Advancing Research on Agricultural Soil Health Act of 2025
Advancing Research on Agricultural Soil Health Act of 2025 would require the Secretary of Agriculture to lead a comprehensive program to measure, monitor, report, and verify soil carbon sequestration and related soil health outcomes. Key elements include developing a standardized, direct-measurement method for soil carbon within about 9 months of enactment; enabling voluntary reporting by producers with technical assistance and multilingual guidance; expanding agricultural research funding to include soil carbon measurement tools; creating on-farm demonstration trials; and establishing a nationwide Soil Carbon Inventory and Analysis Network that inventories soil carbon on eligible lands every five years with protections for private property and privacy. The act also calls for predictive modeling tools tied to direct measurements to forecast how different land-management practices affect atmospheric greenhouse gases and soil carbon, with regular congressional reporting. Funding is allocated to support these efforts across several sections. The bill emphasizes stakeholder consultation (including socially disadvantaged farmers, scientists, nonprofits, and diverse geographic and socioeconomic producer groups), interoperability with existing USDA data, and public access to aggregated results. It sets a clear implementation timeline, reporting cadence, and privacy safeguards, while expanding related research programs (notably AFRI) to include soil carbon measurement and verification.
Key Points
- 1Standardized soil carbon measurement methodology: The Secretary must develop a direct-measurement standard within 270 days of enactment, review existing methods, consult a broad set of stakeholders, and ensure the method is usable at diverse locations with consistent reporting metrics and interoperability with USDA data; updates are required as science evolves.
- 2Voluntary reporting with technical guidance: Producers can voluntarily measure, monitor, and report soil carbon using the new methodology, with NRCS providing technical assistance and multilingual, accessible guidance tied to eligible USDA programs.
- 3Soil Carbon Inventory and Analysis Network: A nationwide program to inventory, monitor, and analyze soil carbon on eligible land every five years, including sampling across regional resource areas, with protections for private property rights and data privacy; results and methodology are publicly available.
- 4Expanded on-farm trials and SARE work: On-farm conservation innovation trials and sustainable agriculture programs will include explicit soil health and soil carbon components, with longer trial durations (5 years) and dedicated demonstration projects for soil carbon sequestration.
- 5Predictive modeling and reporting: The Secretary must develop modeling tools to predict impacts of land-management practices on atmospheric carbon, methane, nitrous oxide, and soil carbon sequestration; tools must be anchored to direct measurements, user-friendly, multilingual, and reviewed/updated regularly, with Congress receiving regular progress and impact reports.