Time is running out! Comments are due by Thursday, April 29!

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now requesting input on agricultural solutions to climate change through this open docket.

We know that organic and regenerative farmers use the kind of holistic, systems-based practices necessary to limit greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions, sequester carbon, and mitigate the damaging effects of increasingly severe weather. Certified organic agriculture has a 20-year track record as the only USDA-accredited, voluntary, system-based approach to ecological agriculture that has soil health at its foundation and limits outside inputs that contribute to GhG emissions.

As sustainable farmers and organic advocates, this is our opportunity to support organic and regenerative agriculture solutions to the climate crisis, share their benefits, and shape the USDA’s climate agenda for years to come.

Specifically, the USDA is seeking your input on these two important questions:

1. What can the USDA do now with existing programs to encourage voluntary adoption of farming practices that sequester carbon, reduce GhG emissions, and ensure resiliency to climate change and what can be done with new resources and strategies?

Suggested Talking Points

The management practices associated with organic agriculture focus on soil building techniques and reducing the need for off-farm inputs which are a persistent emitter of nitrous oxide, a long-lived GhG. Long-term studies demonstrate that organically managed soils have increased water holding capacity and better water infiltration, which are also key adaptations necessary for farmers to survive and thrive in the years ahead.

The USDA can address this crisis by:

• Providing increased investment in Natural Resources Conservation Service conservation programs that, with a focus on reduction of GhG, carbon sequestration, and climate mitigation, will help organic and regenerative farmers to significantly amplify their practices and support conventional farmers looking to improve their stewardship and be part of the solution;
• Elevating and promoting organic management systems as a premier approach to address climate change and create a plan for significant increases in organic research at the Agricultural Research Service and National Institute for Food and Agriculture;
• Abandoning the policy that it cannot extol the benefits of organic management for fear of offending conventional agriculture and instead promote the good work that is being done by organic producers across the country;
• Creating a new Conservation Reserve Program agroforestry initiative to encourage transition to perennial production;
• Offering insurance premium subsidies for the adoption of climate-smart regenerative agricultural practices; and
• Increasing the minimum payment for participation in the Conservation Stewardship Program (CS) and rewrite the CSP rule to emphasize and encourage the holistic systems of practices that work synergistically to address climate and ecological health.

2. How can the USDA ensure that the funding, programs, and outreach effectively reach and equitably serve all landowners, producers, and communities?

Suggested Talking Points

The USDA can improve access by:

• Identifying and engaging communities of color at all stages of the USDA process;
• Engaging diverse farm groups in gathering input and enlist them in disseminating information and resources; and
• Cross-training USDA agency staff to be able to speak to programs within other agencies and to connect these communities, landowners, and farmers with the USDA staff who can address their needs.

The USDA needs to hear your voice. Please take a few minutes to submit brief comments to the Federal Register today and help create a more sustainable agricultural agenda for the future.

Writing effective comments only takes a few minutes! Here are some tips:

• Put suggested talking points in your own words. Unique comments stand out.
• Share related personal experience, if any. Personal stories make comments more impactful.
• The best comments are brief and to the point. Bullet points can be a useful way of conveying information at a glance.

Read OEFFA’s comments to the USDA, submitted April, 27, 2021.

By Guest Blogger Eve Gleeson

With the new Biden administration comes the emergence of fresh ideas to tackle climate change and environmental degradation. A potential “carbon bank” for farmers has begun to gain traction, which would be able to reward farmers for sequestering carbon into soils by selling the resulting credits to corporations who wish to offset their emissions. While well-intended, there is no shortage of obstacles to creating a carbon bank that is as equitable, sustainable, and effective as its proponents suggest.

A carbon bank would be a product of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), a U.S. Department of Agriculture program responsible for financing agricultural support programs like subsidies and aid payments. In a perfect world, the program would be equipped with the technical and logistical dexterity to monitor soil carbon levels on farms, calculate “credits” and pay farmers according to each ton of captured carbon, and serve as a mediator between credit-producing farmers and credit-buying corporate entities.

Despite the challenges, a carbon bank may impart considerable benefits.

First, advocates claim that if only $1 billion were dedicated to the program annually (CCC is authorized to lend up to $30 million), there could be atmospheric carbon reductions of around 50 megatons per year with carbon prices at $20 per ton. As we will see, the environmental impact of this program is far more complicated than these figures suggest. For this reason, the program may be more useful in a symbolic sense, encouraging a movement toward cultural and behavioral norms that embody sustainability, especially within the food system. Commoditizing a natural resource (in this case, soil carbon) is understandably controversial, but it has great power to convey the value of ecosystem services to a profit-oriented financial system.

Lastly, though likely to falter in its early stages, a carbon bank may offer a short-term solution to a time-sensitive climate crisis, as the systemic and institutional changes we really need may take decades we simply do not have. Given its potential, healthy criticism shouldn’t precipitate a premature dismissal of government-backed carbon markets. As with most innovation, this program might just require several years of troubleshooting before coming into its own.

Unfortunately, this carbon bank does pose some structural and conceptual challenges that may make it a non-starter.

First, there is a general absence of objective and affordable measurement tools for monitoring changes in soil carbon. This results from a poor understanding of how carbon functions in soil, frequent incremental changes in carbon levels, and high variability in soil carbon across soil types. Consequently, there is immense variability in soil carbon measurements across farms, putting additional pressure on a carbon bank to standardize and assign value to something that is by nature highly variable and volatile.

Like other carbon markets, this carbon bank could cater to corporate and industrial operations, while disadvantaging the small-scale independent farmers that are truly regenerating damaged lands through holistic practices. Because this program would pay landowners for capturing atmospheric carbon, it could also exacerbate land-grabbing practices by corporations seeking to profit off the program. Small and diversified farms, who provide various ecosystem services and other benefits for the food system, could be overtaken by industrial operations that profit better in a carbon marketplace. This could worsen the struggle many new farmers face in accessing affordable farmland.

More generally, a carbon bank could further benefit a small group of corporate landholders, who already own over 75 percent of all agricultural production in the U.S., while overlooking the system that caused too much atmospheric carbon in the first place– the manufacturing and fossil fuel industries. This brings me to my last point.

There may be legitimate environmental costs associated with this program.

Exclusive attention is often paid to greenhouses gases, particularly carbon, in climate change discourse, pointing to our obsession with siloing the often complex causes of and solutions to climate change. This carbon bank is no exception. Assigning value to carbon but not other forms of natural capital narrows our understanding of ecological health both on and off the farm. Carbon can be sequestered into soils even with the continued use of pesticides and monocropping, practices that damage biodiversity, produce nutrient-depleted crops, and pollute the environment.

A carbon credit program like this one also entitles corporations to continue their emissions-intensive practices, though they may now effectively greenwash their products and operations. There is also no indication that these programs can significantly reduce greenhouse gas levels in the long run; the volatility of soil carbon means that changes in land practices or weather events could release stored carbon that has already been credited.

How might a carbon bank impact farmers in the Midwest?

Existing carbon marketplaces like Indigo Ag or Nori are designed around collecting credits racked up by large landholders. The average size of these corporate farms is 1,000 acres; approximately 90 percent of OEFFA farmers hold less land than this. As such, most small-scale farmers in the Midwest are unlikely to be included in a carbon bank, as the high cost of the program requires participants that can demonstrate soil carbon changes substantial enough to amass credits. Even if they were included, profiting significantly would be a struggle. With the cost of carbon at just $20 per ton, and most Midwest farms capable of sequestering between half a ton and one ton of carbon per acre, independent farmers are unlikely to strike gold the way industrial farms might.

If we look hard enough, we might just be able to see the opportunity a carbon bank bestows for sparking a greater movement toward sustainable cultural and economic trends.

If designed correctly, it could successfully incentivize ecological stewardship. But at present, this program may only serve to enrich corporate landholders, stagnate genuine land regeneration, and neglect more integrated movements toward a sustainable food system.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Eve Gleeson is a sustainability consultant, freelance writer, and an intern at Food Tank. You can find her spreading knowledge and resources about sustainable food on Instagram, Twitter, and her website. She can be reached at evegleeson@gmail.com.

Since 1961, food production has increased by 240 percent, the use of synthetic nitrogen has increased by 800 percent, and land degradation has increased by 200 percent.

As a result, agriculture accounts for about 13 percent of carbon dioxide, 40 percent of methane, and 82 percent of nitrous oxide greenhouse gas emissions.

But, while agriculture is a significant contributor to the greenhouse gases causing the climate crisis, it can also be part of the solution. Resilient, sustainable agricultural systems can sequester carbon and benefit our climate, while improving public health. Land management-based responses to climate change can also help improve public health, eradicate poverty and hunger, and decrease food waste.

This year’s extreme rains, floods, and delayed planting have brought home the urgent need to address the climate crisis and its impacts on agriculture.

Now is the time to join thousands of other producers across the nation to ask policymakers and federal administrators to help us meet the challenges of a changing climate and become part of the solution.

As a member group of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, OEFFA is gathering signatures on a Farmer Letter on Climate Change Solutions in Agriculture. Beginning in the spring of 2020, we will use this letter in meetings with members of Congress, USDA program leaders, and other key decision-makers to urge effective policy action to combat climate change, and especially to help farmers and ranchers weather the storm and lead the way toward a more sustainable future.

Please take a moment now to add your name to letter and stand with farmers across this nation during National Climate Week.

There is no time to waste. We must rise to meet the challenges we face and champion policies that support sustainable, organic agriculture systems to protect our planet for the future.

Note that we are specifically seeking signatures from farmers, as defined by USDA (producers who sell at least $1,000 in farm products annually). If you are not making an income from farm products, please share this sign-on opportunity with the farmers you know, or at farmers’ markets or farm stands where you shop.