Biden Climate Plan Looks for Buy-in from Farmers Who Are Often Skeptical about Global Warming

by Georgina Gustin (Inside Climate News) The administration has options to cut emissions even if a Republican-led Senate opposes climate-focused agriculture policies. -- ... The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the administration said, “has not historically received the sustained political attention of other agencies that play a role in climate policy.” But it would become “a lynchpin of the next Administration’s climate strategy.”

The incoming administration’s clear focus on climate change was remarkable. That it would enlist the country’s farms and farmers—who are largely skeptical of climate change—in the battle was even more so.

In mid-December, as he introduced his climate team, Biden restated a goal he first rolled out last year on the campaign trail. “We see farmers making American agriculture first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions and gaining new sources of income in the process,” he said.

Now, questions are percolating about how, exactly, farmers will reach that target and how progressive the new administration actually will be.

He (Tom Vilsack) is also a longtime supporter of ethanol, which many critics say entrenches an environmentally destructive system of agriculture.

Still, climate hawks mostly applaud Vilsack’s eight-year tenure at the agency, during which he set up a network of “climate hubs” where farmers could get information about adapting to climate change and launched an initiative to increase carbon stored in forests and soils. He also boosted USDA funding for climate change research.

Progressive farm policy groups agree that increasing conservation funding should be the Biden administration’s first step.

The incoming administration could also better police the crop insurance program, which research shows encourages planting on marginal land—including highly erodible land and wetlands—that should be left fallow.

One relatively achievable goal would be to simply restore the ranks of the USDA.

The incoming administration has said a major focus of its climate and agriculture policy will be supporting a carbon trading program through which farmers could sell credits for sequestering carbon in the soil, reducing fertilizer use or providing a suite of “ecosystem services” such as creating wildlife habitat or improving water quality.

The Biden transition memo—dubbed Climate 21—identifies a carbon bank as one of the first things the administration should establish, although it’s short on specifics on how that would happen.

The CCC has up to $30 billion in borrowing capacity, but Vilsack would likely need Congressional approval to tap into it—something a Republican Congress will be unlikely to do, especially for something identified as a climate change solution.

A carbon market would also perpetuate a system that some experts say deserves a massive overhaul.

“What we need is large scale land-use change, where you get more perennial crops in place,” Salvador said. “In intensive commodity production—corn, soy, wheat—you could be adopting practices that sequester carbon in theory, but at the same time emit more carbon than you’re actually saving with those practices. The science is not there in terms of how you would actually measure and verify that you’re permanently storing or significantly storing carbon.”

Already, farm policy experts are starting to eyeball the next farm bill, .... READ MORE