Articles Tagged with ''carbon sequestration''

Leaders of the nation's farm organizations met with the Biden transition team Friday to discuss a host of ag issues and offer priorities for the incoming administration to address.

Providing some parting advice on climate policy, House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson said he was introducing legislation that would require the Agriculture Department to take 50 million acres of cropland out of production through the Conservation Reserve Program.

The incoming Biden administration is expected to take a new look at using crop insurance to encourage farming measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect water quality, but the effort will face an old challenge — finding the data to prove that the practices don’t increase program losses.

With farmers under pressure to cut their environmental footprint, global agribusiness giants as well as small tech startups are rushing to come up with ways to slash farm pollutants and make it possible for producers to cash in on carbon credits and other new forms of income.

A nationwide cap and trade program hasn’t been on the legislative horizon since the idea died in Congress in 2010, but government and private market developers are counting on there being a robust demand for carbon offsets from a host of corporations, including energy companies, airlines and even major food companies, that need to offset their emissions.

Multinational giants in retail, agribusiness, meat processing and food manufacturing, along with the largest restaurant chains and leading apparel brands, want U.S. farmers and ranchers to produce food and fiber more sustainably. This is the first of a five-part Agri-Pulse series that looks in-depth at how reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could have far-reaching effects on American farmers and ranchers.