President Joe Biden released a fiscal 2022 budget outline Friday that includes a $3.8 billion increase for the Agriculture Department that is heavily directed toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making farms and forests more resilient to climate change.

USDA wants to hear from the public on its plans to create a new Rural Renewable Energy Pilot Program.

In this opinion piece, Lloyd Ritter with the Agriculture Energy Coalition discusses how USDA can expand and improve already existing programs to be climate focused.

USDA announced Wednesday plans to spend at least $6 billion on new pandemic aid programs that reach a broader swath of producers than previous efforts, while putting “a greater emphasis on outreach to small and socially disadvantaged producers, specialty crop and organic producers (and) timber harvesters.”