The 2023 Farm Bill presents an important opportunity to increase support for sustainable, ecological, and organic farming practices.

OEFFA members know this kind of farming is a real solution to the climate crisis. We know that good farming respects and enhances the health of the land, people, and the natural world—and we need policies that reflect that knowledge.

We have a choice. We can continue the status quo and hope things don’t get worse. Or we can act now to address the threat, including the more frequent extreme weather events farmers are facing. We can each be champions of organic, sustainable, and regenerative solutions to the climate crisis.

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.

A growing number of farmers are making the connection between more frequent, extreme weather events and the climate crisis.

Last year, OEFFA, as a member of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), began circulating a letter written by and for farmers: the Farmer and Rancher Letter on Climate Change and Agriculture. The letter expresses deep concerns about climate change impacts on U.S. agriculture and calls for solutions that invest in rural and agricultural communities.

As a result, more than 150 OEFFA farmers joined thousands more farmers from across the nation in a clarion call for investments in sustainable agriculture.

This blog is from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), written June 30 following the release of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis report and provides detailed analysis and resources on the recommendations in the report related to agriculture and related programs and legislation.

Major comprehensive federal legislation to deal with the global climate crisis is long overdue.  While no bills are likely to become law this year, the time is ripe for piecing together the key components of a new law for consideration in the 117^th Congress (2021-22).  Even before next year, the House of Representatives will engage in a trial run, voting on climate-related bills yet this year, though with the knowledge the bills are unlikely to be considered in the Senate or become law.

Understanding voluntary private carbon markets can be confusing.

Will selling carbon credits generated by farmers help mitigate climate change? Will new legislation creating a certification program for carbon markets solve existing problems and confusion?

Thankfully, one of our partner organizations in the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has some answers. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) works locally and globally on fair and sustainable food, farm, and trade systems and IATP’s Tara Ritter wrote the article below to help us understand this complicated issue.

With Tara’s permission, we are republishing her blog post about carbon markets and a new bill called the “Growing Climate Solutions Act.”

One of very few farmers in Congress, Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) recently introduced the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA), the most comprehensive climate and agriculture bill ever introduced.

It lays out 12 bold and necessary goals to meet over the next 20 years to restore lost soil carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, boost on-farm renewable energy, and reduce food waste, among other laudable goals.

According to the Congresswoman, “Farming has always been a risky business, but unpredictable, extreme weather patterns are creating immense challenges that threaten our nation’s food production and jeopardize the livelihood of American farmers.”

Multiple adverse effects of the climate crisis have been documented in U.S. agriculture, including:

• Intensified droughts, floods, and storms;
• Stresses on crops, livestock, and farm personnel from higher summer temperatures;
• Disruption of seasonal development, flowering, and fruiting in horticultural crops;
• Shifting pest, weed, and disease life cycles and geographic ranges; and
• Disproportionate impacts on economically disadvantaged rural communities

Certainly, farmers in the Midwest experienced some of these impacts this spring and summer with hurricanes, record-setting rains, and summer drought.

Although agriculture currently affects our climate through direct greenhouse gas emissions and the indirect loss of carbon in our soil, a report released this week demonstrates how organic and ecological farming can be a critical part of the solution to climate change.

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.