USDA awards $325 million to second round of climate-smart projects
The Biden administration will put $325 million into an additional 71 projects to develop climate-smart commodities and a money-making market for them, announced Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday. The initiative is part of President Biden's goal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and for American agriculture to be first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions.
Minnesota’s new climate plan asks farmers to change how they farm
Anne Schwagerl would love to purchase an interseeder, a machine that plants cover crop seeds directly into a field where another crop like soybeans is already growing. But she and her husband, who grow a variety of grains on 400 acres in western Minnesota, can't afford the $80,000 price tag. So she was happy when the state legislature recently approved a cost-share program to help farmers to purchase such equipment.
Biogas incentives favor factory farms, critics say
Manure digesters are among the best-known ways for feedlots and dairy farms to capture greenhouse gas emissions and, in some cases, sell biomethane as a fuel. The climate, healthcare, and tax law signed this week by President Biden offers a new incentive to the biogas industry at the same time that the environmental credentials of on-farm digesters are being questioned.
Report: Food-system change ‘startlingly absent’ from countries’ climate change commitments
Food systems account for roughly a third of global greenhouse emissions worldwide, yet a new analysis finds that strategies to reform how food is grown, processed and consumed are “startlingly absent” from most countries’ plans to tackle climate change. (No paywall)
Less food, more wildfires in North America with climate change
Global warming "is causing dangerous and widespread disruptions in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world," said a UN climate change report on Monday. Hotter weather and shifts in rainfall are likely to reduce food production in North America and are a risk to food security, said a fact sheet on climate change's impacts on the continent.
USDA to put $1 billion into climate-smart pilot projects
The USDA will spend $1 billion on climate-smart pilot projects, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced on Monday, delivering on a pledge made last September to help farmers develop a market for sustainably produced commodities. The demonstration projects could change the shape of U.S. farm policy, but the clock already is ticking toward the 2023 farm bill and funding for climate mitigation is not certain.
The new California gold rush into anaerobic digesters
There's money in manure for California dairy farmers with anaerobic digesters that capture methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from their cattle's manure. Each cow on a farm with a digester can generate $2,827 a year in air pollution and biofuel credits for methane that would otherwise go into the atmosphere, calculated Aaron Smith, a professor at UC-Davis.
World Bank sees gains for climate and economy if ag policies are revised
If governments encourage climate-smart farming, they would see an increase in agricultural productivity and a sizable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by agriculture, said a report by the World Bank and the IFPRI think tank on Wednesday. The report advocates a "repurposing" of agriculture policies and subsidies.
California isn’t going green fast enough to meet goals
California’s getting greener, but it needs to pick up the pace. The state won’t meet its 2030 emissions goals until 2050 unless it takes aggressive action, according to a recent report by the nonprofit Next 10 called the 2021 California Green Innovation Index.
Agriculture emerges from COP26 with focus on methane and innovation
The USDA would work with farmers to reduce agricultural emissions of methane, said the White House in describing the domestic impact of the UN climate summit in Scotland. The United States also is a leader in the Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate, designed to accelerate breakthroughs in climate-smart farm production.
Report: Governments must ‘drastically improve’ efforts to reduce emissions in food, land-use systems
As the first week of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) winds down, a new analysis of emissions-reduction pledges finds that those countries that have contributed the most to climate change have committed to do far too little to reduce emissions from the food system and leverage the carbon sequestration potential of landscapes. (No paywall)
Report: Fertilizer responsible for more than 20 percent of total agricultural emissions
As the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) gets underway in Glasgow, a new report finds that synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought, outpacing even the commercial aviation industry. The report, from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Greenpeace and GRAIN, urges a swift transition toward more sustainable food production in order to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change.(No paywall)
As COP26 nears, activists say agriculture should be a bigger part of the agenda
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), which starts Oct. 31 in Glasgow, has been billed as a “turning point” for humanity and the “last, best chance” of averting climate disaster. And given the growing awareness of the central role that food and agricultural systems play in climate change—both as a cause and as part of a potential solution—many activists say that the sector is not as big a piece of the COP26 agenda as it should be. (No paywall)
Keep climate-smart agriculture in ‘Build Back Better’ bill, say lawmakers
While Democratic leaders in Congress are trying to scale down the cost of President Biden's social welfare and climate change bill, it is important to make "bold investments ... that expand climate-smart agriculture practices," said two House Democrats. The members of the House Agriculture Committee said the money should be funneled through voluntary programs already offered by the USDA.
Major economies pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent
Eight countries plus the EU are supporters of the Global Methane Pledge, an initiative to reduce emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas by 30 percent by the end of this decade, said officials in Washington and Brussels over the weekend. More than one-third of greenhouse gas emissions by U.S. agriculture are methane.
California’s organic-waste law set a high bar, but most cities struggle to reach it
In 2016, California passed the nation’s most ambitious restrictions on landfilling food and yard waste, with the aim of slashing the greenhouse gases these organic materials generate when buried. The law mandated turning the waste into compost or biogas, with a goal of cutting landfill disposal by 50 percent, from 2014 levels, by the end of 2020 and 75 percent by 2025. But already, cities have fallen behind on setting up the costly systems for collecting and processing this waste. Starting Jan. 1, 2022, lagging communities could be fined up to $10,000 a day.(No paywall)
Opinion: The sustainable-energy future has room for biofuels as well as electric vehicles
With the Biden administration and the major U.S. automakers investing heavily in electric vehicles, rural Americans — especially those connected to farming — are concerned about the future of biofuels. Given that ethanol, primarily made from corn, is blended with the gasoline that powers the vast majority of the nation’s vehicles, the prospect of replacing gasoline with electricity has enormous implications for the rural economy. In 2019, the global biofuels market amounted to over $136 billion.(No paywall)
Senate passes first-ever climate mitigation bill for agriculture
Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow was certain on Thursday that the House would follow the Senate in passing the first-ever climate mitigation bill for agriculture. Under the bill, the USDA would help farmers enter the carbon market, touted as the private enterprise way to earn money while combating climate change.
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.