The Next Farm Bill Could Be a Historic Climate Law – if Congress Can Agree on It

by Max Graham (Grist) Will the legislation help turn agriculture, a climate problem, into a climate solution? ... But environmental groups and some farmer advocacy organizations are lobbying Congress to turn this year’s bill — due for an update by October — into the next historic climate law. They say it could curb warming caused by agriculture, a key emitter of greenhouse gasses, in large part by converting the country’s vast farmlands into fields that suck carbon out of the air.

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But as farm bill negotiations get under way on Capitol Hill, climate-specific policy ideas — like subsidizing farmers who plant cover crops that store carbon — are emerging as a point of contention in a divided Congress.

“It’s still in the early stages,” said Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine who sits on the House Agriculture Committee. “I’m feeling less discouraged than I could be,” she added, noting a history of broad support for farm bill programs that benefit both farmers and climate — say, by promoting soil health or making farms more resilient to drought — even if they don’t explicitly target emissions.

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But the soil beneath the country’s corn, soybeans, other crops, and pastures is capable of storing enough carbon to offset emissions by up to 10 percent.

The farm bill could transform U.S. agriculture into a climate solution, said Cathy Day, climate policy coordinator at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Her organization is pushing Congress to boost funds for already existing conservation programs that help farmers plant trees and cover crops, reduce use of fertilizers that emit nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and shift to grazing systems that keep soil intact, among other practices that cut emissions directly or lock carbon in the ground. Day also wants to see lawmakers invest in research and technology to help growers monitor how much carbon they sequester on their lands — a key metric for understanding how effective farms are at combating climate change.

Most growers don’t have the tools to know how much carbon they’re storing in their soil, said Cristel Zoebisch, deputy director of policy at Carbon180, a nonprofit focused on carbon removal and storage. “We need to be fairly certain that the amount of CO2 we’re saying we’re offsetting is actually being sequestered in agricultural lands,” Zoebisch said. “We don’t really have a good sense of what the baseline, what the starting point of soil carbon stocks looks like across the country today.”

Zoebisch wants to see the farm bill fix that by directing money toward research, local demonstration trials and the development of equipment farmers could use to measure the carbon they sequester. While Congress recently passed the bipartisan Growing Climate Solutions Act to help farmers access carbon markets — where they could profit from the carbon stored on their land — the bill didn’t resolve uncertainty around how to measure soil carbon or if the markets are worth it financially for farmers.

And while that act showed bipartisan interest in voluntary farm programs that could curb emissions, a Republican-led House and a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate could stand in the way of more stringent regulations, like Senator Cory Booker’s proposal to ban CAFOs.

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For example, lawmakers from both parties have signaled support for voluntary programs that assist farmers in planting cover crops, while some Republicans have pushed back against requiring growers to engage in climate-friendly practices to get subsidies for crop insurance. READ MORE

COVER CROPS AND NO-TILL PLANTING PAY OFF, SAYS AGREE (Successful Farming)

Fetterman: Agriculture can’t ‘cannibalize’ climate change funding (The Hill)

Biden administration pledges fight to keep climate-friendly farming funds (Reuters)

This Week in Agribusiness, May 13, 2023: The farm bill, biofuels, mental health resources, ag in Montana and a tribute to moms are featured this week. (Farm Progress)

ABO Members Advocating for Algae and Seaweed in the 2023 Farm Bill (Algae Biomass Organization)

Excerpt from The Hill: Federal funds aimed at helping agriculture address the effects of climate change must not be raided to fund agriculture as a whole, said Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.).

His move comes as congressional Republicans suggest defunding agricultural conservation programs entirely.

“I strongly oppose any measures that would essentially cannibalize Inflation Reduction Act conservation funding in order to pay for the Farm Bill conservation efforts,” he wrote in a letter to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is the climate stimulus package the Democrats passed along party lines last September. It contains $19 billion for helping agriculture adapt to the climate crisis.

Now, that money is up for grabs as part of the wider negotiations over the $1.4 trillion Farm Bill and an omnibus of food-supporting subsidies and legislation that is passed every five years.

Republicans are seeking to loosen — or cut — any restriction tying that climate funding toward federal conservation programs.

Some want to go so far as to redirect all federal climate funding to the Farm Bill’s baseline budget, essentially turning it into a catchall slush fund, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

Ranking member John Boozman (R-Ark.) has voiced support for redirecting the entire $39 billion of Farm Bill conservation funding — not just the specific climate stimulus money — to the baseline budget, according to the Capital Sun.

That’s part of a broader argument between the parties about the role of climate funding in the bill.

In a discussion with the committee, Boozman implied he’d like to see that money go to crop insurance programs, which have been pressed by a rising number of extreme weather events.

“Certainly we’re not going to try to tie our safety nets — our risk management tools, that our farmers desperately need around — to being climate-friendly,” Boozman said.

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Congressional Republicans, by contrast, passed legislation this week seeking to repeal $540 billion in climate stimulus funds as a condition for the generally routine move of extending the debt ceiling, or the amount of money the federal government can borrow. READ MORE