Office of the Chief Economist

The Department of Agriculture Office of the Chief Economist is a civilian sub-agency that transacts primarily through direct contracts for economic analysis, data collection, and research support services, and through cooperative agreements that fund agricultural economics research at land-grant universities and research institutions. The Office operates under USDA's broader economic and policy analysis mission and does not manage subordinate contracting offices; its activity rolls up from the Office itself.

The Office maintains an active but modest contract portfolio totaling 357 awards since 2005, with $43.7 million in combined potential value and $40.6 million obligated. Recent contract volume has declined: 14 awards in 2022, 19 in 2023, 14 in 2024, 11 in 2025, and 7 year-to-date in 2026. Contract competition is moderately concentrated among primes winning the most awards—Global Com, Inc. leads with 8 awards totaling $128 thousand potential value, followed by ICF Incorporated with 7 awards worth $4.8 million, and Kynetec USA Inc. with 5 awards totaling $7.3 million. By potential value, concentration is moderately concentrated across recent activity; Kynetec USA Inc. holds $7.3 million, Lindahl Reed, Inc. holds $5.7 million from two awards, and ICF Incorporated holds $4.8 million. The remaining 112 distinct primes transact in single-digit award counts. Set-aside activity is minimal: 97 percent of awards carry no set-aside designation, with only 8 total-small-business awards and 1 sole-source 8(a) award across the portfolio.

The Office also funds grant activity through a separate program: 198 cooperative agreements totaling $67.9 million in federal dollars obligated since 2007. Grant volume has been episodic—20 awards in 2019, 16 in 2020, 22 in 2021, then declining to 3 in 2022, with 17 awards made in 2025 (the most recently recorded grant award closed 1 year 3 weeks before today). Grant recipients are highly fragmented; the top five recipients by award count and federal dollars collectively account for 40 percent of recent awards and only 19 percent of recent federal dollars. Texas A&M Agrilife Research leads by dollars with $6 million across 2 awards, followed by the University of Missouri System with $3.4 million across 2 awards. The remaining 57 distinct recipients hold fragmented shares of the portfolio. All 198 cooperative agreements carry the same assistance type designation, with no other grant mechanisms in use.

No recent contract opportunities are recorded in the source data. No recent grant opportunities are recorded in the source data.