How Iowans Drove The National Debate On Carbon Farming

by Isabella Murray (Iowa Starting Line) ... (Beto) O’Rourke had read a guest op-ed by Leonard and Matt Russell, executive director of Interfaith Power and Light — a group that pushes for faith-based solutions to climate change — in the New York Times about how to win rural America. O’Rourke wanted to learn more about a practice the two climate advocates had written about: how farmers could use environmental services like carbon sequestration and get paid for it.

They didn’t know it at the time, but that phone call would contribute to the plan being mentioned by multiple candidates on national debate stages, included in most 2020 policy proposals and get introduced in a bill in the Senate.

O’Rourke and Leonard talked for a while and set up a meeting for when the candidate was back in Iowa. So, when the former Texas congressman announced his bid for the presidency a few weeks later, Leonard wasn’t surprised when the idea was included in his rural plan.

“And those farmers, like anyone else, want to make sure that we are meeting the challenge of climate change before it is too late.” O’Rourke said in El Paso on March 30, at the launch of his presidential campaign. “Let’s open up technologies and markets to them that provide an incentive for capturing the carbon that we’re currently emitting in the air.”

Agriculture is unique in that it is the one sector with an ability to transform from a net emitter of carbon to a net carbon-catcher, claims the Carbon Cycle Institute. There is no other human-managed realm with this potential.

Members of climate mitigation and agriculture circles have said carbon sequestration, or carbon farming — the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide — is one of the easiest and most effective ways to get farmers involved in the reformation process.

The practice will help farmers and the rural economy, too. Reducing carbon emission production leads to improved water quality and better soil health, and greater, more bountiful yields, Russell explained.

Carbon farming can happen naturally when farmers implement conservation efforts, including planting cover crops such as small grains or legumes during winter when fields are normally barren, leaving the organic matter in fields after harvest and adding additional crops such as alfalfa, oats, wheat or rye to a soybean corn rotation.

These conservation efforts seem like an obvious next step for agriculture production, but the market and public policy are not currently rewarding investments.

National agriculture policy rewards overproduction, which lowers prices for farmers but depletes soil health and its ability to capture carbon, said Russell. National farm policies, including past and current Farm Bills, work against any economic incentive to do carbon farming.

“I think the candidates that we’ve spoken with, that have engaged with us on this, understand it and understand what needs to be done,” he said. “Their policies are different; I would never criticize any of them because they’re working forward and they’re trying to figure it out. I think it’s wonderful.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden proposed expanding a voluntary USDA conservation program that pays farmers, under five-year contracts, to adopt certain practices. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she would pour $15 billion annually into the same voluntary program, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar also supports expanding USDA’s conservation efforts.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said he supported creating tax incentives, a carbon sequestration market and expanding voluntary conservation programs, and Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to provide grants, technical assistance and debt relief to support farmers’ transition to more sustainable practices, among other candidate plans.

But beyond the candidates including the idea in rural, agricultural or climate policies, Leonard said he was pleased the concept was gaining more national attention.

“In the third debate, you had Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg say ‘pay farmers for environmental services to stop global warming,’” Leonard said.

In September, the New Jersey senator (Cory Booker) introduced a climate change bill, “The Climate Stewardship Act of 2019,” focused on voluntary farm and ranch conservation practices, massive reforestation, and wetlands restoration.

If passed, the legislation will provide tens of billions of dollars in supplemental funding for USDA conservation programs, with new funding dedicated to stewardship practices such as rotational grazing, improved fertilizer efficiency, and planting tens of millions of new acres of cover crops. READ MORE