The most talked-about food and climate policy solutions right now
Congress and the Biden administration want to reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint; Opinions differ on the best ways to do so.
“This is perhaps the single most important hearing that we must have right now,” Congressman David Scott (D-Georgia) said as he opened a February 25 House Agriculture Committee hearing on climate change and agriculture. The fact that Scott devoted his very first hearing as Chairman of the Committee—which steers important food and farm policy—to the topic reinforced that sentiment.
Of course, representatives and senators have been digging into ways to address how extreme weather is affecting food production and how farms can reduce and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions for a while. Last year, special committees in both the House and Senate released reports on the climate crisis that included policy recommendations for the food system, many of which were based on pieces of bills that had already been introduced.
But the timing feels more significant now, considering the colossal shift in thinking the 2020 election created at the highest levels. A US President who once called climate change a hoax was replaced with one who says the climate crisis is priority number one (maybe after COVID-19). And while our last Secretary of Agriculture presided over a scrubbing of the term “climate change” from the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) vocabulary, Secretary Tom Vilsack is following Biden’s lead in tackling the issue head on.
This all feels promising for us citizens of a planet in peril...except that while the Agriculture Committee hearing sent a message about priorities, it also sucked.
Government hearings are notoriously dry and monotonous, and representatives always use the few minutes in which they’re supposed to ask questions to tell self-serving stories about the “incredible” things happening in their districts. But the point of a hearing is to get smart people who can speak to the real, on-the-ground effects of the issue at hand in the room. On that point, the missed opportunity for rigor and representation was striking.
Despite Scott proclaiming racial equity is his other big priority, everyone on the panel was white. A Weather Channel meteorologist wasted time telling everyone that yes, climate change is real and humans are causing it. The head of the Farm Bureau, an organization that has spent big money lobbying against environmental regulation for decades (more on that soon), got to weigh in. Michael Shellenberger got to misrepresent lots of data, despite the fact that a quick Google search would have revealed to the hearing organizers that Peter H. Gleick, PhD, a leading climate scientist, recently outlined all of the bad science and flawed arguments in Shellenberger’s 2020 book.
Instead of inviting pioneers and innovators like Mas Masumoto or Leah Penniman to talk about the value of healthy soil, we heard about it from Woody Harrelson (in a clip from Kiss the Ground). Representatives could have invited a farmer from Practical Farmers of Iowa, a group that has been tackling the hard work of implementing conservation practices across the state for 30 years, to speak to what has worked and what hasn’t. They could have had a diversified organic farmer selling food locally make a case for his approach while a no-till, precision agriculture commodity grower made a case for the productivity of hers. They could have had farmers of color who have historically been denied USDA resources talk about the impacts of climate change on the viability of their operations. And how about tapping into the agroecological knowledge of indigenous and Black farmers, who have been building low-input, resilient agricultural models for centuries?
One farmer, Kiss the Ground star Gabe Brown, did offer insights into his approach to regenerative agriculture, which includes advanced grazing systems and increased biodiversity. “Regenerating our soil ecosystem is the most cost-effective national investment we can make to mitigate climate change,” he said. And Pamela Knox—the only woman on the panel and an agricultural climatologist—talked about how Georgia farmers were confronting extreme weather with practices like double cropping and building shade structures for livestock. “Climate change is already here, and farmers, ranchers, and foresters are already learning to adapt to new conditions,” she said.
Policymakers are also already proposing ways to confront that reality, and a better hearing would have explicitly examined the pros and cons of each of them.
That didn’t happen, but things will continue to progress. So, I thought I’d put together a cheat sheet of the solutions that are currently most discussed in policy circles, including how they might work and why different groups support or oppose them.
In the coming year, I will likely be going deeper into many of these (especially for Civil Eats), but this will help give you a lay of the (farm)land.
Conservation programs
Via the Farm Bill, the USDA gets funding to hand out money to help farmers implement environmentally friendly practices like cover crops and manure storage, or to take sensitive land out of production. The big three are the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program, and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). One of the most popular ideas on the table right now is scaling these programs up. It’s a simple idea: more money handed out = more conservation practices implemented.
Bills introduced by Democrats, including the Climate Stewardship Act and the Agriculture Resilience Act, have suggested various ways of doing that. There’s also a lot of discussion around better targeting the programs to direct more of the funding towards practices that have proven climate benefits.
One of the big arguments against simply putting more money into conservation programs is that many farmers, especially commodity growers, are already getting lots of federal dollars via commodity payments and crop insurance, with no strings attached. And decades of conservation incentives have not led to big changes—the number of acres planted in cover crops, the simplest of the practices, for instance, is still around five percent. In other words, some advocates believe conservation practices should be mandated; some policy experts have proposed linking crop insurance rates to conservation compliance.
Carbon markets
Senators, the agriculture industry, and many in the Biden administration are enthusiastic about some kind of system that would pay farmers to build up healthy soil that could hold carbon in the ground, keeping it out of the atmosphere. A carbon bank that would offer credits is popular among some Biden administration officials, and legislation that would promote carbon markets is supported by big food and agriculture companies. But big questions remain about how effective carbon sequestration really is as a climate solution. Like, how much carbon can farm soil really hold? And what’s the most effective way to measure it?
Representative Alma Adams (D-North Carolina) articulated another common concern during the Agriculture Committee hearing. “Currently, many private carbon market offerings have minimum requirements,” she said, which benefit large-scale operations at the expense of small, diversified farms. This “could have serious implications for consolidation in the agricultural industry, making it even more difficult for middle- and small-scale farms to survive,” she said. “How important is it that all farmers be able to participate in carbon markets? And do you think that there are specific steps that Congress and USDA can advance to ensure that farmers of color and small, mid-size, diversified and beginning farmers can participate and be rewarded for implementing climate stewardship practices?”
Methane digesters
In hog and dairy Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), animal waste is usually collected in pools, and the liquid slurry of urine and poop emits methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. Digesters are basically big machines that capture that gas as fuel. The purported benefit is straight-forward: Instead of going into the atmosphere where it would contribute to climate change, the methane is used to produce energy, thereby also reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Many say it’s a win-win, and these systems are also referred to as biogas and renewable natural gas.
Others say it’s a total disaster, for a few reasons. First, these things are insanely expensive to build and they require lots of waste in order to be efficient. So CAFOs need to be big and concentrated to make the infrastructure work, which potentially exacerbates other negative impacts. More animals crowded inside, for example, if you’re concerned about animal welfare. And while the digesters process the methane, liquid waste still needs to be disposed of and can cause other environmental problems depending on the volume. Plus, hog CAFOs produce other pollutants like ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and particulate matter that can affect local residents’ health.
Opponents say that instead, the government should reign in CAFO production to reduce emissions. But currently, there are very few proposals being discussed that would mandate or regulate CAFO practices. Cory Booker’s bill that would place a moratorium on building the largest CAFOs, which have the most significant environmental impacts, is unlikely to go anywhere.
Another thing I’m interested in going forward that I haven’t heard as much about lately is legislation tackling food waste. Don’t worry, I’ll talk more about that soon, when I wax poetic about my compost bin.
Still hungry?
I planted the seeds and…the conversation keeps growing. Heritage Radio’s Meat + Three team interviewed me about my Civil Eats reporting on the supposed “seed shortage” for a podcast episode devoted to various stories of seeds. It’s a fun 15 minutes that also includes tidbits on invasive plant species and the importance of heirloom seeds to the Cherokee nation. You can listen (while planting?) on the website or just look up “Meat and Three” wherever you listen to podcasts.
Currently devouring
Cooking with gas. Rebecca Leber’s Mother Jones investigation into the gas industry’s PR campaigns and behind-the-scenes lobbying to fight the electrification of new homes is a must-read. Like many people who love to cook, I am a gas stove devotee, and this article shook me up. The fact that electrification is a good idea because electric stoves will increasingly rely on renewables like solar and wind is fairly clear, but how gas stoves contribute to indoor air pollution was total news to me.
Actually eating
So many soups—from a Japanese-style soup made with seaweed broth, mushrooms, sweet potato, and tofu for a special dinner, to a basic tomato on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The weather is starting to warm up, so I guess we’re filling ourselves up with soup while it still makes sense. Creamy tomato soup is so easy to make, and I forgot how satisfying it is with grilled cheese for dunking.
Let’s be friends
Morris invites you to follow me on Twitter and Instagram to continue the conversation. As you can see, he takes his job as my assistant very seriously and tries to stay as close as possible at all times. See you next week!
