Congress appropriated nearly $20 billion for USDA land stewardship programs in the climate, health care, and tax bill enacted in August — historic investments, Jonathan Copes, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, said Thursday. The funding could lead to a rare focus on climate change and the agricultural sector, though he said that was not certain.
“It’s been more than 30 years without climate change making a major appearance in the farm bill; Coppess writes in the Farmdoc daily blog. The unexpected funding has generated ‘a new wave of potential, but … an interregnum doesn’t offer comforting answers.'”
“From a 2022 perspective, the 1985 and 1990 farm bills could emerge as a high watermark, the point at which a wave of potential erupted and ebbed,” Coppess wrote. It was a period when “Congress took bipartisan and near-unanimous steps toward addressing the risks of climate change to agriculture, forestry, and the food system,” he said.
The 1985 Farm Bill was the first with a conservation title. It allowed a conservation reserve, to disrupt fragile farmland, and to create a so-called conservation compliance, which requires farmers to forgo conversion of local wetlands and grasslands as a condition of eligibility for crop subsidies. The Wetland Reserve Program was established in the Farm Bill 1990 along with the Ag Water Quality Protection Program.
In the same period, Congress debated global warming and took initial steps toward a federal response. In recent years, opposition to the Farm Belt has been a key factor in halting climate legislation during the Obama era, and skepticism about climate change has become common in rural areas.
Last week, two top Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee said climate mitigation does not deserve priority over other land and water conservation goals, despite allocating $20 billion for it.
In recent years and in subsequent legislation, Congress has expanded the scope and funding of conservation programs. The Freedom to Agriculture Act of 1996 established a cost-sharing environmental quality incentive program to reduce runoff from fields and feedlots.
The Conservation Security Program, the USDA’s first Green Pay initiative, and the Grassland Reserve were a highlight of the 2002 farm bill. The 2008 bill renewed the Green Pay program and renamed it the Conservation Stewardship Program. The 2014 Farm Act linked conservation compliance with eligibility for reduced crop insurance premiums and was the first, when conservation expenditures were expected to exceed crop subsidies.
from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/analyst-climate-change-is-a-rare-focus-in-the-farm-bill-debate/
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