The two largest U.S. farm groups hold widely divergent views on the EPA proposal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 30 percent in coming years. The American Farm Bureau Federation says that electricity prices will rise, affecting farmers directly, and that an indirect result will be higher prices for fertilizer, an energy-related product. “Effects will especially hit home in rural America,” says AFBF president Bob Stallman in a statement.
Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, said farmers will be affected if weather volatility increase. Agriculture could be “an important part of the solution,” he said, pointing to the potential of voluntary incentives for carbon sequestration and for action to preserve soil and water resources. In a statement, Johnson said the ethanol mandate “is currently the most important policy we have to address climate change” and urged EPA to abandon a proposed relaxation of it.