§5852 Agricultural Weather Office

Summary

The Secretary of Agriculture must set up an Agricultural Weather Office inside the Department to run a National Agricultural Weather Information System. That system includes the new office and the State agricultural weather systems. The Secretary must also pick a Director to lead the office and advise on climate, weather, and remote sensing science and programs. Through the office, the Secretary can work with the National Weather Service on farming-related forecasting, hold joint training workshops, build better computer models and computing power, and improve weather and climate information for farmers. The office can collect near‑real‑time standardized weather observations from State systems. It can make competitive research grants through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and give grants to States to run their systems. The office must coordinate with other federal research programs and can encourage private companies to help, especially for site-specific forecasts. Research grants go to universities, experiment stations, agencies, companies, and individuals and are chosen competitively. Priority goes to projects that reduce weather-related farm losses, improve local forecasting, or study weather’s economic and environmental effects on farming.