farmers with loans and disaster relief, conservation planning, and federal crop insurance programs.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has urged USDA to overhaul its tracking of foreign farmland purchases to keep global rivals from gaining leverage over the U.S. food supply. In recent years, Washington’s concern over China’s increasing stake in U.S. farmland has been growing, though current percentage is negligible at 384,000 acres or 0.03%, according to USDA figures.
Overall, the USDA put foreign ownership of U.S. farmland at 3.5% or about 45 million acres as of Dec. 31, 2023. The Cato Institute has argued the current level of foreign ownership is relatively insignificant and does not warrant severe restrictions.
“America depends on its farmers, and USDA is moving fast to give them the technology they need,” Ali Monfre, federal engineering lead at Palantir, said in a press release. “They are raising the bar for what government can deliver for farmers.”
USDA Chief Information Officer Sam Berry said Palantir’s platform will enable USDA to protect the nation’s food supply.
“Our farmers sustain this nation, and modern tools help us support them with greater precision,” Berry said.
The Food Institute Podcast
This episode features Julie Chapon, CEO and co-founder of Yuka, the fast-growing app that helps consumers better understand the health impact of food and cosmetic products. Chapon shares the origin story of Yuka, which began as a personal mission to decode confusing food labels and has since expanded into a global platform with over 80 million users.
