On April 22, 2026, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) signed a $300 million agreement with Palantir Technologies to modernize its data infrastructure and strengthen oversight of America’s agricultural system.
The agreement supports a broader strategy within the department focused on food security, economic stability, and protection against external vulnerabilities.
Food Security, Economy, and National Security
Agriculture is not only about production. It is closely tied to food supply, economic performance, and national security. Droughts, fertilizer shortages, misused funding, and foreign ownership can all disrupt the system.
The USDA has identified these vulnerabilities and is working to address them through changes in oversight, programme management, and supply chain policy.
Land Ownership and Control
Foreign ownership of U.S. farmland is one of the areas receiving increased attention in the agricultural system.
A portion of U.S. farmland is held by foreign entities, spread across multiple states and jurisdictions. Most of these holdings are linked to Canada and Western Europe, while a smaller share is associated with countries the U.S. classifies as adversaries such as China.
Some of these properties are located near military installations, which has drawn closer attention in recent years.
Chinese-linked entities account for hundreds of thousands of acres across the country, with individual cases — such as attempted land purchases near U.S. Air Force bases in North Dakota and Texas — leading to political and security reviews.
The issue is not only ownership itself, but how it is monitored and assessed. Ownership filings, land registries, and location data all exist, but they are not always consistently enforced or reviewed in a unified way. The reporting system, based on the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA), relies heavily on self-reporting and has historically faced gaps in compliance and enforcement.
In response, the USDA is strengthening reporting requirements, improving enforcement of disclosure rules, and increasing coordination with national security bodies such as CFIUS to review transactions and ownership structures more closely. Modernization efforts are also underway to improve how foreign ownership data is collected, compiled, and shared.
Supply Chains and Dependencies
The USDA has also focused on supply chains, particularly where U.S. production depends on imported inputs such as fertilizers, chemicals, seeds, and equipment.
These inputs move through global markets before reaching American farms. While they support production, they also create dependencies that can affect availability and cost when international disruptions occur.
Recent events have highlighted these vulnerabilities. Sanctions and trade restrictions on major fertilizer exporters, along with ongoing instability in the Middle East, have tightened global supplies. Disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz — a critical chokepoint for fertilizer and energy shipments — have raised particular concerns about transport delays and price volatility in 2026.
Disruptions can originate far from where they are felt. Changes in trade flows, export restrictions, or shipping constraints can impact production across regions, even when domestic farming conditions remain stable.
In response, the USDA is prioritising more resilient supply chains. This includes efforts to expand domestic production capacity, diversify sourcing, and reduce reliance on suppliers linked to geopolitical risk.
Payments, Programmes, and Oversight
Federal programmes represent another area of focus.
The USDA has identified risks related to fraud, misuse of funds, and limited oversight across programmes. Payments, subsidies, and participation records are handled across multiple systems, which can make oversight more complex.
In recent years, large-scale fraud cases have highlighted vulnerabilities in food and farm support programmes. In one case, funds intended to provide meals to children were diverted through fraudulent claims, leading to losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Similar challenges have been identified across farm support and disaster relief programmes, including eligibility checks, verification of claims, and administrative complexity. Individual transactions may appear valid on their own, while broader patterns can be harder to detect across programmes and regions.
In response, the USDA is strengthening programme oversight, improving verification processes, and increasing enforcement to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse. Systems that improve how information is shared across departments, supported in part by platforms such as those provided by Palantir Technologies, can help identify patterns that are not always visible within a single programme.
Biological Risk
The USDA is also expanding its focus on biological risk within agriculture.
Diseases and pathogens can spread across farms and regions, affecting both crops and livestock. These risks can develop over time and across different locations, sometimes before they are fully detected.
Recent examples include outbreaks of avian influenza affecting poultry production across multiple states, as well as the continued risk of African swine fever, which has disrupted pork supply chains globally and remains a concern for U.S. agriculture.
Concerns also extend beyond natural outbreaks. In 2024, U.S. authorities charged individuals linked to foreign actors with attempting to smuggle crop-damaging pathogens into the country, raising concerns about deliberate biological threats to agriculture.
The department is strengthening biosecurity measures, expanding monitoring systems, and improving coordination across agencies to detect and respond to these risks more effectively.
Research and System Access
Research and institutional activity form another part of the system.
Funding, participation, and institutional access are distributed across universities, federal programmes, and private partners. In some cases, concerns have been raised about foreign access to research and the movement of knowledge, particularly in areas linked to agricultural innovation, biotechnology, and food production systems.
U.S. agencies have already taken steps to restrict or review certain forms of collaboration and funding access where national security concerns are involved.
The USDA is working to improve oversight of research activity, strengthen controls around access and participation, and ensure that sensitive areas of agricultural research are protected.
Digital Integration
To support these efforts, the USDA is also expanding its digital infrastructure across the system.
This includes USDA-led programmes such as “One Farmer, One File,” which creates a single record for each farmer across USDA programmes, and the Landmark platform, which is used to consolidate and manage data from multiple systems within the department.
The $300 million agreement with Palantir Technologies forms part of the USDA’s broader digital transformation, reinforcing efforts already underway across the system. Together, these elements support how programmes and oversight are applied across areas such as land ownership, payments, supply chains, and risk.
