climate change
Big increases for rural power, WIC, ag research in Biden proposal
Most of the increased spending proposed by President Biden for USDA's so-called discretionary accounts would go to three things: Rural electricity, WIC and agricultural research. If approved by Congress, the money would accelerate the shift to cleaner electricity, help low-income families put food on the table and, as part of climate mitigation, find ways to verify carbon sequestration and greenhouse-gas reduction on the farm, said the White House.
Native Alaskan fishers are losing out to industrial fleet in the Bering Sea
In the Bering Sea, Native Alaskans are losing the fight for halibut, up against factory ships that throw away more of the valuable fish than the the long-line fishers are allowed to catch, Miranda Weiss reports in FERN's latest story, produced in collaboration with National Geographic. <strong> No paywall </strong>
At dawn of carbon markets, farmers get up to $20 per acre
A small fraction of U.S. farmers who have pursued contracts for capturing carbon in the soil – an incentive for climate mitigation – say the going rate is $20 an acre or less, said Purdue University on Tuesday. Companies that sell carbon credits to companies trying to offset their greenhouse gas emissions say the market is still in its infancy and prices will become more robust as demand rises.
Petition calls for EPA regulation of large dairy and hog farms
Two dozen environmental and consumer groups, including the Sierra Club and Government Accountability Project, petitioned the EPA on Tuesday to regulate large dairy and hog operations under federal air pollution laws. "The EPA has the duty and authority to regulate these methane super-emitters under the Clean Air Act as part of the administration's larger strategy to prevent catastrophic and irreversible climate change," said the groups.
Audubon enlists grass-fed meat brand to conserve critical bird habitat
The National Audubon Society today announced a partnership with Perdue-owned Panorama Organic Grass-fed Meats that will add nearly a million acres to its Conservation Ranching Initiative. Audubon has focused recent conservation efforts on privately owned rangelands, where 95 percent of grassland bird species live, and the deal with Panorama boosts the total acreage in its ranching program to 3.5 million.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Climate change slowed growth in agricultural productivity
Global agricultural productivity is 21 percent lower than it could have been without climate change, according to research published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Thursday. The reduction is the equivalent of losing seven years of the gains recorded in farm productivity since the 1960s, say the researchers.
Even in economic downturn, tropical forest losses climb
During the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, as economic activity ground to a virtual standstill, Mother Nature flirted with recovery. With so many factories closed and far fewer vehicles on the road, Greenhouse gas emissions plummeted. Air and water quality temporarily improved. Overall, the global economy shrank by roughly 4 percent in 2020, and yet one disturbing trend continued apace: forest destruction worldwide, largely as a result of agriculture. <strong> No paywall </strong>
Senator suggests building climate mitigation on USDA conservation programs
The government should use USDA conservation programs as the starting point for climate mitigation on the farm and "tread lightly" with unproven ideas like a carbon bank, said the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman cautioned that climate-smart practices may be too expensive for some producers to adopt.
USDA invites ideas on climate-smart ag policy
Food system responsible for one-third of greenhouse gases
The world food system, stretching from farm field and feedlot to grocery store and waste management facility, generates 34 percent of the greenhouse gases created by human activity, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said this week.
Minor reduction in ag and food revenue under Paris climate agreement
Compared to other developed nations, the United States would feel little impact from climate mitigation efforts modeled on the Paris accord, said two Purdue University researchers on Thursday.
Climate mitigation ‘designed by farmers for farmers’
‘We don’t have a day to waste’ on climate mitigation, says Vilsack
U.S. agriculture faces a triple imperative — market, environment, and income — in responding to climate change, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday, his first day on the job. "We don't have a day to waste on this," he told reporters while indicating that the USDA will move at deliberate speed to identify and support successful mitigation practices.
The template for climate mitigation is soil conservation, says farm-enviro alliance
The new era of climate mitigation on the farm would look like a beefed-up version of longstanding USDA conservation programs, augmented by a carbon bank that sets a floor price for carbon sequestration and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, said leaders of the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance on Wednesday.
Vilsack brings to-do list as he starts new stint as agriculture secretary
Boosted by a landslide confirmation vote in the Senate, Tom Vilsack will begin his second stint as agriculture secretary on Wednesday facing problems from the pandemic and climate change to rising hunger rates in America. His own list of goals is much longer and each item on it is a blockbuster.
More adherents to voluntary climate mitigation
‘You cannot do climate on the backs of the American farmer’
Farmers expect to be paid for climate mitigation, and not at the expense of the traditional farm subsidies, said the president of the largest U.S. farm group during a discussion of President Biden's goal of an agriculture sector that achieves net-zero emission of greenhouse gases by 2050. Other ag leaders on the panel organized by USDA agreed there must be a financial payoff for the voluntary, incentive-based practices espoused by the administration to succeed.
Ethanol, facing slow recovery, rebrands as climate-friendly fuel
Battered by the pandemic, the ethanol industry labeled itself on Tuesday as the climate-friendly automobile fuel of the future. Officials said it could be a year or more before straggling biofuel sales recover fully from the coronavirus. "Mark my words, zero-carbon (emissions) corn ethanol is coming," said Geoff Cooper, chief executive of the Renewable Fuels Association.
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.