Source: NATIONAL SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE COALITION, 6/9/20


Editor’s Note: This is the second blog in a series that will be focusing on specific provisions included in the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA) introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) in February 2020. ARA represents the first comprehensive piece of legislation introduced in the House of Representatives addressing climate change and agriculture. The first blog focused on the Goals and Action Plan sections of ARA.

This second blog focuses on carbon markets and ecosystem services, and it was co-authored by Tara Ritter, Senior Program Associate at the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy and Cristel Zoebisch, Climate Policy Associate at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition in partnership with the Organic Farming Research Foundation.

Farmers and ranchers work at the frontlines of climate change where they face increasingly extreme droughts, floods, temperatures, shifts in crop yields, and changing pest and disease pressures. The scientific community agrees that significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions need to happen rapidly to avoid reaching the 2°C threshold level of global warming. Many land management practices can help reduce carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane emissions, while enhancing carbon uptake in our soils. As stewards of our land and natural resources, farmers and ranchers hold a unique position to sequester carbon in our country’s soils through best management practices for soil health, crop and livestock production, and agroforestry.

Federal farm policy should go beyond conventional support for farmers and ranchers as they adapt to climate change pressures by seeking to provide them with new tools and resources to support their work to mitigate the effects of climate change through carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

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