MSU Awarded $850K From Darpa to Advance Global Ag Security, Early Threat Detection

Mar 06, 2026

An interdisciplinary team of Mississippi State University researchers has been awarded $850,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to enhance early detection of threats to agricultural security on a global scale.

The award funding will help establish AgSENT, or the Agricultural Security Early Notification and Threat Network. AgSENT is a prototype interface that integrates key atmospheric, environmental, supply chain, biological and societal data to highlight early warnings of potential agricultural security issues.

The funding was awarded by DARPA’s Biological Technology Office as part of its efforts to defend against naturally occurring and manmade threats to the global food systems that the world relies on. The MSU team is led by Associate Vice President for Research and Economic Development Narcisa Pricope and includes Political Science and Public Administration Associate Professor Benjamin Tkach and Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Dimitrios Manias.

In addition to MSU, academic partners on the project include Virginia Tech, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory also is a collaborator.

Source : msstate.edu

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