Green Acres
June 27, 2007 | Posted by Scott Faber in Uncategorized
Farmers manage roughly 70 percent of the American landscape, so it's no suprise to the Ruminant that farmers, ranchers and forest landowners dramatically impact the facte of rare species or the quality of our rivers, lakes and bays.
The good news, according to a report to be released this week, is that farmers have dramatically improved their stewardship of private lands in recent years. There's more work to be done, but America's farmers are obviously very eager to share the cost of a healthier environment.
The problem, it seems, is that Congress is not willing to do its part.
Two out of three farmers offering to share the cost of clean water and wildlife habitat are turned away by USDA — and a proposal by the House Agriculture Committee would not do much to change that sorry statistic.
No wonder the Washington Post and other opinion leaders are urging House Democrats to pass a Farm Bill that meets the needs of more farmers and the environment.
2 Responses
Comment from Leif Utne
June 27th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Scott: Why aren't we hearing anything about climate change in the Farm Bill?
This short video, Soil: The Secret Solution to Global Warming (http://www.quantumshift.tv/v/1181028043/), explains the Rodale Institute's finding that sustainably-farmed soil absorbs 30% more carbon from the atmosphere. If we switched to organic farming on a wide scale, we could cut our CO2 emissions by 10%.
With so much public attention focused on global warming, and relatively little on the Farm Bill, this seems like a powerful way to rally more public interest, and give Congress one more reason to support sustainable ag.
Pingback from Sign the Petition to Help Grow Organics - deadline July 15th! « Blue-Green Marble’s blog
June 29th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
[...] buzz about the Farm Bill Environmental Defense’s blog updates on the Farm Bill debates Websites [...]
Leave a Reply
User comments reflect the opinions of the responsible contributor only, and do not reflect the viewpoint of Environmental Defense Fund. We reserve the right to delete comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate. We also reserve the right to delete duplicate comments, or comments that have no relationship to the original post.