(Successful Farming) The incoming chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee says she will pursue “voluntary, producer-led” solutions, such as carbon markets, for agriculture’s contribution to fighting climate change, with the USDA providing expert advice to producers.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s preference for voluntary participation in climate mitigation is shared by farm groups and the administration. President Biden has directed the USDA to spend two months consulting with farmers, conservation groups, and other interested parties on how the government can encourage the voluntary adoption of climate-smart practices that sequester carbon in soil and trees. For decades, incentives rather than mandates have been the preferred federal approach to stewardship on privately owned farmland.
“I hope we can provide voluntary, producer-led opportunities for our farmers and foresters that will allow them to continue to cut down their emissions and create new sources of revenue from the adoption of practices that store more carbon in the soil,” said Stabenow during a teleconference. Unlike the partisan splits common on other Senate panels, the Agriculture Committee may approve a bipartisan climate plan, she said.
Stabenow pointed to the Growing Climate Solutions bill to make the USDA a “onestop shop” of information for farmers and ranchers intrigued by the possibility of being paid to sequester carbon. The bill has a handful of Republican and Democratic sponsors, Stabenow among them.
The Trump administration used a USDA agency, the Commodity Credit Corp., which has broad powers to support farm income, to funnel billions of dollars in trade war payments to farmers. The CCC could be a conduit for climate change funding as well, said Stabenow when asked if the CCC would need additional spending authority to pay for a “carbon bank” or other climate change programs.
“I agree with [Agriculture Secretary nominee Tom] Vilsack and his team that we need to focus on the climate crisis as an urgent priority, and the CCC could be part of that,” said Stabenow.
Still, she said, it was “most important” for the USDA to provide technical expertise so farmers can verify greenhouse gas reductions and market them. The 2023 farm bill will provide an opportunity to ramp up some pilot projects for carbon capture.
Joining climate change at the top of the ag committee agenda will be steps to assure hungry Americans receive food and initiatives to strengthen the food supply system, said Stabenow.
Third on the list was an update of child nutrition programs, last overhauled in 2010. “We intend to move forward on that this year,” said Stabenow.
Expansion of rural access to broadband was “top of the list” for rural economic development, she said. “Key to our quality of life is high-speed internet.”
President Biden wants U.S. agriculture to be the first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, with Tom Vilsack guiding the effort as agriculture secretary laying the groundwork for the 2023 farm bill.