Editor’s Desk: Biden’s climate-smart program has tough row to hoe

By Brent Cunningham

The USDA has a long and well-documented history of discrimination against Black and other minority farmers. Under the Biden administration, the department has been vocal about its intention to begin to make amends, and its $3 billion Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities grant program, which is just underway, is one of its most ambitious efforts to do so.

The program’s primary goal is to entice farmers and ranchers to adopt practices that will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon in the ground. But every climate-smart project also must have a specific plan to serve Black, Native, or other “historically underserved” farmers over the five-year life of the grant.

As Amy Mayer shows in our latest story, produced in partnership with NPR (it aired Dec. 26 on All Things Considered), the equity goal faces a number of obstacles, from a lack of clear metrics for measuring success to the fact that some of the biggest projects—the ones that got the most taxpayer money and are led by giant for-profit companies and major agricultural lobbying groups—have not thought through in any detail how they will serve BIPOC farmers.

But perhaps the most significant obstacle is the lack of trust among Black farmers for government programs generally and the USDA specifically. 

Mayer writes: “Donnetta Boykin, who owns Endigo’s Herbals and Organics in Trotwood, Ohio, is part of the Black farmer network in her area. She said even if they recognize that a bit of USDA money has trickled down to them in recent years, some Black farmers remain hesitant to engage directly, especially if that means a farm visit from a stranger. ‘I have to trust you to welcome you into my space,’ she said. ‘There needs to be some healing done’ between federal officials and Black farmers. ‘And that’s not happened.’”

The projects run for five years, and FERN will keep tabs on their progress, both in terms of the equity goal and the climate-mitigation effort. We couldn’t do it without your support.