USDA CIO Sam Berry departs role to focus on farmer record modernization

Sam Berry, the Department of Agriculture’s chief information officer, is stepping down from his role but staying with the agency, USDA confirmed Monday. Berry, a former associate of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, replaced longtime CIO Gary Washington last year. While it is unclear what Berry’s exact role will be, he will be focusing on implementing the “One Farmer, One File” modernization initiative, USDA said. The agency launched the initiative earlier this year to create a unique streamlined record for each farmer, a press release said. USDA tapped Palantir for IT modernization and other digital work as part of a $300 million Blanket Purchase Agreement in April, which includes the One Farmer, One File initiative. In a press release at the time, Berry said the agreement would provide the agency with “the visibility and speed needed to safeguard our food supply.”

As calls for an AI slowdown and stronger safety measures around the emerging technology grow louder, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged lawmakers Tuesday to not give in to frontier labs on liability exemptions. Appearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Bessent was asked by Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., what the Trump administration is doing for AI safety. Bessent said the department has been “working on safety nonstop since the release of Mythos,” the Anthropic model whose cybersecurity risks prompted an April meeting at Treasury headquarters between the secretary, then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell and bank CEOs. But going forward, he said it’s clear that what the government “shouldn’t do on safety is to give these labs a liability exemption, which is what they are asking for.” “The best way to guarantee safety is that the creators are liable for what they build and generate,” Bessent continued. The Treasury secretary’s comments came days after Anthropic’s Dario Amodei penned an essay calling on AI companies to tap the brakes on model development amid increasingly stark warnings about the technology’s potential dangers. Though President Donald Trump rejected calls to ease the pace of AI development, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk backed Amodei’s slowdown plan. The Anthropic head’s plan included a note for the federal government to “issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations” while industry works toward voluntary standards. OpenAI, meanwhile, previously backed an Illinois bill to limit liability for AI-fueled harms.

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