USDA’s National Farm Security Action Plan, announced July 8, 2025, is a set of proposed federal actions across seven areas, from foreign ownership of farmland to plant and animal disease and cyberattacks on food processors. The “strong support” in the headline comes from a July 10, 2025 USDA roundup of endorsements by named officials, lawmakers, and farm groups. It is a collection of statements, not a poll, and it does not show how the public or farmers as a whole view the plan. The announcement and roundup both date from 2025, so they cannot show how much of the plan has been carried out as of October 2026.
What the plan is and where it came from
Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins announced the plan on July 8, 2025, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. USDA placed it within its Make Agriculture Great Again initiative and described it as a starting point for working with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners, and with other stakeholders, to bring agriculture into broader national-security efforts.
The plan treats agriculture and food systems as critical infrastructure. It names several categories of risk: foreign dependencies, attacks on supply chains, cyber operations against food processors, threats to research and intellectual property, and potential plant or animal disease. These are USDA’s framing of the risks, and the plan presents them as reasons for action rather than as independently established findings.
The seven action areas
Each area lists proposals USDA said it would pursue. None of them is described in the 2025 materials as a completed program, so each should be read as a commitment whose progress has to be checked separately.
#1 Best Overall
1. Secure and protect American farmland
- Reform data collection and reporting under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA).
- Create an online filing system for AFIDA reports.
- Increase penalties for late or knowingly false filings.
- Work with state and congressional partners on foreign adversary ownership of land.
- Coordinate with the Treasury Department and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
- Open a portal for reporting possible AFIDA failures or adversarial influence.
2. Enhance agricultural supply-chain resilience
- Identify critical agricultural inputs. The plan names fertilizers, chemicals, minerals, vitamins, and other materials.
- Assess vulnerabilities in storage and transport.
- Plan for supply crises.
- Consider domestic investment, and non-adversarial partners where domestic supply is unavailable.
3. Protect the nutrition safety net from fraud and foreign exploitation
The plan discusses vulnerabilities in SNAP payments and proposes stronger enforcement, application-integrity measures, and work against benefit trafficking, retail fraud, card skimming, and card cloning. These are actions for government agencies and law enforcement. The section does not change how benefit recipients use their cards or give them shopping guidance.
4. Enhance research security
- Review the value of USDA-funded research to U.S. agricultural producers.
- Control collaborations with countries of concern.
- Require disclosures or certifications about certain foreign ties of funded entities and participants.
5. Evaluate USDA programs to ensure “America First” policies
- Review USDA programs and agreements.
- Apply increased due diligence to SBIR and STTR applications.
- Prioritize U.S.-based work and American-made technology in USDA-funded activity, subject to the exceptions the plan states.
6. Safeguard plant and animal health
USDA proposes working with federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial partners on prevention, detection, response, research, and mitigation of agricultural biosecurity threats. The plan names citrus greening, rusts, blights, highly pathogenic avian influenza, African swine fever, foot-and-mouth disease, New World screwworm, and spotted lanternfly as examples.
7. Protect critical infrastructure
USDA proposes working with agricultural companies and the Food and Ag-Information Sharing and Analysis Center to improve access to resources against cybersecurity and ransomware threats. The plan pairs this with liaison work with federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies.
What “strong support” measures
USDA’s July 10, 2025 release gathered statements from cabinet officials, members of Congress, governors, state agriculture leaders, and trade groups. The statements show that the people and organizations quoted backed the plan. They do not show whether the plan reflects the views of all farmers, the public, or the full range of policy opinion. Several of the quoted statements are advocacy in an official release, not neutral assessments of whether the policy will work. Successful Farming, which covered the same roundup, noted that some statements were edited or condensed for style and clarity, so USDA’s official release is the best source for exact wording.
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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →| Speaker | Role as given in the USDA roundup | Statement |
|---|---|---|
| Pete Hegseth | Defense Secretary | “Foreign ownership of land near strategic bases and US military installations poses a serious threat to our national security.” |
| Pam Bondi | Attorney General | “Farm security is national security.” |
| Buck Wehrbein | President, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association | The association “strongly agrees with Secretary Rollins that farm security is national security.” |
| Mike Naig | Iowa Secretary of Agriculture | “I fully support Secretary Rollins’ and the Trump Administration’s efforts to bolster enforcement, increase reporting, and enhance transparency of land ownership laws at the national level.” |
Figures cited in the plan and the roundup
Only a few numbers appear in the materials, and each comes with a different level of support.
- More than one in ten American workers. The plan says agriculture, food, and related trades employ this share of American workers. Attribute this to USDA’s 2025 plan.
- Over $1.5 trillion in annual GDP. The plan says agriculture, food, and related trades contribute this amount each year. Attribute this to USDA’s 2025 plan. The passage cited does not show how the calculation was made.
- 2.2 million acres of foreign-owned land in Alabama. Senator Tommy Tuberville, as quoted in USDA’s release, said Alabama has the fourth-highest amount of foreign-owned land in the United States at this figure. This is the senator’s statement, not a verified USDA statistic.
Beyond these, the 2025 materials report no measured results from the plan, so no outcome figures should be attached to it.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to check whether a proposal has moved forward
Because the plan was published as a set of proposals, progress has to be checked against later records. Look for:
- USDA newsroom releases dated after July 2025 that describe a specific action as launched, finalized, or completed.
- Federal Register notices for any rulemaking tied to AFIDA reporting, online filing, or penalties.
- Congressional action on items the plan says require state or congressional partners, such as foreign-adversary land ownership.
- Audit or oversight reports from USDA’s Office of Inspector General or the Government Accountability Office that assess a specific item.
A proposal in the plan is not evidence that it has been put into effect. Confirm the action, its date, and its scope in a newer official record before describing it as done.
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