Systems for Monitoring and Analytics for Renewable Transportation Fuels from Agricultural Resources and Management (SMARTFARM) | DE FOA 0002250

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002250

The SMARTFARM funding opportunity (DE-FOA-0002250) is a Department of Energy ARPA-E program focused on one specific bottleneck in low-carbon biofuels: accurately measuring and verifying greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural feedstock production at the field level. Right now, many lifecycle accounting systems rely on national-average emissions factors for crops, which effectively treats all farms as if they have the same emissions profile. In reality, emissions and soil carbon outcomes can vary widely from one field to another based on soil type, weather, fertilizer practices, tillage, crop rotations, and other management choices. Because field-level monitoring is often too expensive and logistically difficult, carbon incentives that exist elsewhere in the biofuel supply chain typically do not reach the grower in a meaningful, performance-based way. SMARTFARM is meant to close that data gap so incentives can be tied to real, measurable on-farm outcomes rather than broad averages.

ARPA-E frames the larger prize as both energy and climate impact. The agency points out that US agriculture could supply on the order of 5 quadrillion Btu of energy as biofuels, and that with improvements across the supply chain these fuels could potentially become carbon negative. Getting there, however, requires growers to adopt technologies and management practices that do more than boost yield. They need to reduce emissions associated with production (for example, from fertilizer-related nitrous oxide and fuel use) while also increasing carbon sequestration in soils. SMARTFARM is designed to make those kinds of improvements easier to reward and scale by enabling credible measurement, reporting, and verification at the farm-field scale.

Technically, the program objective is to fund development of monitoring and analytics systems that can replace national average emissions factors with field-level estimates of feedstock production lifecycle emissions. ARPA-E indicates that proposed solutions will be judged on whether they can quantify feedstock production emissions in a way that is reliable, accurate (low uncertainty), and cost-effective, and that the output metric of interest is emissions expressed in grams of CO2-equivalent per acre. The program also sets an important scalability expectation: the approach should work at field scale, described as being scalable to greater than 80 acres, which signals that SMARTFARM is not just looking for small plot research methods but for systems that can be deployed in commercial agriculture.

From a market and policy perspective, the intended outcome is to unlock new incentive structures for growers by making verification practical. If field-level emissions and soil carbon impacts can be measured cheaply and credibly, then biofuel supply chains, carbon markets, and other procurement programs can differentiate feedstocks based on true climate performance. In ARPA-E's framing, that would create direct rewards for efficiency in feedstock production and improved carbon management, rather than paying everyone based on an assumed average. The FOA suggests the potential emissions benefit could be substantial, with annual US emissions reductions on the order of 1 percent if the approach is successful, and even larger implications if similar monitoring and analytics methods expand beyond biofuel feedstocks to other agricultural products.

On the administrative side, this is an ARPA-E discretionary research and development opportunity using cooperative agreements, reflecting ARPA-E's typical model of active program management and milestone-driven projects. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted (open to any type of entity, subject to any additional eligibility language in the full announcement). The FOA was created December 18, 2019, with concept papers due February 19, 2020. ARPA-E anticipated around 12 awards, with an award ceiling of $10,000,000 per award. The program sits under CFDA number 81.135 and follows the federal assistance rules in 2 CFR Part 200 (as amended by 2 CFR Part 910), which governs administrative requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements for DOE financial assistance.

In plain terms, SMARTFARM is trying to make climate-smart farming for biofuels measurable at the scale that matters. By funding tools that can quantify field-level lifecycle emissions and soil carbon outcomes with low uncertainty and reasonable cost, ARPA-E is aiming to move the biofuel sector away from generic averages and toward performance-based incentives that reward farmers for practices that genuinely cut emissions and increase sequestration.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Systems for Monitoring and Analytics for Renewable Transportation Fuels from Agricultural Resources and Management (SMARTFARM)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on Dec 18, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 19, 2020 Concept Paper Submissions are due 2/19/20.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 12 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for DE FOA 0002250

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