Until the updated USDA Public Access Plan has been officially issued (by December 25, 2025), the current USDA Public Access Policy detailed in Departmental Regulation (DR) 1020-006 is in effect.
All unclassified, peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are the result of USDA funding are required to be made publicly-available in PubAg. The major change to this policy that will go into effect by December 31, 2025 is that these publications can no longer be embargoed for up to a year after publication.
As a result of the Departmental Regulation (DR) 1020-006, unclassified scientific data that are the result of USDA funds are to be made publicly-available (to the extent practicable) either at the time of publication or by the end of the funding performance period, whichever comes first. For the most part, the USDA has not needed to modify or update this previous policy in response to the 2022 Nelson Memo.
Publications: When a publication is deposited into PubAg, the National Agricultural Library (NAL) requires publications to receive a DOI. They are actively working on strengthening the metadata associated with publications in PubAg.
Scientific Data: As part of Departmental Regulation (DR) 1020-006, researchers are required to follow specific guidelines when depositing their unclassified scientific data into repositories to ensure that they are findable through reliable persistent identifiers like a DOI. This also includes the requirement that data must have an entry into the USDA metadata catalog Ag Data Commons.
Researcher Digital Persistent Identifier: The USDA already requires all researchers to obtain an ORCID, which is a researcher digital persistent identifier.
To learn more about the current USDA implementation efforts with regards to persistent identifiers, please reference the addendum to the current implementation plan issued in November 2024.