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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Reducing food waste can shrink agriculture’s environmental footprint while helping to feed the hungry and conserve resources, but since food waste occurs across all sectors of the food chain, reducing it will require coordination and funding.
The Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance proposed a series of new farm bill provisions that the coalition of ag, food and conservation groups believes are needed to help producers and landowners address climate change.
Congress is not in session this week, but the House and Senate Ag Committees will get some new marching orders from major farm and food groups when it comes to the next farm bill.
The Food and Drug Administration is facing a change in leadership with major implications for animal agriculture: Steven Solomon is retiring at the end of the year as director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.
Nearly a year after the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill aimed at jump-starting ag climate markets, the bill remains mired in the House Agriculture Committee, raising the possibility the legislation could be punted to the farm bill debate in the next Congress.
Companies and farm groups that are trying to recruit farmers to sign up for climate plans often face skeptical producers who fear that most, if not all, of the financial benefit will go to retailers and manufacturers who get to label their products as good for the environment.
Some $80 billion in climate-related agriculture funding hangs in the balance as President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats try to save at least part of his $1.7 trillion Build Back Better spending package.
More than $90 billion in agriculture spending, including a 50% increase in conservation program funding, is at stake as congressional Democrats wrangle over how to pare back their $3.5 trillion Build Back Better bill to woo critical moderate votes.
A broad coalition of farm and conservation groups says a USDA-run carbon bank should be used to test ways to establish carbon accounting guidelines, expand the use of climate-friendly farming practices and enable small-scale farms and minority producers to benefit from carbon markets.
Even as congressional Democrats push through a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package, attention is turning to legislation that could be use to fund agricultural climate initiatives: an infrastructure package that could be in the range of $3 trillion.
