`U.S. Provides $1 Billion to Farmers to Fight Climate Change - Olive Oil Times

U.S. Provides $1 Billion to Farmers to Fight Climate Change

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Feb. 23, 2022 13:20 UTC

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has pledged $1 bil­lion (€880 mil­lion) in part­ner­ships with farm­ers, ranch­ers and for­est own­ers to pro­mote cli­mate-friendly prac­tices in the coun­try’s agri­cul­tural sec­tor.

The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities pro­gram will finance large-scale pilot farm­ing projects that incor­po­rate processes to reduce green­house gas emis­sions and sequester car­bon diox­ide in the soil.

America’s farm­ers, ranch­ers, and for­est own­ers are lead­ing the way in imple­ment­ing cli­mate-smart solu­tions across their oper­a­tions.- Tom Vilsack, U.S. Agriculture Secretary

According to esti­mates from the Environmental Protection Agency, the agri­cul­tural sec­tor accounts for more than 10 per­cent of the total green­house gas emis­sions in the U.S.

The ini­tia­tive is part of President Joe Biden’s cli­mate pol­icy, which aims to halve green­house gas emis­sions in agri­cul­ture by 2030 and achieve car­bon neu­tral­ity across the United States by 2050.

See Also:Why the U.S. Lags Behind Other Western Nations on Carbon Tax Issue

The pro­gram is also tar­geted to cre­ate new mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties for American agri­cul­tural and forestry prod­ucts pro­duced by inno­v­a­tive meth­ods and mea­sure the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fit they incor­po­rate.

America’s farm­ers, ranch­ers and for­est own­ers are lead­ing the way in imple­ment­ing cli­mate-smart solu­tions across their oper­a­tions,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

USDA will pro­vide tar­geted fund­ing to meet national and global demand and expand mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties for cli­mate-smart com­modi­ties to increase the com­pet­i­tive advan­tage of American pro­duc­ers,” he added.

Farmers in the U.S. have been heav­ily affected by extreme weather phe­nom­ena with new stud­ies iden­ti­fy­ing a link between cli­mate change and inclement weather.

The intro­duc­tion of cli­mate-friendly solu­tions could prove ben­e­fi­cial to farm­ers and the cli­mate alike, Vilsack argued.

They’ve seen it [cli­mate change], they feel it and they’ve been hurt by it,” he said. We’re try­ing to incen­tivize the cre­ation of cli­mate-smart com­modi­ties that hold higher value in the mar­ket­place that farm­ers can gen­er­ate addi­tional profit from.”

The Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA), a coali­tion of more than 80 farm­ing and live­stock asso­ci­a­tions and coop­er­a­tives, hailed the pro­gram’s ini­tia­tive and ver­sa­til­ity.

“[We] strongly com­mend USDA for advanc­ing a vol­un­tary, incen­tive-based approach to deploy cli­mate-smart prac­tices on work­ing lands through its Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities,” FACA said in a press release.

FACA stressed in pre­vi­ous com­ments sub­mit­ted to USDA the impor­tance of build­ing flex­i­bil­ity into the ini­tia­tive to acknowl­edge that agri­cul­ture and forestry look very dif­fer­ent in dif­fer­ent regions, and we’re pleased USDA’s plan appears to wel­come a diver­sity of prac­tices and approaches,” FACA added.

The pro­gram’s funds will be chan­neled toward projects sub­mit­ted by a wide range of pub­lic and pri­vate enti­ties, includ­ing state, local and tribal gov­ern­ments, small busi­nesses, non­profit and for-profit orga­ni­za­tions, and uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges.

Each approved project will receive up to $100 mil­lion (€88 mil­lion) in financ­ing.



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