Advancing Research on Agricultural Soil Health Act of 2025

Key Points

• USDA would have to create one standard way to directly measure soil carbon within 270 days, after consulting farmers, researchers, and other groups.
• Farmers could choose (not be forced) to measure and report their soil carbon using USDA guidance, with help available in multiple languages and in digital or paper formats.
• The bill would expand and extend on-farm trials and demonstration projects to test soil health practices and tools that track greenhouse gases and soil carbon over a longer timeframe.
• USDA would set up a nationwide network to sample soil carbon on public and private lands every 5 years, but only with landowner permission; the bill also says participation can’t be required to get USDA benefits.
• USDA would build user-friendly tools to predict how farming practices change soil carbon and certain greenhouse gases, and would publish aggregated (non-identifying) data while protecting farm privacy.