The farm bill is key to prevent climate change

About every five years, Congress revises and reauthorizes a legislative package that sets food and farming policy in the United States. The farm bill helps determine what we grow and how we grow it, funds programs for farmers as well as food access for low-income families, and establishes environmental protections for natural resources like soil and water. There have been 18 farm bills since the first one passed in 1933, and its last iteration in 2018 was a $428 billion investment. The bill has 12 categories, called titles, and they cover everything from agricultural conservation and rural utilities to nutrition and crop insurance. The nutrition title is the largest, receiving more than 75 percent of the bill’s total dollars to fund programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Some may not immediately see the environmental and health connection, but Allison Johnson, a senior attorney in NRDC’s People & Communities program who works on food and health, says, “The Farm Bill is one of the most critical pieces of legislation that shapes our food system and its environmental impacts, such as air and water pollution. So it's something that every environmentalist should be paying attention to and engaging their representatives on.” Senate and House agriculture committee hearings for the 2023 update are already underway, with officials gathering input from the public, including from environmental organizations. For instance, in recent months, NRDC submitted testimony in Michigan on job growth and economic opportunity, and, in Minnesota, on a wide range of issues, including regenerative and organic agriculture, water infrastructure, and Farm to School programs. Climate change, of course, is an issue that runs through them all. Agriculture is responsible for about 11 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—an amount higher than the total emissions from all but the 12 most polluting countries in the world. Some big sources of those emissions are concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), with their huge manure lagoons, ruminant livestock like cattle and sheep that literally belch methane (and they do this a lot), and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which take large amounts of fossil fuels to produce and then release nitrous oxide once used. Peter Lehner, a former NRDC executive director and now director of Earthjustice’s sustainable food and farming program, says the stakes are too high to let industry call the shots any longer. “We have to get onto the playing field—and we have to get on the playing field with a 30-year perspective.” Indeed, the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August, recognizes the relationship between agriculture and climate change. Among other provisions, the act includes $20 billion for climate-friendly agriculture—the largest investment in agricultural conservation funding since the federal response to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s—and $6 billion in relief for farmers and ranchers burdened by debt or discrimination. The upcoming farm bill can build on the momentum set into motion by these investments. Here’s how. Climate-friendly farming “The connection between climate and agriculture is really beginning to crystalize, and there are many opportunities for our agricultural system to shift from being a climate problem to a climate solution,” says Matthew Kaplan, a senior attorney in NRDC’s Nature program. Some of the greatest natural climate solutions lie right under our feet: regenerative and organic farming. The country’s agricultural soils have the potential to store 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or its equivalent every year—if we tend to them in the right ways. With the farm bill, Congress could incentivize regenerative practices, such as cover cropping, or planting specific crops like rye and peas with the intention of building soil health. One way to do that is through the COVER Act, which would offer farmers who plant cover crops a $5-per-acre savings on their crop insurance. The farm bill could also expand programs such as the Soil Health Demonstration Trial, a 2018 farm bill addition that tracks and compensates farmers’ efforts to improve their soil. Lastly, next year’s legislative package could establish programs to help farmers and ranchers incorporate agroforestry into their operations in order to help make crops—and surrounding lands and waterways—more resilient to climate impacts. To boot, a 2011 study found that growing trees around crops and pastureland, an Indigenous land management practice, could offset up to a third of United States’ carbon emissions each year. In addition, more support for organic farming could help reduce the use of fossil fuel–intensive fertilizers and pesticides that emit nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas that also harms the ozone layer. NRDC began advocating for the farm bill to include support for organic agriculture more than three decades ago, after it exposed the risks that the residues of pesticides like Alar pose to children. Partly in response, the 1990 farm bill introduced the national standards for the production and labeling of organic produce that we know today. Now Congress has the chance to build on a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiative that will expand organic agriculture by providing flexible support for farmers and ranchers during the challenging three-year transition to organic. Organic transition programs help put organic farming and ranching within reach for many who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it, and some existing successful programs that train farmers and make organic certification easier could be a helpful model for the next farm bill.