The 2026 farm bill quietly hands big tech control over American farmland. Here’s the fine print

Tucked inside the 2026 Farm Bill is a provision that would reimburse farmers 90% of the cost of adopting AI and precision agriculture technologies — 15 percentage points above the normal EQIP cap. The private sector standards governing those technologies would be set not by the USDA, but by the tech industry itself. This could be a Trojan horse of sorts for something called “precision agriculture” and artificial intelligence (AI), which big tech firms will be able take advantage of farmers and further wrest control over the food system from them.

Besides receiving the attention from the ever-dwindling number of farmers in our country, the Farm Bill cycle usually comes and goes every five years without anyone raising much of a fuss.  In fact, the 2018 Bill expired in 2023 and has been renewed three times since without much commotion. 

This cycle portends like those others, as parts of the legislation’s most costly and contentious sections, or titles, like Nutrition, were shoehorned into Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB)’ last July.

But closer inspection of the current Farm Bill that is now meandering through Congress — entitled The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 — reveals some potentially troubling inclusions worth digging into. 

A Farm Bill Cycle Like No Others

A quick review of the current House version of the Farm Bill doesn’t reveal anything too unusual. The legislation’s 11 titles is the same number as what was in the law back in 2018. Still, how “precision agriculture” appears in the Conservation Title should raise some eyebrows. 

Not only is precision agriculture defined, but it is complemented by a list of what are deemed appropriate technologies, including GPS, yield monitors, data management software, and the particularly strange sounding, “Internet of Things and telematics technologies.”  

That last bizarre phrase, which most would probably consider a typo, is actually a concept that abounds in tech company circles.  One definition from an industry leader notes that the “Internet of Things,” or IoT, is the “network of physical objects — “things” — that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems.” 

Paired with this definition is the government opening the way for corporations to have, well, a “field day” with precision agriculture, including for AI.  Tucked away in the Rural Development Title, is the “promoting precision agriculture” subsection.  AI, we are told particularly, is to be guided by “private sector-led interconnectivity standards, guidelines, and best practices.” 

How Taxpayers Would Subsidize Big Tech’s Entry Into Farming

This language lays the groundwork for the Farm Bill to funnel taxpayer dollars to make AI an integral part of our food and farm system. Specifically, for farmers who adopt precision agriculture as part of conservation practices, particularly through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), they will be reimbursed for 90% of the cost. This exceeds the normal percentage of what is provided by EQIP cost-share grants, which usually max out at 75% of what a farmer spends on practices like setting up a greenhouse or improving their irrigation system.

The irony should be noticed that EQIP, a program with the purpose of bringing conservation into farming, is now being used to fund forms of technology powered by data centers that drain our water, cause air pollution, and gobble up farmland.

Private Sector Rules, Public Dollars

Farmers are no strangers to technology. From installing robotic milkers on dairies, to purchasing tractors and replacing horses at the start of the twentieth century, they have always had to get their products to market while factoring in the costs of the inputs that make that journey possible.

But in terms of the current Farm Bill, the incentives for big tech are new.  It’s true that precision agriculture first appeared in the 1985 legislation, but without any specific technologies listed. Subsequent Farm Bills also refer to technological change and modernization, but either in more general terms, or for the USDA to improve its accounting practices. 

Such favoritism of one form of technology, being developed by firms not traditionally involved in food production, stands to further wrest decision-making from farmers as it exposes them to privacy concerns.

Farmers Have Seen This Playbook Before

In terms of producer control, consider the ongoing debates about right-to-repair laws. Here, corporations retain proprietary technology on the parts of machines they sell, leading farmers to pay for their assistance if something breaks down.  Such use of corporate power limits farmers’ ability to use machinery that they purchase outright while subjecting them to unnecessary service charges. 

Control concerns have also been at the center of seed technology debates. 

One controversy on genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) is how with their use, instead of farmers retaining seeds year after year and controlling their development, producers become dependent on companies for receiving this necessary input.  There are also cases where companies have prosecuted farmers who unknowingly find GM plants in their fields, and who then became the target of expensive lawsuits. 

The Labor Shortage Argument Doesn’t Hold

Detractors will note the labor-saving advantages of using AI. Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, made this point last year during a press conference that was meant to address worries of ongoing labor shortages as Trump’s mass deportation campaign ramped up.

But AI still needs knowledge from practitioners. Changing climate conditions, along with standard run-of-the-mill challenges that arise from dealing with animals, requires a new generation of farmers who are versatile and resilient. Put otherwise, we need more producers, trained in diverse production practices and supported by government policies that promote local markets more than cloud computing initiatives that pad the pockets of rich elites and further damage our environment.

What a Pro-Farmer Bill Would Actually Do

Instead programs like the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP), which do appear in this latest Farm Bill, should receive more attention and funding, along with other proposals like the Justice for Black Farmers Act that creates a pathway for young people to get on the land and stay there.

The Farm Bill is meant to promote agriculture. This latest version will grow not our food system, but corporate profits. Not more fruits and vegetables, but data will be harvested. Trump often professes his support for farmers. It’s time for his administration to actually help them, forwarding a Farm Bill that keeps producers on the land and brings new ones to the industry rather than enriching tech billionaires.

The Senate Agriculture Committee has a straightforward choice: redirect the EQIP precision agriculture premium back into programs that actually put farmers on the land. Reallocating even half of those enhanced cost-share dollars to the Local Agriculture Market Program would more than double LAMP’s current budget — and fund the next generation of producers rather than the next generation of data centers. The Justice for Black Farmers Act offers a parallel path: land access, not algorithmic dependency. If Trump’s administration wants to prove its support for farmers is more than a talking point, the markup table is where that proof gets written.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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