The USDA Is Taking on Agriculture’s
Huge Contribution To Climate Change, Posted on April 25, 2015 Written by thinkprogress.org
The United States Department of Agriculture plans to
announce a set of voluntary initiatives aimed at helping farmers, ranchers, and forest land owners
respond to climate change by increasing carbon storage, reducing carbon
emissions, and supporting resilience in the face of extreme weather.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is expected to
make the announcement Thursday during a visit to Michigan State University,
where President Obama signed the 2014 Farm Bill. The initiative is based off of ten “building blocks”
that cut across the agricultural sector and seek voluntary action from
farmers, ranchers, and forest land owners to reduce their carbon emissions.
Through these voluntary programs, the USDA hopes to reduce net emissions
related to agriculture by 120 million metric tons per year by 2025 — the
equivalent of taking more than 25 million passenger vehicles off
the road.
In 2013, the agricultural sector accounted for 7.7 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, with
methane and nitrous oxide being the primary greenhouse gases released.
Methane is largely released through livestock production, via fermentation
in the stomach of ruminants like cattle, sheep, or goats, or through manure
management. Nitrous oxide is released when excess fertilizer isn’t absorb (sic) by
soil.
To achieve these reductions, the USDA plans to encourage
farmers, ranchers, and foresters to adopt a slew of sustainable practices,
from improved nutrient management to enhanced forest conservation. To
reduce fertilizer pollution, the USDA hopes to increase the U.S.’s amount
of no-till cropland from the current 67 million acres to over 100 million
acres by 2025. To tackle methane from livestock production, the USDA intends
to support the installation of 500 new digester plants — meant to turn animal
waste into renewable energy — over the next 10 years. The department will
also maximize efforts to improve energy efficiency and increase the use of
renewable energy, especially the use of biomass as a fuel source.
The initiatives also focus on increasing and managing
existing forests on both private and federal lands. Under the Forest Stewardship
Program, the department hopes to protect an additional of 2.1 million
acres of nonindustrial forest on average each year. The USDA also wants to
increase the number of urban forests in the country — to reduce storm water
runoff and urban heat island effects while increasing carbon sequestration
and urban property values — by planting an additional average of 9,000
trees each year.
The initiatives are voluntary, though the USDA plans to
incentivize participation by offering grants, low-interest loans, and
technical assistance, according to the Associated Press.
In conjunction with the USDA’s initiatives, several
environmental and agricultural groups have announced new commitments to
reducing emissions through new conservation and mitigation efforts.
Among the organizations pledging new initiatives are Field to Market, a
sustainability-focused agricultural group that hopes to curb emissions
throughout commodity crop supply chains; the Fertilizer Institute, which
has pledged more than $6 million to nutrient research; and the American Forest
Foundation, which announced it would work with the U.S. Forest Service to
work with landowners in the West on wildfire mitigation strategies.
“Partnerships are an important part of addressing climate
change,” Rita Hite, AFF’s executive vice president of the American Tree
Farm System, Woodlands, and Policy, told ThinkProgress. “USDA is committed
to partnering and this [initiative] is the perfect example.”
Last year, as part of President Obama’s Climate Action
Plan, the USDA created seven regional “climate hubs” to help farmers better understand how climate change
will affect them.
In the past, however, the USDA has been cautious in linking
extreme weather to climate change, with the department referring to climate
change as “weather variation” when it promotes programs to farmers. Defending this
move at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual conference in January,
Vilsack said that talking about climate change can move the conversation
into politically charged territory, something that can turn off farmers
and dampen progress.
In 2012, Vilsack drew criticism from environmentalists
for refusing to link drought to climate change, telling reporters that “I’m not a scientist, so I’m not going to opine as to the
cause of this.”
Following the release of the 2014 National Climate Assessment, however, Vilsack warned that climate change would have
a profound impact on the country’s agricultural sector.
“The National Climate Assessment confirms that climate
change is affecting every region of the country and critical sectors of
the economy like agriculture,” Vilsack said in a statement. “This assessment provides an unprecedented look at how
the changing climate and extreme weather impact rural America.”
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