New Farm Bill Boosts Tech Adoption: Farmers Get Up to 90% Cost Coverage for GPS and Sensors

The PRECISE Act of 2025 is less about new rules and more about upgrading the tools farmers use. This legislation formally brings "precision agriculture"—think GPS-guided tractors, soil sensors, and data analytics—into the federal legal framework. For busy people, this means a push toward more efficient food production, which should ultimately reduce waste and environmental impact, even if you don't live near a farm.

The Tech Upgrade: Defining the Future of Farming

Section 3 does the heavy lifting by defining what exactly precision agriculture is: managing farm inputs like seed, fertilizer, and water with a high degree of detail to boost efficiency and environmental health. The definition of "precision agriculture technology" is broad, covering everything from yield monitors and satellite imagery to the software that analyzes the data. Crucially, the Secretary of Agriculture can add any new technology that helps reduce input use to this list, meaning the program can keep up with innovation. This formal recognition allows rural assistance programs (Sec. 2) to specifically prioritize funding and financing for farmers who want to buy this expensive tech, making it easier for smaller operations to afford the digital shift.

Maxing Out Conservation Payments

This is where the money talks. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) helps farmers pay for conservation work. The PRECISE Act makes two big changes here (Sec. 4). First, if you are receiving EQIP payments for a conservation project, the bill now explicitly allows you to get a loan or loan guarantee under the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act to cover those same costs. This essentially gives producers more financial flexibility, letting them finance the upfront costs of conservation while waiting for their EQIP payments to come through. They even require the USDA to send a written notice about this loan eligibility—a nice touch for busy producers who might miss the fine print.

Second, and even bigger, the bill authorizes the USDA to increase the EQIP payment rate up to 90 percent of the costs for adopting precision agriculture practices and buying the necessary technology. Normally, payments are capped lower, but this massive increase is a clear incentive to adopt high-tech conservation methods, like variable-rate fertilizer application that targets specific spots in a field instead of blanketing the whole thing.

The Fine Print on Payments and Expertise

While the bill is mostly about adding incentives, Section 5 tightens up the rules for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) supplemental payments. If a producer is implementing a conservation activity that costs them nothing and results in no lost income, they will no longer receive a supplemental payment for it. This is a technical adjustment aimed at making sure federal funds cover actual financial burdens, not practices that farmers would do anyway at zero cost. For producers who rely on those payments for certain low-cost activities, this could mean a reduction in their overall CSP income.

Finally, the bill mandates a shift in how the USDA delivers technical assistance for soil health planning (Sec. 6). The agency must now rely more heavily on outside, third-party experts—meaning private consultants, conservation groups, or specialized firms—to help farmers develop plans for cover crops, nutrient management, and precision agriculture. The idea is to bring in specialized expertise quickly, but it also raises questions about oversight and ensuring those third-party experts are giving unbiased advice, rather than pushing specific products or vendors.