By Jennifer Whitlock
Field Editor

President Joe Biden’s recent fiscal year 2022 discretionary funding request included a boost to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) budget.

In a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Acting Director Shalanda Young said the $27.8 billion request is a 16-percent increase from the 2021 enacted level.

Priorities for the expanded budget include increasing rural broadband access; funding water and sewer infrastructure projects for poor, rural communities; addressing wildfires; investing in agricultural research and development; bolstering voluntary conservation programs; helping rural communities switch to “carbon-pollution free” energy sources; and promoting rural economic growth through the “Strikeforce” initiative. The funds would also be used to help advance equity, foster development of regional food systems and support supplemental nutrition programs for those in need, according to Young’s letter.

A statement released by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack detailed some of the agency’s larger funding increase plans.

“This is our moment to solve big challenges by acting boldly—to close the broadband gap facing rural America; to work with farmers, ranchers and producers to transform our nation’s food system and build new markets here and abroad; to protect and manage our nation’s forests and grasslands from catastrophic wildfires; and to ensure Americans have access to healthy and nutritious food,” Vilsack, who oversees the USDA’s 29 agencies and nearly 100,000 employees, said. “The president’s budget commits to building back better and USDA is at heart of that historic commitment.”

The 2022 discretionary request includes more than $1 billion above the 2021 enacted level for federal nutrition programs. The funds will support an anticipated increase in participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and combat rising food insecurity, according to Vilsack.

As part of the agency’s investment in agricultural research and development, USDA’s research, education and outreach programs would receive $647 million more to drive innovation and new technologies for American farmers.

Agricultural research is much-needed to keep the United States’ “competitive advantage in agricultural production and exports,” American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) said.

Another $161 million would go toward integrating what OMB called “science-based tools” for conservation planning to measure, monitor, report and verify “carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas reduction, wildlife stewardship and other environmental services” on private and public lands.

Nearly $500 million would be allocated to fighting the increased severity and frequency of wildfire seasons. USDA said the funds would be used for vegetation management and to protect watersheds, wildlife habitat and the wildland-urban interface.

The discretionary request would also provide an increase of $65 million over the 2021 enacted level for the Rural Development Broadband ReConnect Program, which provides up to 100 percent loans or grants for projects in underserved rural areas.

But the discretionary funding request is only a small preview of what is to come under Biden’s administration, according to Vilsack’s release.

“These discretionary investments reflect only one element of the president’s broader agenda,” the statement concluded. “In the coming months, the administration will release a budget that will build on this discretionary funding request and detail a comprehensive fiscal vision for the nation that reinvests in America, supports future growth and prosperity, meets U.S. commitments, and does so in a fiscally sustainable way.”