DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The federal government on Monday announced one other $325 million for agricultural projects which are intended to scale back greenhouse gas emissions.
The most recent list of 71 recipients for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Climate-Smart Commodities program primarily involve small and underserved farmers and ranchers. The payments follow $2.8 billion awarded in September to 70 projects, mostly larger-scale efforts backed by universities, businesses and agricultural groups.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the newest round of funding at Tuskegee University, a historically Black college in Alabama, saying it’s vital that small operations profit from this system.
“It’s essential that we send a message that it’s not in regards to the size of your operation, that you just don’t only profit from the programs like this should you’re a large-scale producer,” Vilsack told The Associated Press. “Should you’re a producer that historically has not been capable of participate fully and completely in programs at USDA, that this program goes to be different.”
The goal of this system is to make use of financial incentives to expand markets for producers who implement practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Greater than 1,000 proposals have been submitted to the USDA to take part in this system.
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The underserved farmers and ranchers who would profit from the newest funding are those that are beginners, from socially disadvantaged communities, veterans and people with limited financial resources.
The projects announced Monday, with funding starting from $250,000 to $4.9 million, include:
— $4.9 million to advertise urban, mainly Black, farmers who grow and market crops in Alabama, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and South Carolina.
— $4.9 million to assist small and socially disadvantaged farmers in San Diego County, California, by improving soil health through applying compost, reducing tillage of the land and growing trees and shrubs.
— $3 million to assist farmers in over 60 Texas counties adopt practices similar to regenerative agriculture, which builds healthy soil that’s more immune to drought and warmth.
— $4.9 million to assist farmers in 10 states and on tribal land grow barley on land using regenerative practices and to pay a premium for crops from those farms.
Agriculture causes an estimated 11% of the nation’s climate-warming emissions, and President Joe Biden has set a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by half within the U.S. by 2030.
Timothy Searchinger, a senor research scholar at Princeton University’s Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, said he welcomes the surge in federal spending to learn easy methods to reduce agricultural emissions and implement practices. Nevertheless, whilst those ideas are tried out in dozens of spots across the country, it still will take years to check the outcomes and replicate what works.
“There are plenty of promising ideas, but they’re generally not in broad use,” Searchinger said. “There are plenty of good ideas about what you’ll be able to do but they haven’t been proven out.”
After the climate-smart money is awarded, Vilsack said there could be a concerted effort to watch what programs succeeded and people who struggled so the efforts could possibly be replicated elsewhere within the U.S. and other parts of the world.
“We expect that is an effort to essentially unify this effort on climate, not make it a divisive approach but one which unifies American agriculture and forest landowners and a concerted effort to enhance income opportunities, to scale back greenhouse gas emissions, to store carbon, to create healthier soils and clean water,” Vilsack said.
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