COP24, 2018 Farm Bill Give Agriculture a Voice, Climate Smart Tools

(Solutions from the Land) As 2018 closes out, advocates for the role agriculture can play in facing a changing climate can feel encouraged by developments on the international and domestic stages.

Global climate negotiators in Katowice, Poland, came to a final agreement late last week on steps aimed at ensuring a committed pursuit of goals established under the initial pact signed in Paris in 2015. It's an agreement that for the first time fully acknowledges and accepts the climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices that can help ensure sustainable intensive production in a changing climate, make our working landscapes more resilient to volatile weather caused by climate change, and reduce emissions that contribute to a changing climate.

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On the domestic front, both houses of Congress this week passed by wide, bipartisan margins the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, legislation that lays out federal farm policy for the next five years.

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Important to CSA advocates are provisions in the $867-billion measure that can be used to take advantage of land-based climate solutions offered by agriculture, keeping working landscapes vital while reducing carbon emissions.

One provision that may prove to be critical to agriculture's adaptation and mitigation efforts down the road is a pilot Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP). This program encourages farmers to implement and document the true greenhouse benefits of crop production, which can make a meaningful impact in the fight against climate change. The EQIP provision will incentivize farmers to adopt smart soil management practices that improve soil health to increase drought resiliency, improve nutrient utilization and enhance soil carbon sequestration.

Underlining the significance of this EQIP provision is its endorsement by a wide range of organizations, including the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In addition to the program's potential environmental benefits, advocates see it as offering an economic value which, if realized, will properly credit farmers for their ability to sequester carbon and participate in low carbon fuel markets.

The final bill drops House efforts to debilitate longstanding Energy Title (still Title IX) programs, continuing mandatory funding for a number of important programs to help diversify rural economies that have seen revenues fall for five years. READ MORE

With Adoption in Sight, New Farm Bill Must Align with 21st Century Challenges and Opportunities (Solutions from the Land)

Pilot program aimed at encouraging farmers to alter growing styles: Project will pay growers to try methods to keep harmful carbon in the soil. (Star Tribune)

Incentivize carbon farming (Washington Post)

Farm Bill Implementation Needed to Help Ensure Solutions are Gained from the Land (Solutions from the Land)

Excerpt from Star Tribune: No-till or low-till farming requires some special equipment. (Tom) Cotter grows no-till soybeans using an $1,800 adjustment to the closing mechanism on his planter. He grows low-till corn by planting seed in narrow bands about 10 inches wide. He bought a used vertical till machine for $8,000 at auction to help do that and shared the cost of the machine with a neighbor.

These sorts of techniques fell out of favor in the 1970s when plentiful land and expanding crop production led farmers to use “more extractive systems,” according to Bryant (Lara Bryant, Natural Resources Defense Council’s deputy director of water and agriculture nature programs). Rewarding those who invest in equipment to return to the old practice is a necessary part of the pilot project.

The prospect of cap-and-trade payments for carbon reduction or the development of low-carbon fuel standards and products such as low-carbon feedstock can provide financial incentives, Lederer (Nicole Lederer of E-2) said.

The Minnesota Farmers Union offered its imprimatur to the pilot program as advocates made their case to members of Congress. Farmers union President Gary Wertish said details of how the program will work are still being developed. The basic concept includes paying farmers who undertake healthy soil practices, measuring their success and passing the data on to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to set up payment rates for various practices that could be funded under the agency’s environmental quality incentives program, which averages about $2 billion a year in the new five-year farm bill.

California already has a state program that rewards farmers for sequestering carbon in their soil, (David) Kolsrud noted.