Digital agriculture services are coming to America.gov in 2027
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The website plans to allow users to apply for Medicare, passports and other services in 2027 as well.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters Tuesday that America.gov, a new digital front door to federal information and services, will include new features for farmers sometime in 2027.
“We take the ‘one farmer, one file’ effort — there's still a lot of work to do — and we put it under the America.gov to make this so easy for our farmers to not just apply for a regenerative [agriculture] grant, but to also [help] a brand new farmer [answer] ‘How do I potentially sell my lettuce to the local school district?’” Rollins told reporters.
USDA announced the “one farmer, one file” initiative in February “to create a single, streamlined record that follows farmers — no matter where they go in the USDA system.” The goal is to eliminate the burden of filling out the same paperwork multiple times for various USDA services.
Under “one farmer, one file,” if a farmer applies for a regenerative agriculture grant through USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, they can also apply for a disaster relief grant from USDA’s Farm Service Agency without filling out duplicate paperwork, Rollins explained to reporters.
The initiative has already allowed row crop farmers to apply online for the $11 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance Program. Rollins said in March that, within four days of unveiling the initiative, USDA saw a 50-fold increase in farmer participation in the grant program compared to the entire five-month sign-up period of the preceding Emergency Commodity Assistance Program.
Rollins’ statement about combining “one farmer, one file” with America.gov is notable because the new website does not yet list agriculture-specific services as coming to the website in 2027. Instead, the platform says other services, such as enrolling in Medicare and applying for a passport, are coming next year.
“Let's see if we can actually change procurement. Let's see if we can get more locally produced independent farmers' goods out there. That's how big this America.gov could potentially be,” Rollins said.
Sam Berry, USDA’s chief information officer, recently stepped down from his position to support the agency’s “one farmer, one file” initiative, Nextgov/FCW previously reported. Berry — an alum of the controversial Department of Government Efficiency — officially joined USDA last September.