Fertile GROUNDS
Robert Bonnie explains USDA’s transformative approach to climate and America’s agricultural future.
by MARK BORDEN illustration by TIM LAHAN
/ EXPLAINER SPR UT
climate standpoint in that they store more carbon in the soil and also help the land become more resilient. Essentially, we are discovering ways that farmers can still be very productive, perhaps more productive, and do right by the climate. How practices work with farmers to deepen a commitment to land stewardship? Climate is still a hard issue do these in a lot of rural America. There’s skepticism about the government and there’s concern about what climate policy looks like. There’s a deep well of commitment to stewardship with farmers, ranchers, and forest owners. If I’m in a commodity business, I’ve already got tight margins. So, is the program going to be collaborative and is it going to create value? Am I going to be able to decide which practices I want to apply, and how to apply them and integrate them, so that my family can keep and ranch this land for another 100 years? For the USDA and this partnership program, it’s all about collaboration and incentives. The program requires partners to implement “climate-smart” practices like cover crops, nutrient management, and more efficient fertilizers. How many projects are involved and what does initial data suggest? [Editor’s note: This interview was conducted in June 2024.] We have about 135 projects
confirmed right now, and we’re somewhere near 2 million acres enrolled with more than a couple of thousand farmers, including large and small producers. We’ve already got a lot of data that tells us the climate benefits will be significant and there’s a lot of excitement from our partners. Tell me about some of these partners. The food processing company Archer-Daniels-Midland has a really interesting project where they think they can find value in the supply chain for all kinds of commodities, including corn, soy, and other traditional commodities grown with climate- smart practices. Organic Valley has a project to reduce greenhouse emissions through carbon insetting. I was out in California with Blue Diamond Almonds and they’re doing soil health practices to store more carbon in soils and they’re doing work that will help pollinators through biodiversity. If you think about pollination with orchards, you’ve got a limited amount of time for those pollinators since flowers are only on the trees for so long. Now, they’re using cover crops that stretch that period to support the pollinator communities longer. The Iowa Soybean Association is doing some pretty sophisticated work around carbon offsets and getting folks interested in purchasing soybeans as a way to green their supply chain.
couple of projects and some of the technology on John Deere’s tractors will tell you the carbon intensity of certain commodities on a per-meter basis. And that data is going to go right up from your tractor and into the cloud. There’s all this technology measurement and monitoring that’s really interesting, and we want to help figure out what the USDA can do to standardize some of this data and build credibility and public confidence so consumers can trust that there are real climate gains here. How else is the government investing in this program? We’re making big investments on improved science for measurement, monitoring, and reporting verification [of the various climate-smart practices being implemented]. But it’s exciting that there’s evidence right now that it’s not going to be all government investment, that this is a public-private partnership. What are the politics like around PCSC? We’re used to fighting about climate change. We’re used to fighting about environmental policy, particularly when it comes to land agriculture and forestry. The political implications are that, if you want to be successful here, it’s got to be bipartisan. The bet we’re making is that if farmers and forest owners are with us, the politics will take care of themselves. And if we all continue to work together to make farmers and ranchers the heroes, this will happen.
Robert Bonnie is the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation at the USDA. Born on a farm in rural Kentucky, his family has owned forest land in South Carolina for over 100 years. “I grew up around forestry and agriculture,” he says. The Rooted Journal spoke to Bonnie about the USDA’s $3.1 billion Partnerships for Climate- Smart Commodities Program, the connection between agriculture and climate, and how recognizing farmers and ranchers as the heroes they are is key to transformational change.
What makes this program unique? We’re interested in a more mar- ket-oriented approach where we cre- ate value for climate-smart practices. PCSC is not a standard conservation program where we are setting aside land or paying for conservation prac- tices. We’re paying for the production of commodities to reduce the green- house-gas footprint of agriculture. Do you think that people fully understand the relationship between climate and agriculture? The public largely thinks about the climate issue as an energy issue. The truth is, if you look globally, probably north of 20% of emissions are tied to land use. We think about the relationship between climate and agriculture on the mitigation side — our ability to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and to store more carbon. And we also think about it on the resilience side, where we’re dealing with natural disasters all the time with the farm program. We know there are climate-smart practices that farmers can apply to reduce the impacts of those events and be good from a
What is the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Program trying to do? When you think of climate policy, if you’re a farmer, you worry that it may come with regulation or costs. We’re trying to flip that on its head. We’re trying to create value for folks in agriculture and in the agricultural supply chain by rewarding farmers, ranchers, and forest owners who produce commodities using climate-smart practices so they sequester carbon or reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The idea is to de-risk it with some government money and to invite private sector investment that will do the same.
How does technology play a role? John Deere is involved in a
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