House Ag Committee hearing on Climate Research & Ag Resiliency

Yesterday, the House Ag Committee held a hearing entitled “The Role of Climate Research in Supporting Ag Resiliency.” The witnesses were:

Below are some key takeaways from the hearing prepared by Delta Strategy Group:

Committee Chairman David Scott (D-GA)

Climate change poses a serious threat to our farmers, and serious climate events are harming ag producers across the country. In the upcoming Farm Bill, we will make an additional $100 million investment in the 1890 scholarship programs. Recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis found that harms from climate change disproportionately impact marginalized communities. We are all experiencing the impact climate change has on the prices of our food and products, and climate change will continue to impact our supply chains until we develop solutions.

Committee Ranking Member GT Thompson (R-PA)

Producers must be the primary beneficiaries of ag policy. A healthy environment must be coupled with a healthy economy. Additionally, climate change solutions must be truly science-based, not driven by partisan beliefs. We should start this conversation by using existing methods found in the Farm Bill. Foresters conduct necessary carbon sequestering, and should be supported like farmers and ranchers. We must increase American productivity while reducing inputs in order to reduce global emissions. We must avoid burdensome regulations, such as the re-write of Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule and the proposed provisions to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). President Biden must end his regulatory assault on rural America.
Today, I introduced a bill that will confront rising inflation and input costs while providing regulatory certainty to producers. I will reject complicating our programs and making climate the focus of every title of the upcoming Farm Bill.

Representative Austin Scott (R-GA)

The EPA should be taking production agriculture more into account when it creates new decisions and regulations. The EPA should be science-based in its decision, not operate off of partisan policies.

Representative Rick Allen (R-GA)

We are entirely focused on new technology and production methods to combat climate change when the world’s food supply needs to increase drastically over coming decades. We need to fund increasing production to accommodate our world’s food supply.

Thelma Velez, Program Manager, Organic Farming Research Foundation

Research must investigate which cover crops are best for each region and how to best time the planting and removal of cover crops to best serve the land. Congress should recognize USDA-certified organic agriculture as a climate-smart practices. Organic agriculture is the most resilient practice we have to deal with climate-related disasters.

Sylvie Brouder, Professor, Purdue University

Public research and funding must work closer with private industry to ensure that USDA grant programs support the long-term infrastructure we need. The ag sector should have access to research data from the public so that it can learn from it.

Ali Fares, Professor, Prairie A&M University

The ag industry is a large greenhouse gas emitter, but it has the potential to lead in new climate-smart practices to sequester carbon and promote climate security and resiliency in our farming practices.

Benjamin Houlton, Dean and Professor, Cornell University

Ag can be a powerful weapon in the battle against climate change, but we need large investments to achieve these results. The U.S. has increased gains in productivity at a rate higher than greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is destroying our supply chains and food availability. Climate change has decreased grain yields by 20 percent. These losses could double by 2050. Net-zero or net-negative operations are possible for producers with the right technological investments.
There are many commodities that can offer carbon sequestration. The challenge is that the U.S. has fallen behind China and Brazil on funding for research. Without this funding, we cannot educate the next generation.
We need to find new strategies to reduce the amount of fertilizer needed for common ag practices to mitigate both high input costs and climate impacts.

Michael Vance on behalf of the Noble Research Institute

Cover crop programs are an example of ways in which we can offer real economic incentives for farmers while still pursuing climate goals. Producers also must be incentivized through consumer demand. Rather than be forced through regulations, producers must be incentivized to produce low carbon products through business opportunities.