The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced in Washington on 22 July 2026 that it wanted universities and other partners to help build artificial intelligence (AI) tools able to make sense of the large amount of germplasm data the department collects. Through the Genesis Mission and the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA), it said it expected to launch an Agricultural National Science and Technology Challenge later that year.
What the challenge was meant to do
According to the department, entrants would be asked to create practical solutions that bring together different kinds of information, such as images, field data and laboratory results, so that scientists could quickly spot important plant and seed traits and develop crops that are more resilient and productive.
Teams were to have access to the American Science and Security Platform, shared infrastructure built by the Department of Energy that connects datasets, scientific instruments and AI tools. Full rules had not yet been published; the department encouraged prospective teams to read the Genesis Mission executive order.
"USDA is taking concrete steps to give scientists the modern tools they need to innovate agricultural solutions from the vast plant data that they collect," said Dr Scott Hutchins, Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics and USDA Chief Scientist.
Germplasm and the US seed bank system
Germplasm means genetic resources such as seeds, tissues and DNA sequences that are kept for plant and animal breeding, conservation, agriculture and research. Breeders search this diversity for traits such as drought tolerance or disease resistance when they develop new varieties.
In the United States the work is done by the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) of USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), whose mission is to acquire, conserve, evaluate, document and distribute crop germplasm. According to the ARS Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), the NPGS curates more than 600,000 active accessions of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Since November 2015 the database has run on GRIN-Global software, developed by USDA together with the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
The long-term backup vault is at the ARS genetic resources preservation centre in Fort Collins, Colorado. In 2013 USDA described it as holding nearly 1 million samples of more than 13,200 plant species, most of them seeds, with 20 NPGS genebanks across the country safeguarding, studying and distributing the material.
The Genesis Mission and AgARDA
President Donald Trump launched the Genesis Mission by executive order on 24 November 2025. Led by the Department of Energy, the initiative uses AI and advanced computing to speed scientific discovery; its launch announcement set the goal of doubling the productivity and impact of American science and engineering within a decade and mobilised the department's 17 national laboratories. USDA described it as coordinated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
AgARDA was authorised in the 2018 Farm Bill and modelled on the advanced research projects agency approach behind DARPA, funding high-risk, long-term research in food and agriculture. The Breakthrough Institute has noted that $50 million a year was authorised for a five-year pilot, but the authority has received only limited funding.
Photo: USDA / Neil Palmer / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), RFD-TV, Morning Ag Clips, Fermilab (US Department of Energy), The Breakthrough Institute, USDA-ARS GRIN, Wikipedia
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