Biden, Vilsack to push for greener farming practices that could mitigate climate change and help revitalize rural areas

President Biden and Agriculture Secretary nominee Tom Vilsack want farmers to adopt greener agriculture methods that can sequester carbon in the soil and help mitigate climate change. 

If farmers worldwide adopted such practices, "experts estimate they could sequester a sizable chunk of the world’s carbon emissions," Gabriel Popkin and Gabriella Demczuk report for The Washington Post. "But some doubt that farmed soils can reliably store carbon long enough to make a difference for the climate — or that changes in soil carbon can be accurately yet affordably measured. Others worry voluntary measures such as soil sequestration could make a polluting food and agriculture industry appear environmentally friendly while forestalling stronger climate action. Researchers and companies are now racing to reduce the scientific uncertainties and win over skeptics."

Another potential hurdle is that greener farming practices can be expensive and time-consuming. One Maryland farmer who uses such practices, Trey Hill, said he had to buy specialized equipment, and said greener farming hasn't led to higher crop yields or premium prices. "In early 2020, he became the first seller in a privately run farmer-focused marketplace that paid him $115,000 for practices that, over the past few years, had sequestered just over 8,000 tons of carbon in the soil," Popkin and Demczuk report. "The money came from corporations and individuals who want to offset carbon dioxide produced by their activities. Hill used the proceeds to buy equipment he hopes will allow him to squirrel away even more of the planet-warming gas."

Hill said greener farming practices make "life a lot more difficult, and not necessarily more profitable." However, he said, farmers would be more likely to adopt such practices if they're paid for the carbon accumulating in their soil. "But implementing that idea is challenging," the Post reports. "Carbon accumulates slowly in soil, and past attempts to pay farmers for it have failed when the costs of verifying carbon gains exceeded what buyers were willing to pay. Backers of new, private-sector carbon markets hope that computer models fed by data from farm fields, satellites and handheld carbon sensors can measure and predict soil carbon gains more cheaply and reliably."

Art Cullen

Vilsack told Art Cullen of The Storm Lake Times in Iowa that he sees a "fairly significant shift" in agriculture toward conservation, and says he will create projects demonstrating carbon sequestration incentive programs that can be incorporated as full programs into the next Farm Bill in two years. "He said USDA will help develop scientific standards for carbon sequestration that are fundamental to creating a cap-and-trade program," Cullen reports.

Many are skeptical of Vilsack's ability to implement such change, citing his previous term as agriculture secretary. "Yet the dynamic duo of Mr. Biden and Mr. Vilsack may well reverse the dwindling prospects for rural America through conservation agriculture and renewable energy. With swift action on climate change, the new administration can reboot rural regions left to decay over the past half-century," Cullen writes in an op-ed for The New York Times. "While rural dwellers don’t necessarily think the government is here to help, they do support clean water and wildlife habitat. They fret over rivers made toxic from agriculture runoff." Vilsack hopes that concern can be a bridge to help convert skeptics.

"A former small-town mayor, Mr. Vilsack knows where rural America’s future lies," Cullen writes. "His evangelization of regenerative agriculture — using diverse crop rotations, grass plantings and grazing with dramatically lower fertilizer and herbicide use — is an affront to the seed and chemical conglomerates, and he will need all the Republican help he can get. This type of agriculture sequesters carbon, prevents pollution and increases farm profit. By nurturing a more diverse economy revolving around regional food systems, it could help rebuild rural communities, something the Farm Bureau on the right and the Farmers Union on the left agree on."