Who is Palantir and why is USDA giving it $300 million?

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On April 22, the Department of Agriculture signed a $300 million “blanket purchase agreement” with Palantir Technologies Inc. to, as Palantir explained, “support the National Farm Security Plan” to “modernize how USDA delivers services to farmers.”

The National Farm Security Program was rolled out last July by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins in a splashy — and soon forgotten — ceremony. Its purpose, explained Rollins that day, was to be “the next pillar of her Make Agriculture Great Again Initiative."

Most American farmers don’t need any “pillars” to whatever is “next.” Many simply want farming to be profitable enough to not depend on Congress to make a living or for the U.S. to reclaim markets lost to pointless tariff wars and sweetheart import deals. Three-dollar diesel and $800 anhydrous — on-farm prices before the Iran “excursion” began nearly three months ago — would be very welcome, too.

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So who is Palantir other than a USDA contractor now at the data-collecting heart of federal farm programs like crop insurance and disaster payments? Here’s how WIRED magazine described it last August: “Palantir is arguably one of the most notorious corporations in contemporary America… Palantir has been so infamous for so long that, for some people, its name has become a cultural shorthand for dystopian surveillance.”

Whatever it is, it’s now USDA’s partner and that makes it your partner, too.

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