Last year, the U.S. faced its fourth most costly year of extreme weather, contributing to more than $20 billion in agricultural losses. As this trend of increasingly extreme weather continues, modernizing agricultural insurance in the U.S. is a crucial step toward protecting farmers’ financial stability and reducing the risks they face when transitioning to climate-resilient practices.
This op-ed was originally published in Hoard’s Dairyman. Since its initial publication, the financial uncertainty for farmers engaging in conservation practices has grown substantially. Ongoing trade negotiations, tariffs and blocked funding for existing U.S. Department of Agriculture contracts for conservation expenses and the uncertainty of future funding for conservation programs intensify the financial challenges faced by dairy farmers.
Dairy farmers are already part of a high-risk industry — the experience shared below shows how difficult it can be to align funding opportunities with farms’ financial needs. Now, farmers are being left to absorb that risk with less support. To continue producing food for their communities and responsibly stewarding natural resources, farmers will need more flexibility from financial institutions and greater investments from stakeholders advancing sustainable agriculture.
By Alice Crothers
Doug Peterson, State Soil Health Conservationist with USDA, displays soil sample from a field that uses cover crops.
Credit: Kyle Spradley, MU College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources
There’s widespread consensus that climate smart agricultural practices like cover cropping, reduced and no-tillage and crop diversification can help farmers adapt to climate change and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet confidence in the impacts of these practices as a climate solution has been undermined by reliance on models to determine how much carbon has been accrued or retained in soils.
Soil organic carbon accounting and crediting relies on models because of the belief that direct measurement is too costly and cannot provide a practical solution to any large-scale measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification (MMRV) program for tracking soil carbon outcomes.
But that assumption may be wrong. Working with a team of researchers from the University of Illinois and Yale School of the Environment, Environmental Defense Fund found that a rigorous approach to soil carbon quantification that relies on taking soil samples before and after practice adoption across a large number of farm fields is economically feasible.
Carbon markets and carbon monitoring programs track changes in cropland soil carbon stock over time to determine how agricultural management practices impact carbon storage in soil.
Soil carbon stock is typically measured by taking soil samples prior to the adoption of a new farming practice, followed by additional sampling after the practice has been in effect for several years.
However, commonly used methods to measure soil carbon stocks may not accurately capture how that carbon is changing over time, potentially undermining important mitigation efforts.
We need scientifically robust and accessible ways to measure soil carbon to ensure that different practice changes deliver reliable results. New research from Environmental Defense Fund highlights two best practices for measuring carbon in soil.
As the spotlight on the food sector’s impact on global emissions grows, particularly as the voluntary and regulatory spaces for agriculture, forestry, and other land use drive increasing scrutiny, many major food companies have announced ambitious science-based climate targets. Food and agriculture companies face a unique challenge in meeting these targets, however, as the lion’s share of their emissions lie in their Scope 3 — on the farms that supply their products and ingredients. Driving down those emissions requires companies to engage and support farmers to roll out climate solutions.
While many are rightly focused on financial incentives to encourage adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices, a newly released report sheds light on another, under-appreciated lever of change: farmers’ social networks.
New research from Colorado State University, funded by Environmental Defense Fund, explores how companies can work with farming communities via social networks to meet climate goals and drive reductions in scope 3 emissions, while building farmer resilience to climate change shocks. Read More
Low angle view of young corn plants in a field after the rain
A new survey of agricultural lenders in the upper Midwest reveals important insights about their perceptions and support for farmers’ conservation efforts. As the first of its kind, the survey can inform agricultural lending institutions’ climate and sustainability strategy development.
Farmers rely on agricultural lending institutions for loans to cover equipment, land and operating expenses. In particular, loan officers at these institutions hold relationships with farmers and are often seen as trusted advisers and sources of information. Their perspectives and knowledge of conservation agriculture can significantly influence farmers’ progress in adopting conservation practices.
Establishing a cover crop during the cool season.
In early December, the EDF climate-smart agriculture team will join hundreds of farmers, food and agriculture companies, university experts and other conservation organizations at the 2023 Sustainable Agriculture Summit, “Scaling Collective Impact: Collaborating to Accelerate Agricultural Sustainability.” This conference is one of the largest annual gatherings of people working to improve sustainability in U.S. agriculture, and the discussions held in the conference sessions and hallways reflect the major trends, opportunities and challenges facing those who share this goal.
Here are some expected “hot topic” discussions at the conference and throughout the agricultural sustainability movement as we approach 2024.
Farmers have a long history of steadily increasing crop yields through technological innovation and improvements in management practices. However, as climate change makes weather more extreme and variable than ever before, productivity progress will likely stall by 2030 — even if the U.S. maintains past rates of R&D investment and innovation. Adaptation efforts must begin now to protect food supplies and farmer livelihoods.
Adaptation options can be deployed at various scales to combat the unknown challenges ahead.
In January 2022, global farmer-to-farmer network and ag tech company Farmers Business Network®, launched a new rebate program for farm operating loans. The Regenerative Agriculture Finance Operating Line program includes a 0.5% interest rate rebate for farmers who achieve climate and water quality benchmarks established by Environmental Defense Fund. Both farmers who already meet the benchmarks, as well as farmers who improve practices to do so, are eligible.
The $25-million pilot fund filled up quickly, with 48 farmers enrolled and a growing waitlist to participate in an expanded fund. With the initial pilot underway, FBN plans to scale the fund to $500 million over the next three years and access public markets to securitize and sell these loans to investors seeking liquid, environmentally friendly investments.
Over the first year of the program, we are sharing what we are learning with others in the agriculture sector. EDF had the chance to sit down with two participating farmers about their experiences — Joel Uthe, operator of Uthe Farm in Chariton, Iowa, and David Iverson, operator of Iverson Farm in Astoria, South Dakota. Read More
To keep global temperature increases below 1.5o Celsius — the threshold for avoiding the worst consequences of climate change — the world needs both rapid reductions of new climate pollution and removal of existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Increasing the amount of carbon stored in cropland soils is one pathway for carbon dioxide removal, and it has gained traction over the past several years in voluntary agricultural carbon markets and U.S. climate policy discussions. The idea is that farming practices, such as using cover crops, will add carbon to agricultural soils, and thus help slow climate change.
Scientists agree that agricultural soils can be part of the climate solution, but their estimates about when and how much carbon agricultural soils can store — and thus the magnitude of climate mitigation that soils could deliver — vary widely. Read More
