climate change
Climate change prompts talk of permanent USDA disaster fund
‘Very dangerous fire year’ is likely, say Biden officials
The government will deploy 15,000 firefighters, 1,600 engines, and 625 aircraft against what is expected to be another dangerous year for wildfires, said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday.
A plan to make Denmark’s food system carbon neutral by 2050
Two years ago, Denmark’s farming sector announced a bold goal: Its food industry would become carbon neutral by 2050 and serve as a model for the rest of the world. This week, a new report commissioned by a Danish agriculture industry trade group lays out a strategy for how the country can reduce emissions while producing significantly more food. <strong> No paywall </strong>
USDA approves drought counties for emergency loans
In a two-day burst, the USDA designated 372 counties, roughly 1 of every 7 counties in the country, from Texas and Kansas to California and Hawaii, as natural disaster areas due to persistent drought. At the same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded California's drought emergency to 41 counties, including parts of the agricultural Central Valley.
National conservation goal: 30 percent of U.S. land and water
The Biden administration announced a 10-year, voluntary and locally led drive to conserve 30 percent of U.S. land and coastal waters by 2030, an idea President Biden broached in January. "This is the first national conservation goal we have ever set as a country," Gina McCarthy, the White House climate adviser, said Thursday during a rollout that featured three cabinet secretaries.
Before a USDA carbon bank, try some pilot projects, says climate alliance
‘Now is the time’ to boost USDA funding, say farm groups
Lawmakers should increase funding for the USDA's land stewardship programs as part of the administration's infrastructure bill because funding will probably be tight when Congress writes the 2023 farm bill, dozens of farm, conservation, and environmental groups said in a letter.
Republican senators question USDA funds for climate mitigation
President Biden lacks authority to tap a $30 billion USDA fund to pay for climate mitigation, said two senior Republican senators on Tuesday, potentially limiting the administration's role in combating global warming on the farm. Suggestions for a "carbon bank" at USDA to help farmers and foresters adopt climate-smart practices hinge on access to the fund held by an agency known as "USDA's bank."
Biden seeks 50 percent cut in U.S. emissions, sees farming as carbon frontier
By deploying clean technology, the United States can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by the end of this decade, said President Biden at an Earth Day summit intended to spark global action on climate change. "That's where we're headed as a nation, and that's what we can do if we take action to build an economy that's not only more prosperous but healthier, fairer, and cleaner for the planet."
Land set-aside is part of climate progress, not greenwashing, says Vilsack
The Biden administration is launching a portfolio of projects to reach its goal of net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases on the farm, including a new focus on climate mitigation by the Conservation Reserve Program, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. During an Earth Day teleconference, he rejected the suggestion that carbon sequestration in the CRP was a form of greenwashing. <strong> (No paywall) </strong>
USDA harnesses Conservation Reserve for climate mitigation
The USDA said it will offer higher rental rates and larger incentive payments to landowners who agree to idle environmentally fragile farmland and introduced a new payment for climate-smart practices to slow climate change. The expansions would boost spending on the Conservation Reserve by $300 million or more annually, said the White House on Wednesday.
White House creates drought relief working group
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack were named Wednesday to be co-chairs of a Biden administration working group charged with addressing worsening drought conditions in the western half of the nation.
Earth Day vote is set for ‘Growing Climate Solutions’ bill
The Senate Agriculture Committee will vote on Thursday, Earth Day, on a retooled bill that would make it easier for farmers and foresters to earn money for locking carbon into the soil and trees, said chairwoman Debbie Stabenow. A sponsor of the legislation, Stabenow said language was strengthened to assure farmers, rather than investors or middlemen, receive the revenue for climate mitigation.
Calls for rural broadband and climate mitigation as pandemic aid hits $24 billion
Opinion: How farmers can be at the forefront of the climate solution
More than a half century after the first Earth Day, with our planet in worse shape than it’s ever been, the challenge of slowing global warming and the environmental, economic and social devastation underway can sometimes feel like too much — too expensive, too complicated and too politically divisive to overcome. But when we wake up every morning in rural Marion County, Iowa, we aren’t filled with despair. We’re filled with hope in a revolutionary idea: that farmers will help mitigate climate damage that farmers will help mitigate climate damage if we pay them to make their operations more resilient and sustainable. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
House GOP package allows donors to name climate projects
Five farm-state Republicans unveiled a package of climate bills that in one instance would allow private-sector donors to USDA conservation accounts to specify where the money would be spent and put "a name or a brand" on a project. Another of the bills would allow landscape-scale forest management projects of up to 75,000 acres — bigger than the District of Columbia — to reduce wildfire risk through forest thinning, controlled burns, salvaging dead or endangered trees, and creation of "fuel breaks" up to one-half mile wide.
Opportunities coming for land stewardship, says Vilsack
The USDA is days away from announcing "greater opportunities" for landowners to take fragile farmland out of production in exchange for an annual payment, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday. Since early February, the Biden administration has been mulling how to stop a 13-year decline in enrollment in the Conservation Reserve, the largest U.S. land set-aside program.
Loan guarantees proposed to help foresters into carbon markets
A new Senate bill would offer up to $150 million in loan guarantees to companies and nonprofit groups that help small and family-size foresters adopt climate-smart practices and sell carbon credits.
How climate change could turn America’s poorest region into a produce-growing hub
In FERN’s latest story, published with Switchyard Magazine, reporter Robert Kunzig takes us to the upper Mississippi River Delta, where the idea of growing more fruits and vegetables — to ease the burden on California in the climate-change era — is taking root.