Incite Post | Let's Talk Farm Bill

Let’s talk about the farm bill, one of the most important pieces of recurring U.S. legislation you may have never heard of. Here’s how it works: every ~ 5 years, Congress passes a bill that governs everything from crop insurance for farmers to food benefits for low income families to climate policy. This one piece of omnibus (i.e., contains a lot of provisions) legislation impacts our farmers, our food, our welfare, and our climate. Seems like it should be front page news, no?

The 2018 farm bill expired on September 30th and the new one, of course, is entrenched in controversy with surprisingly little media coverage. We won’t focus too much on the main controversy – which is largely driven by one party that wants to cut welfare benefits for our most vulnerable and refuses to support legislation that supports our climate – other than to say: everyone has a right to food and we need to do everything we can to stop a climate catastrophe.

Instead, we’re focusing this edition of the Incite Post on some of the new ideas in this year’s farm bill debate. Take for example some of Congressman Blumenauer’s points: because of how it structures subsidies, the farm bill is incentivizing farmers to grow only certain crops, which impacts our nutrition, economy, and climate. And 10% of the biggest farmers get 70% of the benefits of those subsidies.

What would it look like to completely reimagine the farm bill to prioritize regular farmers, the American people, and our climate?

To approach an answer to that question, we have to start by understanding exactly what the problem is, and the potential impact of proposed solutions. We’ve written about methane emissions, which are responsible for 30% of our planet’s warming to date, and how we need to make progress on both measurement & regulation. And the farm bill has an opportunity to address another, similarly understudied issue: soil carbon. Did you know that healthy soils could sequester up to 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions?

Our friends at Carbon180 do. They’ve been advocating for research into soil carbon sequestration for a while, and there’s a piece of legislation in this year’s farm bill that would do just that. The Advancing Research on Agricultural Climate Impacts Act (ARACIA) directs the USDA to develop measurement and best practice tools to measure soil carbon sequestration, with the eventual goal of building an incentive structure that rewards farmers for helping the climate. That seems like a great start, and to learn more, we sat down with Londyn Marshall, Carbon180’s Deputy Director for Government Affairs. Check out our interview below.