Editor’s Note: This blog post is authored by Jeanne Merrill, policy consultant representing NSAC on U.S. EPA’s Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Advisory Committee. She can be reached at jeanne [at] jeannemerrillconsulting.com.

When the Inflation Reduction Act became law last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received the largest portion of the climate change-related funds. Implementation of those dollars is now underway, and one of EPA’s efforts is funding for states, local governments, and tribes to develop and implement Climate Pollution Reduction Plans.

Agricultural organizations may want to engage with this effort as it represents the largest federally funded climate action planning to ever take place, with $5 billion available nationally to develop and implement climate plans. Some states have already begun their climate change plans, including California, which aims to increase organic agriculture in the state by 20 percent by 2045 to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sinks. Other states could similarly lift up agricultural solutions to the climate crisis in their plans. The EPA-funded climate planning effort is starting now and will continue for several years. Details on the plans and next steps are outlined below.

Climate Pollution Reduction Plans – What and When

Under the new program, states, large municipalities, and tribes can receive noncompetitive funding to develop their Climate Pollution Reduction Plans. State and local governments must notify EPA by the end of March of their intent to participate in the program. Applications and work plans for planning funding are due by April 28, 2023, with funding anticipated by the summer of this year. Tribes have until June 15 to submit their applications and work plans.

For those states that decline to participate in developing a plan, their allocation of funding will be made available to municipalities in their state. More on that here.

The first initial climate plan is due March 2024, with a more comprehensive plan covering all sectors of the economy including agriculture due in 2025. Meanwhile, implementation funding will get underway soon – more on that below.

EPA’s guidance on the plans includes the following:

• Adopt and implement ambitious policies and programs to reduce GHG emissions and accelerate decarbonization across multiple important sectors (e.g., industry, electricity generation, transportation, commercial and residential buildings, agriculture/natural and working lands, and waste and materials management).

• Adopt robust metrics and reporting programs to track emission reductions and important benefits throughout their jurisdiction and in disadvantaged communities.

More Than Just a Plan – Implementation Funding To Come

Later this year, EPA will announce a competitive funding process to implement the Climate Pollution Reduction Plans. The funding will be available starting in the first quarter of 2024. Details on the implementation funding are still forthcoming. The total funds are $4.6 billion.

How Can I Engage?

EPA is keeping a list of states and municipalities that have notified EPA that they intend to participate and develop a climate plan. To access this list, search for “Status of Notice of Intent to Participate Submittals” here.

To engage with your state or local government in climate planning and implementation, you can start by connecting with the lead entity listed for your region. For some states that will be a state agency, for others it will be the Governor’s office or a commission working on climate change issues. Once you know the lead entity, ask them how your organization can provide input into the plan and implementation effort. You can start by sending them a letter outlining your organization’s top priorities for climate action for agriculture. If your state declines to participate, as noted above, the largest municipalities in your state will be eligible to receive the funds instead. You can contact EPA staff about efforts in your state by emailing them here: CPRG@epa.gov. You can also keep up to date on the Climate Pollution Reduction funds by signing up here.

Need More Resources?

In 2019, NSAC member groups and staff put together a report on the science and practice of climate action in agriculture. Another great NSAC resource is the coalition’s climate change page. Please feel free to share your experiences reaching out to your state leads on the Climate Pollution Reduction Plans. Are they including agriculture and rural communities in their initial plan? What kind of strategies are they considering? How are you engaging? Any tips to offer fellow climate and agriculture advocates? Please feel free to contact Cathy Day, NSAC’s Climate Policy Coordinator, or Jeanne Merrill, policy consultant.

The post Largest Federally-Funded Climate Change Planning Effort Gets Underway appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net 

Tel. 347.563.6408

Comment: NSAC Praises Introduction of the Farmers’ Market & Food Bank Local Revitalization Act of 2023 

Washington, DC, March 30, 2023 – Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) issued the following comment, attributable to Hannah Quigley, NSAC Policy Specialist, in response to the introduction of the Farmers Market & Food Bank Local Revitalization Act of 2023 (H.R. 2378) by Representatives Marcy Kaptur (D-OH-9) and Dwight Evans (D-PA-3). 

The Farmers Market & Food Bank Local Revitalization Act of 2023 makes essential investments in local and regional food systems which will strengthen the connections between local farmers and local eaters, all while supporting public health and a vibrant economy. The bill proposes increased funding for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) which provides low-income seniors with access to locally grown food and increases Women, Infants, and Children Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) individual benefit levels, overall increasing funding that is spent with local farmers. The bill goes further to encourage new and grow existing markets by offering resources to update and establish farmers markets through a new infrastructure funding program and creates a new Department of Agriculture pilot program for food banks to procure produce from local growers.

“NSAC applauds the introduction of the Farmers Market & Food Bank Local Revitalization Act of 2023, which increases access to healthy local food for seniors and families with children while creating new market opportunities for local farmers. Investments like those in this bill are essential to connect the dots between local producers and local customers and can generate social and economic benefits for farmers and consumers from rural and urban communities alike. We thank Congresswoman Kaptur for her leadership in local and regional food system investments.”

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

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On March 17, 2023, USDA Rural Development announced the availability of at least $31 million in total funding for Value-Added Producer (VAPG) projects and $3 million for Socially Disadvantaged Groups Grant (SDGG). The application window to apply is now open. 

Online applications will be accepted until May 11 for VAPG and May 16 for SDGG through grants.gov. Additional information on paper application deadlines is below. We encourage all readers to help get the word out to qualified individuals and groups.

Value-Added Producer Grants

The VAPG program offers critical annual funding opportunities to farmers and their local economies. Value-added products bring in higher prices than raw products alone, helping farmers and ranchers improve their bottom lines and grow their businesses – which in turn increases hiring and spending in their local communities!

The term “value-added” includes foods or goods made from raw agricultural products that (a) have undergone a change in physical state, (b) were produced, marketed, or segregated (i.e., identity preserved, eco-labeling) in a manner that enhances its value or expands the customer base of the product, or (c) were aggregated and marketed as a locally-produced food. Expanding to value-added production can be time and resource intensive, which is why VAPG continues to be an impactful program that offers opportunities to kickstart new, or expand existing, value-added operations.

VAPG basics

VAPG is a subprogram of the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) that provides competitive grants to individual, independent agricultural producers, groups of independent producers, producer-controlled entities, organizations representing agricultural producers, and farmer or rancher cooperatives, to create or expand value-added producer-owned businesses. 

Priority is given to projects that increase opportunities for small and mid-sized family farms, and for beginning, veteran, and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.

There are two types of grants awarded through VAPG:

1. Planning projects provide grants of up to $75,000 for economic planning activities such as the development of business and marketing plans and feasibility studies needed to establish viable marketing opportunities for value-added products.
2. Working capital projects are directly related to the processing and/or marketing of value-added products with a maximum award amount of $250,000. In general, applications with requests of $50,000 or more must be supported by an independent feasibility study and business plan.

Who is eligible?

• Independent, individual agricultural producers
• Groups of agricultural producers
• Majority-controlled producer-based business ventures
• Farmer or rancher cooperatives

Read more about the eligibility criteria in the VAPG section of NSAC’s Grassroots Guide.

Matching fund requirements

The matching fund requirements for the 2023 cycle will return to levels from FY2020. All applicants will be required to demonstrate 50% matching funds. Matching funds may be in the form of cash or eligible in kind contributions.

Tribal applicants may use funding from grants made available through the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 for matching funds.

Resources and tools for applying

• For more information on VAPG and program eligibility, visit NSAC’s Grassroots Guide or the 2023 Farmers’ Guide to Applying for the Value-Added Producer Grant Program. 

• USDA has also created a “toolkit” for applicants, which includes an application checklist, templates, required grant forms, and instructions (this can be found under the “To Apply” tab).

• USDA Rural Development and NSAC hosted a webinar for prospective applicants to learn more about the program earlier this year. You can watch the webinar recording or review the full presentation.

How do I apply?

More information can be found on USDA’s VAPG grant page, where you will find toolkit guides for both grant projects, required documentation, and steps on preliminary actions your operation should take prior to submitting an application. 

It is highly recommended that you get in touch with your USDA Rural Development state office’s Business Program Specialist to walk through your project and see if it is a good fit for the program. Find state contacts here.

When is the deadline?

Paper applications: All materials for paper applications must be submitted and/or postmarked by May 16, 2023 to be considered for this funding cycle. 

Electronic applications: All materials must be submitted via http://www.grants.gov and be received before Midnight EST on May 11, 2023.

You may also opt to submit your application via email or in-person at your local field office. In-person submissions must be done before the close of business, local time on May 16, 2023. 

Contact your State Rural Development Office with any questions.

Socially Disadvantaged Groups Grant

Rural Cooperative Development Grants were established to provide technical assistance to individuals or businesses to create or expand rural cooperatives, including, but not exclusively, food and farming cooperatives. In 2014, Congress created a set-aside within the program to provide funding for targeted assistance for “socially disadvantaged groups,” which created the Socially Disadvantaged Groups Grant (SDGG). For the purpose of this opportunity, socially disadvantaged groups means a group whose members have been subject to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice because of their identity.

SDGG basics

The purpose of the program is to fund cooperatives and cooperative development centers to provide technical assistance in rural areas in the form of: 

• Feasibility studies, 
• Business plans,
• Strategic planning,
• And leadership training. 

The maximum award amount is $175,000 and its duration is for one year. There are no matching funds required for this opportunity.

Who is eligible?

• Cooperative development centers 
• Individual cooperatives
• Groups of cooperatives that either serve socially disadvantaged groups or the majority of their governing body identify as members of socially disadvantaged groups

Eligible areas

Generally applicants and technical assistance activities eligible for this funding opportunity are restricted to rural areas with populations of no more than 50,000 individuals. However, the 2023 omnibus appropriations package prioritized a set of funds to serve persistent poverty counties. With this priority, it also expanded the eligible county areas to include persistent poverty counties with populations up to 55,000 individuals. 

Persistent poverty counties are defined as “any county that has had 20 percent or more of its population living in poverty over the past 30 years, as measured by the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses, and 2007-2011 American Community Survey 5-year average, or any territory or possession of the United States.”

How do I apply?

For more information visit USDA’s SDGG grant page, where you will find an application checklist, template, and frequently asked questions. 

It is highly recommended that you get in touch with your USDA Rural Development state office’s Business Program Specialist to walk through your project and see if it is a good fit for the program. Find state contacts here.

When is the deadline?

All materials must be submitted via https://www.grants.gov and be received before 4:30 pm EST on May 16, 2023.

Mandatory registrations

As part of larger efforts to streamline federal grant making processes, applicants of either opportunity must obtain a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number and be registered and maintain registration in the federal System for Awards Management (SAM). Previously, an applicant had to obtain a Dun and Bradstreet Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number and separately maintain a SAM registration. 

The UEI is assigned by SAM as part of the registration process and replaces the DUNS number. To register with SAM and receive a UEI, go to https://www.sam.gov/ SAM/. 

The process is fairly straightforward, but it can take 3 to 5 weeks before a new SAM registration is active and valid. Therefore, it is highly recommended that this is one of the first steps a prospective applicant takes.

NSAC’s Legacy of Advocacy

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) helped create VAPG as part of the 2000 Agricultural Risk Protection Act. For more than twenty years, NSAC has been one of the leading advocates for VAPG and other programs that support local food systems and rural development. 

Since the 2002 Farm Bill, NSAC has successfully advocated to strengthen VAPG and expand the program to include support for organic products, sustainable livestock niche markets, local food enterprises and food supply networks. These changes have advanced growth in sustainable agricultural practices and regional food economies to connect producers to new market opportunities. NSAC also worked with Congress to secure program priorities for small and mid-size family farms, beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, and returning veteran farmers. 

During the 2018 Farm Bill, NSAC successfully championed efforts to reauthorize VAPG through a new umbrella program, the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP), which combined VAPG with the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP) and provided both programs with permanent mandatory funding. Although VAPG now has permanent mandatory funding as part of LAMP, VAPG funding levels are a fraction of what they were under the 2002 Farm Bill and are insufficient to meet program demand.

As we head into 2023 Farm Bill discussions, NSAC is working with Congress to reduce barriers for applicants by scaling match requirements for producers and expanding overall access to VAPG by increasing total funding for LAMP. For more about NSAC’s priorities for local food systems and rural development, see the 2023 Farm Bill Platform. 

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The need for a comprehensive climate and agriculture bill

Farmers across the country are experiencing climate impacts as a crisis. From losing seed crops as wildfires rage for weeks, to losing entire crops as a result of erratic freezes, to losing farms as drought dries up available water, farmers’ risks are rising. As weather becomes more volatile because of climate change, the need to fund technical assistance, conservation projects, and research is increasingly urgent. The U.S. public, across party lines, is concerned about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food production. 

Farming is also an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. During the past several centuries, and in a rapid accelerating fashion since the 1950’s, agriculture has simplified landscapes to the point where broad expanses are devoted to single crops, contributing to immense losses of plant genetic diversity and our consequent food options. Side by side with that loss of diversity was a long growth in greenhouse gas emissions that has only recently begun to be addressed. The plowing of agricultural land during the 19th and 20th century released vast stores of carbon dioxide, only a small part of which has since been returned to the soil. And energy- and livestock-intensive farming methods since then have continued to raise the sum of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. 

These two challenges, however, can be addressed by the same suite of solutions. Holistic land management that builds diversity of crops and livestock, adds perennials in the form of agroforestry and deep-rooted perennial grasses like grains, keeps the soil covered and living roots in the ground, and integrates livestock into the landscape all represent highly effective climate and agriculture solutions. Moreover, they are approaches that have long been practiced by Black and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC) land managers from around the world–including those who live here in the present-day United States. So, the expertise on these systems already exists. Targeting support to such land managers is an element of building effective climate solutions.

The Agriculture Resilience Act represents a comprehensive approach to addressing climate change in agriculture. First of its kind, the act addresses climate change throughout much of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) programming–not only that which affects farmers, but elements that shape the larger food system, as well. There is broad public support for government incentive-based solutions to climate challenges in agriculture. With its focus on incentives for best practices throughout agricultural programs, the ARA represents exactly what the public, researchers, and advocates have been calling for to move agriculture toward climate resilient systems.

The role of the Agriculture Resilience Act

In the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law in 2022 and containing funding for climate and agriculture programs, it may be unclear what more is needed. 

The IRA included additional–but time-limited–funding for targeting the agricultural conservation programs’ spending to greenhouse gas reductions. These four programs are the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). The act also includes additional funding for technical assistance for these programs. In addition, it included increased funds for the Rural Energy for America Program. 

There are a few important things to understand about the IRA. Because it was a budget reconciliation bill, there were strict limitations in the degree to which it could include specific policies rather than mere budget lines. For the agricultural conservation programs, for example, it only specified greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and did not include details on how these might best be achieved. Nor did it include any consideration of how farmers need assistance to make their farms more resilient to climate impacts. 

In addition, a number of aspects of addressing climate in agricultural programs were not included in the bill at all. For example, the bill does not include funding for climate and agriculture research, for supporting the meat processing systems that will create better markets for regenerative meat, for building up the local and regional marketing systems that offer outlets for sustainable products, for specifically addressing food waste and composting, or for supporting state-based conservation programs.

The Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA) addresses all of those additional areas that the IRA does not. Transforming the food and farming system through the above domains as well as through crop insurance, agroforestry, organic farming, farmland protection, pasture-based systems, conservation set-asides, manure management, and agrivoltaic systems, the bill creates a clear focus on farm and food system resilience. 

With the continued challenges presented by climate change, agriculture needs to reduce its emissions and create systems that are more robust and flexible in the face of changing conditions. Rather than increasing overall agricultural productivity, farming needs to increase the diversity of its approaches and of the food crops grown so that there will be successful crops in all climates, even in challenging years. By focusing on increased diversity, as well as on-farm nutrient cycling, farmers can decrease their total risk as well as their spending on off-farm inputs. These are climate solutions that will sustain both farmers and the food system in spite of weather and market challenges.

The recent Rally for Resilience (see also 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) highlighted the need for climate solutions to be led by farmers, include a focus on racial justice, and uplift communities rather than enrich corporations. In coordination with related marker bills like the Justice for Black Farmers Act, the ARA works toward addressing the Rally goals. By offering increased conservation funding that specifically supports efforts toward both farm resilience and mitigation, the ARA increases the potential for farmers to receive funding for the conservation activities they choose to implement. In addition, the bill offers more targeted conservation funding for beginning farmers and farmers of color–two groups of farmers who are known to be highly motivated by conservation concerns. In its focus on expanding local processing and markets, as well as more localized nutrient cycling, the bill aims to support programs that effectively bolster local food and farm systems. Building out local systems results in increased economic benefit for farming communities. 

Updates to the Agriculture Resilience Act

NSAC has written in detail about the elements of the ARA. Much of the ARA remains unchanged as it is reintroduced in the 118th Congress. In broad strokes, it is the same bill. However, there are some new ideas in the details of the latest version bill relative to how it looked in the 117th Congress. They are summarized below.

National Goals

The latest version of the ARA adds perennial production systems to the climate-focused goals for agricultural research. In addition, the goals for soil health receive more focus on grass-based livestock systems and nutrient budgeting. The goals also target less productive, marginal, and degraded lands for conversion to perennial systems–both woody and grass-based systems.

Agricultural Research

The research title of the ARA encompasses changes across many of the research programs in USDA’s portfolio. The theme of the changes is creating a focus on climate adaptation and mitigation throughout all the work that they do. So, there is a special focus on adding new language to the overall mission of USDA agricultural research, as well as building up and adding focus to programs like Climate Hubs, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, the Long-term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network, and the breeding of new crop varieties and livestock breeds to address climate change adaptation needs. While much of the legislative language remains unchanged from the previous version of the bill, some specific changes in the latest version of the ARA are outlined below.

Building on past additions, including a purpose to “accelerate the ability of agriculture and the food system to first achieve net zero carbon emissions and then go further. . .” the new version of the bill adds an eleventh purpose to the USDA agricultural research, extension, and education mission. The 11th purpose is to “develop food systems that are healthful, sustainable, and resilient to extreme weather and other impacts of climate change and other potential intersecting global and national disruptions.” It also reworks language on crop and animal breeding to include delivery to farmers of new varieties and breeds as part of the mission of public breeding. 

The language on Climate Hubs is altered to focus their research and education on soil health “management systems” in addition to soil health practices and to ensure that their work on grazing-based livestock management includes research on reduction of nitrous oxide emissions from manure deposited in grazing land.

The SARE program receives changes that create new agricultural resilience centers, increase the participation of historically underrepresented institutions in its research, and expand the opportunities for early-career researchers to engage in climate and agriculture work. 

• It includes new definitions for climate change mitigation; early career scientist; 1890, 1994, and Hispanic-serving institutions. 
• It receives an authorization for appropriations for $150 million per year for 2024 through 2028. 
• The historically underrepresented institutions are given an explicit role as partners in SARE cooperative agreements. 
• The terms of cooperative agreements with host institutions are also extended to 10 years, with grants limited to five years. 
• The SARE program would establish two new food and agriculture resilience centers in each SARE region to bring stakeholders together to study complex questions like climate change.
  • The resilience centers would focus on specific areas of ecological improvement ranging from minimizing or abating adverse climate and environmental impacts to reducing dependency on fossil fuels. 
  • Facilitating the adoption of year-round living cover and perennial production systems would also be part of their mandate. 
• SARE’s Regional Administrative Councils would add historically underrepresented institutions and social scientists and be given the mandate to work with a diversity of stakeholders. 
• A graduate fellowship and early career scientist program focused on climate change are also created within SARE. 
• The information provided under the Sustainable Agriculture Technology Development and Transfer Program will include a focus on outreach and training that educates on cover crops, perennial production, integrated crop-livestock systems, ecologically-based pest management, and organic farming along with previous foci.

The new version of the ARA includes some small but important tweaks to the existing legislative language:

• Language on the LTAR network receives some minor tweaks, including language directing them to coordinate with the Climate Hubs.
• Updates to the public breed and cultivar section include more specificity in its funding sources, as well as a direction that research should focus on the development of regionally adapted breeds and cultivars.
• In the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, drought resilience and reduced greenhouse gas emissions are added to the climate mitigation and adaptation sub-program.
• The Specialty Crop Research Initiative is altered to include a focus on the development of diverse, multi-crop production systems, on ecologically-based pest management, and on adaptation strategies to severe weather.
• The previous National Academy of Sciences study on links between human and soil health has been deleted, as it is already under way.
• The Appropriate Technology Transfer to Rural Areas (ATTRA) program is given a specific mandate to work with beginning, veteran, and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers (among other farmers and ranchers), with new foci including building on-farm resilience to drought, floods, other extreme weather and improving farm viability and supply chains.
  • The new language also specifies that a cooperative agreement under ATTRA does not preclude a non-profit from receiving federal grants or other funds. 
  • ATTRA’s authorization for appropriations also rises to $8.5 million starting in 2024.

Soil Health

The ARA addresses soil health through a range of means, including crop insurance, working lands programs, conservation compliance, and agroforestry.

The ARA continues to offer a crop insurance risk reduction discount to reward practices known to build climate resilience. It now expands the list of practices to include compost and biochar applications, agroforestry and other perennial production systems, and ecologically based nutrient and pest management strategies like organic fertility approaches.

The ARA provisions on the working lands programs increase the programs’ focus on the most climate-resilient and greenhouse gas-mitigating practices. This iteration of the ARA includes a few key changes to further clarify and focus the programs on the approaches most likely to reduce emissions and increase resilience.

• The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), adds a focus on its assistance to producers to help them with sequestering carbon and becoming more resilient to drought and other extreme weather events.
  • A definition of resource concern is added. 
  • There is a new prioritization for enabling producers to enter into Conservation Stewardship Program contracts. 
  • On-farm nutrient cycling and perennial production systems are now part of a list of new or innovative conservation approaches in Conservation Innovation Grant on-farm conservation trials 
• The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) receives a definition of climate change mitigation bundles, and to the definition of conservation activities under CSP is added “bundles.”
  • The definition for resource concern is also added here. 
  • In addition, the definition of stewardship threshold receives an addition so that natural resources should be conserved, “to a sustainable level.” 
  • The renewal provisions are strengthened to require that producers receive an opportunity to renew if they have met contract terms. 
  • Also, language clarifies that the ranking of renewal applications requires meeting the number of priority resource concerns according to their contract and to active management of ongoing conservation activities. 
  • The minimum payment rate is set at $2000. 
• The funding and administration section is updated to indicate that a third-party technical assistance (TA) provider can include Tribal governments, and that their expertise can include soil health planning, greenhouse gas emission reduction planning, integrated pest management planning, and organic transition planning.
  • This section is also updated to require that TA include perennial production systems. 
  • In addition, the text defines incentives. 
  • Finally, the details of the Federal Advisory Committee on Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Carbon Sequestration Monitoring and Measurement are updated to this new name, extend the term length to three years, and to change one of the foci to creating criteria for greenhouse gas emissions reductions incentives. The purpose of measurement systems now include estimation of uncertainty, and the guidance on which sets of information the committee relies on is slightly altered. 

The Treasury’s study to develop a tax credit to incentivize soil carbon sequestration has been removed from the bill to reduce complications in which Congressional committee oversees the bill.

Reinforcement and expansion of conservation compliance is one of the most significant conservation measures in the ARA, with an expansion of conservation compliance to all cropland and the inclusion of soil health measures as an element of conservation compliance. With the major role that erosion plays in agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, the ARA compliance provisions are vital to addressing agriculture’s emissions. There are a couple of minor updates in the latest version of the legislation. Conservation compliance receives a minor edit to include soil health management treatment measures in its conservation plans. The extension of conservation compliance to all cropland is further clarified. 

Another important approach that represents a significant move toward both reducing emissions and increasing resilience is agroforestry. The ARA creates three new agroforestry research centers to add to the existing single research center. The latest version of the legislation tweaks a few details. The section on expansion of the National Agroforestry Research Centers is given a definition of agroforestry, and the program is partially targeted toward using agroforestry as a means to protect semiarid and fragile agroecosystems. A grants program is created at each center to support agroforestry projects. 

Farmland Preservation and Farm Viability

This title of the ARA addresses several means of supporting farm viability and reducing the conversion of farmland to other uses. By creating a Local Agriculture Marketing program for farm viability and climate resilience centers, it would expand markets for products that will reduce emissions and improve farms’ robustness to climate impacts. The title also increases the organic cost share payment to help reduce the burden of paperwork on organic farmers–who represent a key set of farmers responding to climate change prerogatives. In addition, the title reduces the conversion of farmland to higher-emission, non-farm uses by strengthening the Farmland Protection Policy Act and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. A few changes are made to this title in the new version of the legislation:

• The organic certification cost share rises to $1,500. 
• A former provision is deleted. It would have excluded from gross income the gain from selling farm property to beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers or selling qualified conservation easements. 

Pasture-based livestock

This title of the bill includes the improvement of animal-raising claims to make them more verifiable and it substantially improves small-scale poultry and meat processing. It also increases the funding for and tightens the focus of the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative so that it provides cooperative agreements for those who need technical assistance on grazing. Further, it builds out the Grasslands 30 pilot program that would support 30-year contracts for key grasslands in the Conservation Reserve Program. Finally, it creates a program to help producers shift toward dry management of manure. This title receives some updates in the 118th Congress:

• The Processing Resilience Grant program provisions are updated to align with the Strengthening Local Processing Act.
• The Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative is updated to allow for producers to receive technical assistance for planning, and grants for partnerships are shifted to cooperative agreements. In addition, the program language now provides funded “training” rather than “self-help.”
• Under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the provisions on the Grasslands 30 program now allow for someone with an expiring CRP Grasslands contract to enroll the land in a Grassland 30 contract. 
• The provisions of the Alternative Manure Management program are updated to align with an upcoming marker bill.

On-farm renewable energy

This title of the ARA improves the ability of farmers and other rural and agricultural stakeholders to implement renewable energy systems and reduce energy use–both of which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By improving the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) to make more entities eligible to carry out energy audits, it expands opportunities for energy conservation. The program also gains a focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the cost-share for grants is reduced to make them more accessible, especially for farmers of color. The title also creates a new agrivoltaic research and demonstration program to enable better combined use of agricultural land for both renewable energy and farming–an approach that has wide-ranging benefits for farmers and for energy production. This version of the legislation includes some minor modifications to the REAP provisions and a substantial addition to the agrivoltaic section.

• The REAP provisions are updated to include a note that in developing carbon measures, the USDA should create, “accurate methods for assigning greenhouse gas emissions values, including land use change.”
• The provisions for agrivoltaic (formerly dual-use) systems are updated to clarify that areas of research for a study of agrivoltaic systems should include assessments of appropriate animal and plant breeds for agrivoltaic systems, as well as assessments of land that is best suited. It should also review the unique needs of scaling up agrivoltaic systems, their crop insurance needs, their local marketing supports, and how conservation, renewable energy, and tax credit programs can support them. 
• Further, a new research and demonstration program is added to the agrivoltaic proposal that would investigate and demonstrate such systems in multiple regions of the U.S.

Food loss and waste

The food loss and waste title reduces methane and other greenhouse gas emissions from food “waste” through several means: it reduces food waste up front by creating better food labeling and donation practices, it creates improved composting systems, and it helps schools reduce their waste overall. Alongside these changes are a national media campaign to reduce food waste and improvements to the food waste research program at USDA. A few minor changes made to this current version of the legislation include:

• In the provisions on composting as a conservation practice, language is clarified around the use of waste for compost on farms and around who decides whether a community is “nearby” when it comes to bringing organic waste to a farm–USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency will share responsibility. 
• New additions to this section include a national media campaign to decrease food waste and the establishment of a food waste research program managed by the Food Loss and Waste Reduction Liaison at USDA. 

Conclusion

The ARA addresses a range of USDA programming in climate and agriculture. Across all of these areas, the focus of the bill is on building a diverse and resilient system that reduces the negative repercussions of climate change and that curtails agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Drafted in response to the recommendations of climate and agriculture research, the ARA provisions also represent an answer to increasing public concern about climate impacts.  Substantial public support now exists for addressing agricultural conservation concerns through government incentives. The ARA provides a pathway toward placing widely-supported climate solutions into the next farm bill.

The post The Agriculture Resilience Act in 2023 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Email: lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net 

Release: Agriculture Resilience Act Delivers Farming’s Solutions to the Climate Crisis 

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition Applauds Crucial Climate and Agriculture Bill

Washington, DC, March 28, 2023 – Today, Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1) and Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) introduced the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA) in both the House and Senate. The ARA outlines a farmer-focused, science-based path to agricultural climate mitigation and adaptation. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) is proud to endorse this bill which delivers a bold vision for the future of agriculture. The ARA would refocus Farm Bill conservation, research, renewable energy, and rural economic development programs on climate resilience and empower farmers and ranchers eager to drive climate change solutions on the ground.

Farmers and ranchers have experienced the profound effects of the climate crisis as they have dealt with increasingly extreme conditions including floods, drought, wildfires, and increasing pest pressures. Recognizing that solutions are needed in the next farm bill, more than a thousand farmers have signed on in support of the Agriculture Resilience Act. Recently hundreds of farmers, ranchers, and advocates assembled at the Capitol to demand climate action in the farm bill. Moreover, there is a clear public perception that climate change will have negative effects on agriculture, and that the government should provide incentives for farmers to adopt improved conservation practices. The fact that such concerns and beliefs have strong support from those who identify with both major parties suggests that this bill should receive bipartisan support.

Representative Pingree and Senator Heinrich offer vital support to farmers and ranchers in the form of the ARA. They underscore their commitment to producers:

“Climate change is one of the most pressing issues for farmers and our food system, which is why we must prioritize climate-smart solutions in the next Farm Bill. Across the U.S., farmers are on the frontlines of the climate crisis – dealing with severe drought, flooding, wildfires, and other extreme weather conditions. Challenges of this scale demand bold solutions. Unlike other industries, agriculture is unique in that crops can draw down carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil,” said Representative Pingree, a longtime farmer.  

“As my Agriculture Committee colleagues and I negotiate the next Farm Bill, I will be fighting to give farmers more resources to tackle the climate crisis,” Pingree said. “The Agriculture Resilience Act aims to give farmers the tools they need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. My landmark bill sets an ambitious but achievable goal: to reduce agricultural emissions 50% by 2030 and to reach net-zero by 2040.”

“New Mexico’s farmers and ranchers’ livelihoods depend on the health of our land and water. They are also on the frontlines of the climate crisis and know all too well the effects that extreme weather events can have on their operations. Through regenerative agriculture and soil management, our producers can simultaneously make their land more resilient and play a large role in the fight against climate change,” said Senator Heinrich. “I’m proud to partner with Congresswoman Pingree, an organic farmer of more than 40 years, to introduce the Agriculture Resilience Act, which sets a national goal of achieving net-zero emissions in agriculture by 2040 through farmer-led, science-based initiatives. This legislation will make ambitious investments to help our farmers and ranchers improve soil health, expand conservation programs, increase research into climate agricultural practices, and support on-farm renewable energy projects.

The ARA represents a comprehensive approach to climate and agriculture legislation that offers both funding for farmer-led solutions and policy specifics that ensure targeting of the practices of the highest ecological value. The bill represents an important step forward toward building a public climate and agriculture research framework that will benefit communities. In addition, it provides expanded opportunities for farmers of color as well as states and Tribes to more fully implement their own climate change solutions. 

In response to the reintroduction of the bill, NSAC released the following comment:

“The ARA includes the provisions and investments needed in the 2023 Farm Bill to ensure the long-term viability of our farms and food system. Climate change presents a fundamental threat to farms as increasing challenges from extreme heat, drought, flooding, catastrophic wildfire, and rapidly shifting pests and diseases expand farm risks. Farmers and ranchers across the country understand the solutions and stewardship practices they most need to build resilience to climate stresses and protect their livelihoods. Investments in conservation and farm programs that increase the resilience of our farming communities are more essential than ever,” said Cathy Day, PhD, NSAC Climate Policy Coordinator. 

The new version of the ARA heightens the focus of the bill on important climate and agriculture solutions, including perennial practices like agroforestry, agrivoltaics that combine agriculture and renewable energy goals, and the breeding of regionally-adapted crop varieties and animal breeds. By offering both incentives and research in support of solutions on which sustainable farmers are already taking the lead, the bill expands opportunities for the establishment of strong, farmer- and community-led strategies for resolving the climate crisis. 

The updated section-by-section can be found here. Farmers can continue to signal their support for the bill by signing the ARA Farmer Climate Letter.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: Agriculture Resilience Act Delivers Farming’s Solutions to the Climate Crisis appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: Broad Coalition of Conservation Organizations Endorses Recommendations to Strengthen Conservation in the 2023 Farm Bill

Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 22, 2023 — Today, thirty-one members of the Conservation Coalition, a group of national and regional organizations collaborating on Farm Bill conservation policy and advocacy, delivered a list of comprehensive farm bill priorities to members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees.

The group provided specific recommendations for the next farm bill to help ensure that farmers, ranchers, and forest owners have access to a variety of tools to conserve, manage, and enhance natural resources, while increasing productivity, resilience, and the financial viability of their operations.  

In the statement, the group wrote: “We, the undersigned organizations from diverse geographies and constituencies, stand united in calling for a strong, robust Conservation Title in the next Farm Bill… We offer overall recommendations for USDA conservation programs, as well as detailed reforms and improvements for specific Conservation Title programs, conservation compliance, Sodsaver, and the Crop Insurance Title.”

The Conservation Coalition calls on Congress to:

• Protect and build upon conservation funding included in previous legislation to provide support for producers to meet the growing demand for conservation assistance.
• Harness the talents and practices of farmers, ranchers, and forest owners to face a changing climate and incentivize practices that help farms mitigate and adapt to climate change, improve soil health, halt ecosystem conversion, shore up resilience against flood and drought, increase biodiversity, and conserve wildlife corridors. 
• Advance equity and ensure that all producers, regardless of geography, race, gender, ethnicity, income, or farm size, can access and benefit from conservation programs.
• Improve conservation program delivery by increasing USDA’s technical assistance capacity, streamlining application and contracting processes, and by expanding USDA’s ability to measure, evaluate, and report on conservation outcomes and economic benefits. 
• Ensure that investments in any one conservation program do not come at the expense of any other Title II program, or compromise the conservation mission of these programs.

“We are excited to see strong support across the conservation community for a solid slate of Farm Bill reforms,” said Jesse Womack, Conservation Policy Specialist for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). NSAC is a core member of the Conservation Coalition. “Many of these reforms reinforce NSAC’s own platform for the 2023 Farm Bill,” added Womack.

Signatories:

Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley

American Bird Conservancy

American Farmland Trust

Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy

Carbon180

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Cultivate KC

Defenders of Wildlife

Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT)

Illinois Environmental Council

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Izaak Walton League of America

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

National Wildlife Federation

Natural Resources Defense Council

Organic Farming Research Foundation

Pasa Sustainable Agriculture

PennFuture

Pollinator Partnership

Practical Farmers of Iowa

Soil and Water Conservation Society

Sweet Springs Resort Park Foundation Inc

The Wildlife Society

Trust for Public Land

Union of Concerned Scientists

Virginia Association for Biological Farming

Wallace Center at Winrock International

Waterkeepers Chesapeake – Fair Farms Initiative

World Wildlife Fund

Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: Broad Coalition of Conservation Organizations Endorses Recommendations to Strengthen Conservation in the 2023 Farm Bill appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

With the 2023 Farm Bill reauthorization underway, action is necessary to ensure that the biggest piece of food and agriculture legislation in the United States advances farmer-led climate solution, centers racial justice, and prioritizes communities over corporations. With these central tenets at the core, over 500 farmers and farmer-advocates from 40 US states and 2 territories gathered in Washington, DC last week for the Farmers for Climate: Rally for Resilience. 

Farmers and Advocates Set the Stage

The three-day schedule of events kicked off with an opening and reception that offered participants and press an opportunity to learn about the Rally and its goals. A’lice (Allie) Hall, President of the American Indian Society of Washington DC, opened the event with a land acknowledgment recognizing the Nacotchtank and Piscataway peoples, the original inhabitants of the unceded land on which the rally took place.

Tope Fajingbesi of Dodo Farms in Montgomery County, Maryland, founder of The Virginia Free Farm and Program Director for the Urban Agriculture Collective, Amyrose Foll, Sophia Buggs, owner and operator of Lady Buggs Farm in Youngstown, Ohio, co-founder of Operation Sprint Plant, Mr. Phillip J. Barker and co-directors of Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, Chanda Robinson Banks and Alexis Yamashita, joined to share their experiences as farmers and farmer-advocates. These speakers, predominantly from the mid-Atlantic region, highlighted the connections between climate change and racial justice, shared how climate change impacts farmers, and addressed how traditional and Indigenous farming practices provide farming solutions. 

“Let me remind you all of the words of a relative. When the last tree is cut, and the last stream poisoned; only then will you realize that you can’t eat money,” expressed Amyrose Foll. “If we fail to make decisions now with those yet unborn in mind, we have absolutely no business even making decisions in this moment for ourselves”

Attendees then stayed for a reception that included a climate solutions and climate challenges post-it note activity and time to make signs for the rally and march on the following day. 

Marching to Capitol Hill

Farmers and farmer advocates coalesced at Freedom Plaza for a rally led by speakers who shared powerful testimonies of sustainable land stewardship, the impact of climate change on agriculture, especially for farm laborers, and the importance of harnessing our energy to create the world we would like to inhabit. Ray Jeffers, owner and operator of B.R. Jeffers Farm, a century farm in Roxboro, NC, served as the rally’s Master of Ceremonies. Jeffers is also the Farmers of Color Network Director at RAFI-USA, an NSAC member, and was recently elected to the state House of Representatives in North Carolina. 

Speakers at the rally included Chili Yazzie of the Navajo Nation, fourth-generation Texas farmer David Senter, farmworker organizer Marielena Vega with the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils, fourth-generation Minnesota farmer Angela Dawson, Texas farmer Julieta Saucedo, seventh-generation farmer Yadi Wang of Arizona, Yanely Martinez, a Monterey County Community Organizer with Californians for Pesticide Reform, 21-year old farmer Claudia Lenz from Wisconsin and Helga Garcia-Garza, executive director of Agri-cultura Network and La Cosecha CSA in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Norysell Massanet of La Botica de la Tierra Farm in Puerto Rico also joined to speak and highlight how the Farm Bill not only impacts states, but US territories as well.

“The waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea are getting warmer fueling the intensity of climate events, and rain and drought periods are becoming intensified and unpredictable- becoming the new normal,” shared Massanet. “We need more than ever public policies that consider the well-being of the land and its people.”

Shirlette Ammons, Lil Idli, and John Mellencamp, Farm Aid co-founder and board member, also joined the rally for musical performances that energized the crowd for the march to come. Legendary musician and farmer-advocate Willie Nelson also shared a performance through a video message next to a fully electric tractor provided by Solectrac and one of the original tractors that appeared in the 1979 tractorade to Washington. 

“No, you can’t keep us from coming – you say it!” declared Shirlette Ammons during her performance. “No, you can’t keep us from coming!” shouted back the crowd. 

Following Nelson’s video message, rally attendees took to the streets for a 1.6-mile march from Freedom Plaza to Capitol Hill. As the crowd marched with the Capitol building in sight, they made sure their voices were heard with chants that filled the streets with visions of change. 

“Hey Hey, Ho Ho! Industrial Ag has got to go!

Protect the earth, protect the field, regenerative farming for a better yield!” 

Lobbying for Change

On Wednesday, Lobby Day kicked off with a press conference, giving farmers and advocates an opportunity to speak directly to the press and to offer inspiring remarks before a full day of more than 100 meetings with Congressional offices. 

The press conference began with remarks from Johanna Chao Kreilick, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an NSAC member, who emphasized the importance of utilizing science and listening to voices on the ground to best represent the work that needs to be done to advance a sustainable food system. Each of the featured speakers shared their unique experiences in the farm system, including the struggles of pesticide and farm safety for farmworkers shared by Marielena Vega and the discrimination faced by black farmers in the United States shared by Dorathy Barker. 

Congressman Ro Khanna, (D-CA 17) made a special appearance, commending the efforts of farmers and farm organizations on their strong advocacy efforts during the Rally for Resilience, and the need to tackle monopolistic businesses that restrain farmers and farm advocates fighting for a better farm landscape. 

“I believe that farmers can be part of the solution to climate change. And we can pay farmers to be stewards of the land. But the problem is the monopolistic concentration of power,” Representative Khanna told the press. 

Axel Fuentes, Executive Director of the Rural Community Workers Alliance based in Missouri, joined the lobby day to advocate on behalf of workers in Caged Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). While in DC, Fuentes met with the Senate Agriculture Committee and the office of Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY).

“I would like to see politicians do more in favor of the people, the workers, instead of doing things to protect corporations. The existing laws are allowing the system to take advantage of vulnerable people,” shared Fuentes.

Owner and operator of Lady Buggs Farm in Youngstown, Ohio, Sophia Buggs, joined a delegation from Ohio to meet with the offices of Senators J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Bill Johnson (R-OH). 

“I think our meetings went very well,” expressed Buggs. “Both of the offices were very informed on the Farm Bill and how its pieces worked. Our delegation was able to make our individual and collective asks, so hopefully, we will see a bill that supports farmers soon.”

Energized for the Road Ahead

Farmers for Climate: Rally for Resilience closed with a huddle outside of the lobby day home base where participants shared their key takeaways from the three days of action. They reminisced on the relationships they built, the empowering stories shared, and the lessons learned. 

Participants left with renewed energy from the collective power of the sustainable food and agriculture movement, eager to get their hands in the soil and organize for a 2023 Farm Bill that explicitly empowers farmers to address climate change, centers racial justice through increased support for BIPOC farmers and farming practices, and prioritizes the health of communities over the wealth of corporations. 

NSAC is grateful to the 23 food, agriculture, and climate justice organizations that we collaborated with over many months to bring farmer perspectives and three days of action to the nation’s Capitol. We are also grateful to the 32 host delegations that helped turn out so many farmers and advocates, resulting in over 500 people present to rally and march for change. The Rally for Resilience was made possible by the generous support of individual donors as well as event sponsors including: 11th Hour Foundation, Ben and Jerry’s, Regenerative Agriculture Foundation, Carhartt, Mercy for Animals, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders, Patagonia, Solectrac, Earthjustice, Climate Reality Project, Patagonia Workwear, Farm Aid, and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The post FARMERS AND ADVOCATES MARCH FOR CLIMATE ACTION IN THE 2023 FARM BILL appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: President Announces Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture Spending

Washington, DC, Monday, March 13, 2023 — Last week, the Biden-Harris Administration released the summary of the President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), and today released additional details. The proposal for FY24 (October 1, 2023 – September 30, 2024) outlines the Administration’s spending priorities for the coming fiscal year, and requests $30.1 billion in discretionary funding for USDA, a $3.8 billion or 14% percent increase/decrease from last year’s enacted level. 

“This year’s Presidential Budget Request calls for modestly increased investments in a variety of programs that support farmer livelihoods, climate resilience, local and regional food systems, and urban agriculture. Most notably, we are encouraged to see the Administration’s strong support for full funding of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension (SARE) program at $60 million. Similarly, the budget proposes a much-needed increase for Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA) up to $904 million in FY2024 – an essential component of supporting the adoption of climate-friendly conservation practices. Unfortunately, despite the increase to CTA, the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) – which is funded through CTA – is zeroed out for FY2024, potentially withdrawing vital support and tools for grazers that are working to address climate change by building more management-intensive rotational grazing systems on the landscape,” said Mike Lavender, Policy Director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). 

“The budget proposes maintaining the Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG) program at $16 million, while increasing investment in the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMLFPP) by $7.5 million. VAPG and FMLFPP combine to make up the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP). The Organic Transitions Program (ORG) would be funded at $8 million, reflecting a small increase above current funding. The Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) would be funded at $13.5 million, signifying a substantial increase from the previous year although well below its full authorization of $25 million,” noted Lavender. 

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: President Announces Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture Spending appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: Farmers and Advocates Rally and March for a Climate-Focused Farm Bill

Washington, DC, Tuesday, March 7, 2023 — Today, hundreds of farmers and food and farm systems advocates gathered for the Farmers for Climate Action: Rally for Resilience, part of a mass mobilization calling on lawmakers to prioritize climate solutions in the 2023 Farm Bill. Participants hailed from 40 US states and 2 territories. 

“After months of collaboration, I’m so proud of the spectacular rally and march today! It was beautiful to see hundreds of fellow farmers raise their voices to ask for action on climate in the farm bill. The climate crisis is an everyday reality for us as farmers and it is powerfully important to bring our stories to the ears of our lawmakers. I hope we got their attention, and that they will listen closely during tomorrow’s lobby day,” said Ariana Taylor-Stanley, NSAC Grassroots Co-Director and owner/operator at Here We Are Farm in Trumansburg, NY. 

The rally kicked off in Freedom Plaza with a roster of speakers including Chili Yazzie, David Senter, Marielena Vega, Angela Dawson, Norysell Massanet, Julieta Saucedo, Yadi Wang, Yanely Martinez, Claudia Lenz, and Helga Garcia-Garza, who shared personal stories of how the climate crisis affects their livelihoods and communities. They also spoke about how sustainable agricultural practices help mitigate climate change and urged Congress to include critical support for Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) producers in the upcoming 2023 Farm Bill. Ray Jeffers served as the rally’s Master of Ceremonies. Jeffers is the owner and operator of B.R. Jeffers Farm, a century farm in Roxboro, NC. He is the Farmers of Color Network Director at RAFI-USA and was recently elected to the state House of Representatives in North Carolina.

Live performers included Shirlette Ammons, Lil Idli and John Mellencamp, a Farm Aid co-founder and board member who headlined. Legendary musician and farmer advocate Willie Nelson also shared a video message next to a fully electric tractor provided by Solectrac and one of the original tractors that appeared in the 1979 tractorade to Washington. As the rally concluded, participants took to the streets, marching from Freedom Plaza to Capitol Hill to call on members of Congress to ensure that the next farm bill reflects real, inclusive, and systematic change. 

“As a Black urban grower, I care very much about the access that other prospective growers have to land in the urban core to grow their own food. I believe that a thriving, successful food system is one that empowers folks to create change within their own communities. It is critical that the “little guys” are seen as an important part of the food system and are supported by legislation, funding, and land access to help facilitate their involvement in local food production and distribution,” noted Alana Henry of Young Family Farm in Kansas City, Missouri.

While the past year has seen significant investments to incentivize climate-friendly agriculture, necessary on-the-ground change requires further policy shifts. The next farm bill needs to explicitly empower farmers to address climate change, by providing resources, assistance, and incentives that will allow them to lead the way in implementing proven climate solutions. 

“Our country’s farmers and farmworkers feed the entire world, and they are at the frontlines of the climate movement. Bringing farmers in from across the country to tell their stories, share ideas and connect directly with lawmakers is the most powerful way we can make significant and transformative change in the 2023 Farm Bill,” said Ranjani Prabhakar, Senior Legislative Representative at Earthjustice. 

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 8, a press conference focusing on farmer stories will be held at Lutheran Church of the Reformation, 212 East Capitol St NE, starting at 9:00am. Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) will speak along with Union of Concerned Scientists President Johanna Chao Kreilick. Later on Wednesday, farmers and advocates head to more than 100 meetings with Congressional offices on Capitol Hill to emphasize the need for a farm bill that invests in farmer-led climate solutions, advances racial justice, and prioritizes communities over corporations. 

“We are thinking about the heritage of our farm, we go back six or seven generations. We are concerned about young farmers being able to make a living in farming and about bringing younger farmers into farming, where they can get loans or accessing financing. Younger people cannot quit their jobs to make a living in farming,” shared Seth Blackwell of Blackwell’s Farm in Reidsville, North Carolina. 

The Rally for Resilience was made possible by the generous support of the 11th Hour Foundation, Ben and Jerry’s, Regenerative Agriculture Foundation, Carhartt, Mercy for Animals, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders, Patagonia, Solectrac, Earthjustice, Climate Reality Project, Patagonia Workwear, Farm Aid, and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post <strong>Release: Farmers and Advocates Rally and March for a Climate-Focused Farm Bill </strong> appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

On February 14, The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced $133 million available in competitive grant funding through the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) to develop, coordinate, and expand producer-to-consumer marketing, local and regional food markets, and local food enterprises.  

The deadline to apply for the FMLFPP and RFSP program is Monday, May 2, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time via  www.grants.gov.

The Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) includes three programs: Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP), Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP), and Regional Food Systems Partnership (RFSP) program. LAMP was established in the 2018 Farm Bill to streamline program administration and provide permanent baseline funding status for existing efforts to build and expand local and regional food and agriculture markets.

2023 Grant Cycle 

FMPP, LFPP, and RFSP are each administered as separate programs by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and include three separate Request for Applications (RFA).  Each program has funding available for a variety of project types. This grant cycle includes an additional $65 million of supplemental funding authorized by the American Rescue Plan (ARP) with a total of $133 million available across the three programs.

The following table provides an overview of project types, award sizes, and funding available for each program.

Farmers Market Promotion Program (Total available $15 million)

Local Food Promotion Program (Total available $62 million)

Regional Food Systems Partnership (Total available $56 million)

Notable Changes to 2023 RFAs

New Project Types 

The fiscal year (FY) 2023 RFAs incorporate a new streamlined application approach for LFPP and FMPP by offering a Turnkey Marketing and Promotion application. The Turnkey project type covers a specific set of activities defined by AMS. Applicants must implement at least three of the five activities and applicants cannot include activities outside of the defined list in their application. These activities include the following: 

• Identify and analyze new or improved market opportunities
• Develop or revise a marketing plan
• Design or purchase marketing and promotion media
• Implement a marketing plan
• Evaluate marketing and promotion activities

American Rescue Plan Funds

The FY23 RFA includes $65 million of supplemental funding from ARP to expand the program’s  support for farm to institution marketing opportunities, such as universities, hospitals, and settings operated by local, tribal, and state governments. Both LFPP and RFSP include the “Farm to Institution” project type. 

Farm to Institution projects support the development, coordination, and expansion of institutional markets or institutional food service operations, such as pre-K through grade 12 schools, college, university, hospital, local government, tribal, and state cafeterias or meal programs, through local and regional producers and local and regional food enterprises that engage as intermediaries. Check the LFPP and RFSP RFAs for more information. 

Resources for Prospective Applicants 

For more information about grant eligibility, the applications process, previously awarded projects and frequently asked questions, visit the AMS FMPP webpage, LFPP webpage or RFSP webpage.

AMS is also hosting webinars for prospective applications to FMLFPP and RFSP. Information about those webinars can be found here and below.

Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP) Applicant Webinar

When: Wednesday, March 15, 2023, 1:00 PM Eastern Time

Topic: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) announced approximately $77 million in competitive grant funding for the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP) to expand direct producer-to-consumer markets and local and regional food business enterprises. Register for the FMLFPP Webinar

Regional Food System Partnerships (RFSP) Applicant Webinar

When: March 29, 2023, 01:00 PM – 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Topic: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) announced $56.5 million in competitive grant funding for the Regional Food System Partnerships Program (RFSP) to explore new market opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural products, and to encourage resilience and development of local or regional food systems. Register for the RFSP webinar

Peer Review Panels

Every year, USDA seeks members of the public to serve on their grant peer review panels. Peer review panels help USDA review grant applications and recommend which projects should receive funding. Grant reviewers, typically people with academic, non-profit, and/or on the ground agriculture-related experience, help to ensure that the projects funded advance the goals of the program. 

If your organization is not planning to apply or if you are interested in being part of this process and bringing your sustainable agriculture knowledge to the reviewers’ table, please consider volunteering for a FMLFPP or RFSP peer review panel. Learn more about the AMS peer reviewer application and sign-up here. 

The post USDA ANNOUNCES LATEST ROUND OF FUNDING TO SUPPORT LOCAL AND REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEM PROJECTS appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The 2018 Farm Bill offered a variety of victories for NSAC’s priorities. It also elevated attention and support for the growing number of urban agriculture and small-scale innovative producers across the nation by directing USDA to create an Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) and programs to support related activities. 

This blog post offers a look at the status of the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production’s program activities since the 2018 Farm Bill. While full implementation has yet to be fulfilled, there has been immense progress. We are optimistic that the 2023 Farm Bill will continue to build upon its successes to date.  

Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production 

The 2018 Farm Bill authorized a new Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production whose mission is to encourage and promote urban, indoor, and other innovative agricultural practices. While the name implies a restriction to urban areas, urban agriculture broadly covers a variety of growing techniques that lend themselves to urban environments but have been adopted in both suburban and rural areas. The office promotes a wide variety of practices such as community gardens, outdoor vertical production, greenhouses, indoor farms, hydroponic facilities, and more. 

The creation of the Office of Urban Agriculture started off slow. The office was delayed in its full implementation because the Farm Bill did not authorize any mandatory funding, only discretionary funding, and it was not until fiscal year (FY) 2020 that NSAC, along with many urban agriculture advocates, were able to secure a modest initial appropriation to allow for its establishment. Since FY2020, advocates have grown the office’s annual appropriations from $5 million to $8.5 million in FY2023. While some additional funds have been allocated to programs through the American Rescue Plan Act, the office remains funded well below its authorized level of $25 million. 

Grants and Cooperative Agreements

In 2020, OUAIP made $3 million available in their inaugural Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Competitive Grants. Since then, $40.5 million has been invested in local communities to increase the capacity of urban agriculture to supply critical food needs. The program offers both planning and implementation grants to non-profit organizations, schools, and local and Tribal governments to conduct education and training to growers, invest in new technology, and build infrastructure to support networks of farmers to expand access to healthy foods in their communities. 

Congress also directed OUAIP to create a community composting pilot program that would support the planning and implementation of compost plans to reduce municipal food waste. Since 2020, OUAIP has entered into 82 Composting and Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) Cooperative Agreements across 31 states and one territory. These agreements are supporting communities in food waste reduction while also generating compost for local and urban producers. Priority is given to projects that are collaborative, increase availability of compost among farmers, and integrate multiple food waste strategies. 

Efforts to Increase Public Involvement in Implementation 

To ensure opportunities for ongoing input from the public for program implementation, the 2018 Farm Bill instructed the Farm Service Agency (FSA) to pilot ten urban and suburban county committees to ensure FSA programs are administered fairly across their geographical areas. These committees had a staged announcement over the course of 2020 and 2021. To date, USDA has established 17 committees across 15 states; however, urban farmers have shared that it has been difficult to easily find election information, understand whether they are eligible, or to connect with the elected committee members. 

Additionally, OUAIP established the Federal Advisory Committee for Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production to provide guidance and recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture (Secretary) for policies, programs and resources that can address barriers for producers in urban areas and effectively disseminate urban, indoor and other emerging agricultural production practices in communities. 

Since March 2022, the Advisory Committee has held four public meetings and has been developing their list of recommendations they plan to deliver to the Secretary this year. 

Last week at the latest meeting, the committee refined a subset of their recommendations. The recommendations are to:  

• Create a public/online database that would serve as the aggregation point for a comprehensive updated list of programs for funding, incentives and support available to urban farmers and innovative producers and share these opportunities in ways that are culturally and linguistically appropriate;
• Conduct a review of the FSA Microloan programs to determine overall utilization, program effectiveness, and typical timelines required from inquiry to funding within the FSA office. submit public comments
• Add the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as an eligible USDA program to the list of program participation that is required for an individual to be eligible to vote on or serve on a local FSA county or urban committee; and
• Provide guidance to local governments and private citizens on best practices and resources to assist in accessing, maintaining and keeping land in urban and innovative agricultural conservation use.   

Currently individuals have an opportunity to submit written comments to the Advisory Committee to consider when finalizing their recommendations. Comments must be submitted by March 9th, 2023. 

NSAC’s Recommendations for the Office 

Last year, NSAC released its 2023 Farm Bill platform which provides a comprehensive list of recommendations to achieve a farm bill that advances racial equity, builds a climate resilient future, invests in healthy communities, and levels the playing field for all growers.  

The Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) and its associated programs have the potential to influence our food and farming systems in a way that brings us closer to those values. While OUAIP has invested millions of dollars in local communities to foster urban agricultural production and improve food access, there are areas for better integration of OUIAP across USDA to ensure access and utilization of its programs. 

The 2023 Farm Bill offers an opportunity for OUAIP to be strengthened and better support growers and communities by: 

• providing technical assistance to urban farmers in business development, navigating local zoning, managing small and non-contiguous parcels of land, 
• promoting conservation techniques unique to urban agriculture that considers stormwater runoff, lead contamination, and building soil on brownfield or other land with low-quality soil characteristics,
• Ensuring cooperative agreements to carry out OUAIP program activities are established with organizations that have experience providing urban agricultural technical assistance to socially disadvantaged populations and those with limited English proficiency,
• expanding opportunities for the OUAIP grant funds to reach agricultural cooperatives or business, support mini-grants to producers, and establish tool-sharing programs,
• evaluate OUAIP programming to better understand urban agriculture’s impact on our local markets and economies, and improving community food security, and
• Providing mandatory funding for the office at $50 million/year. 

The post A Look at the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: Farmers Come to DC Asking Policymakers to Make Climate a Priority in the Farm Bill

Washington, DC, March 2, 2023 – Next week farmers, farmworkers and farmer allies will be heading to Washington D.C. to ask lawmakers to prioritize climate solutions in the 2023 Farm Bill. The Farmers for Climate Action: Rally for Resilience will highlight the need to simultaneously address climate impacts, racial justice, and needed improvements to antitrust and fair competition laws. Communities need federal support to address these challenges head on.

Spearheaded by NSAC and Farm Aid and supported by an alliance of organizations (listed here), the Rally will welcome farmers from across the country who are dedicated to climate solutions. 

“There’s a long, honorable tradition of farmers mobilizing in Washington, and this is part of that tradition,” notes Michael Foley, Cultural Impact Director at Farm Aid.

Lasting solutions to climate change are those that prioritize farmer-led solutions and that focus on racial justice. Many of the speakers at the Rally events are farmers and farmworkers of color who will lay out how their farming methods are working to build solutions to climate change.

“The climate crisis is here now, with Black, Indigenous, and farmers and farmworkers of color experiencing some of the worst impacts to their health, safety, and livelihoods. We are here in DC to ask Congress to commit to investing in climate solutions that directly support Black, Indigenous, and farmers and farmworkers of color in the next farm bill,” said Maleeka Manurasada, National Organizer at HEAL Food Alliance. “We urge the House and Senate Agriculture committees to address the challenges of a changing climate in the next farm bill, which must be a climate justice bill.”

The Rally opens on Monday, March 6 at The Lutheran Church at Thomas Circle, 1126 Vermont Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. Starting at 4pm, farmers and farmworkers will share their stories of dealing with the climate crisis. Immediately following at 5pm, a reception will include food and drinks and an opportunity to network with farmers attending the rally events. The reception will also take place in The Lutheran Church.

On Tuesday, March 7 events will kick off at 11am with a Rally in Freedom Plaza, 1325 Pennsylvania Ave, NW. In addition to a formidable line-up of farmer and farmworker speakers, Farm Aid founding board member John Mellencamp, Durham, NC-based Shirlette Ammons, and local group Lil Idli will perform. There will also be electric tractors, ice cream, and food trucks. The event will close with a video from Willie Nelson. Participants will then march from Freedom Plaza to the Capitol.

On Wednesday, March 8, the day’s events will open with a press conference at Lutheran Church of the Reformation, 212 East Capitol St, NE, Washington, DC. This will include comments from Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA), Union of Concerned Scientists President Johanna Chao Kreilick, and farmers and farmworkers from around the country. There will be an opportunity for Q&A. 

Following the press conference, participants will head to meetings with Congressional offices on Capitol Hill. As farmers and farmworkers meet with lawmakers, they will emphasize the need for a transformative Farm Bill to address the climate crisis.

“That hundreds of farmers are willing to leave their farms – as spring emerges throughout much of the country – is a sign of just how essential it is to their livelihoods, families, and communities that Congress deliver more than a status quo Farm Bill. As this vast alliance of farmers and advocates assembles in our nation’s Capitol, we urge Congress to deliver changes to ensure that the next Farm Bill reflects real, inclusive, and systematic change,” said Mike Lavender, NSAC Policy Director. 

Farmers and farmworkers coming to this event seek much more than a focus on greenhouse gas mitigation in the Farm Bill. They want to see solutions that build farm and community resilience to both climate impacts and to economic forces that reduce farmer autonomy and increase consolidation. In short, they seek to have federal support for climate justice built into the Farm Bill.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: Farmers Come to DC Asking Policymakers to Make Climate a Priority in the Farm Bill appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Editor’s Note: This blog post is authored Michael Happ, Program Associate for Climate and Rural Communities at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, (IATP). ITAP is an NSAC member organization with a 30-year history of pursuing cutting edge solutions that benefit family farmers, rural communities and the planet.

More progress needed to connect farmers with federal conservation programs

Introduction

Since IATP’s 2021 publication Closed Out: How U.S. farmers are denied access to conservation programs, there has been some positive development for conservation agriculture policy in the United States. Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed, the Inflation Reduction Act, which dedicated $19.5 billion in additional funding for programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).  

EQIP and CSP are key tools for helping farms and farmers adapt to a changing climate, supporting practices as targeted as grassed waterways or as comprehensive as a farm-wide suite of practices that improve wildlife habitat or water quality. While some practices help store carbon or reduce methane emissions, more important in our view is the added income and climate resilience that these programs can provide to farmers, helping them stay afloat and move in the direction of a more agroecological approach to farming.  

Since 2020, the last year for which we assessed data in Closed Out, we have seen a few interesting developments. In 2022, the number of CSP applications shot up, as did the number of contracts awarded. Instead of the 18.2% of CSP applicants awarded contracts nationwide in 2020, last year 24.8% of CSP applicants were awarded contracts. This means that the United States Department of Agriculture (USA) awarded around 3,000 more contracts nationwide in 2022 than in 2020. Many of those projects will help farmers adapt to a changing climate and improve soil health, water quality, and maintain and allow farms to operate in a more agroecological way. Despite this improved ratio of applications to contracts awarded, USDA still rejects more than three in four farmer applications to CSP.  

With EQIP, the trend is not as clear. Both the number of contracts and the number of applicants has decreased since 2020. The percentage of applicants awarded contracts in both years was remarkably similar, 25.9%.  

Drilling down, there was a wide variation in approval rates among states. For example, both Nevada and Montana awarded contracts to 40% of their applicants in 2022. In Nevada, that percentage translates to 64 contracts, while in Montana it is 466. Having a high percentage of applicants means different things in different states, and we acknowledge the shortcomings of this metric. Likewise, while both Mississippi and West Virginia awarded slightly over 200 CSP contracts, West Virginia is near the top of the list in percentage awarded, while Mississippi is at the very bottom. Additionally, many farmers are not reflected in these numbers: namely, those who want to apply for contracts but choose not to for a variety of reasons, whether it is the requirement that most farmers pay for the practice up front and get reimbursed later, the paperwork involved or a lack of technical assistance from USDA at the local level. Farmers should not feel closed out of the process to the extent that they don’t apply at all.  

What has changed since 2020? 

Fiscal Year 2022 is the first full year of data during the Biden administration. While in 2022, Congress might not have dedicated significant new money to EQIP and CSP compared to 2020, USDA has made some important improvements to the programs. For example, under previous policy, a farmer with an expiring CSP contract was required to wait two years before reapplying to the program. In 2022, USDA changed this requirement so that a contract renewal can start right when the old contract expires. This contract continuity helps ensure that land in conservation is kept in conservation and that a lack of funds does not mean a farmer reverses any land improvements.  

USDA also added what are known as “Conservation Incentive Contracts” to EQIP to help farmers add layers of conservation on top of existing EQIP practices. In a sense, these CICs help make the transition from EQIP to CSP smoother and help farmers approach conservation from a whole-farm perspective.¹ IATP supports CICs because they help EQIP fulfill its intended purpose: to conserve land resources and help farmers build on existing conservation, with a smooth graduation to CSP.  

The Biden administration has also committed to improving outreach to farmers of color and others historically left out of USDA conservation programs. While both EQIP and CSP are important climate tools, it is important that they help farmers of all backgrounds and farm sizes and do not deepen existing inequities. The administration has also committed to staffing USDA county offices with more conservation experts, who can help farmers navigate the complex paperwork that accompanies these programs. Much work still needs to be done, but this is a step in the right direction.  

What about the Inflation Reduction Act?  

In 2022, Congress passed, and President Biden signed, the Inflation Reduction Act. This Act, known as the IRA, which is now being implemented for Fiscal Year 2023, dedicated roughly $20 billion to conservation agriculture to be stair-stepped up over the next few years. Within that $20 billion, $3.25 billion is reserved for CSP and $8.45 billion for the EQIP. IATP supported these additional funds for CSP and EQIP as a small but important step toward meeting farmer demand and achieving a more agroecological food and farm system.  

IRA funds begin in Fiscal Year 2023, so this report does not reflect the new IRA funding. In future updates that include FY23 data, the impact of this funding likely will be evident.  

After the IRA became law, USDA sought input on the implementation of the Act. IATP submitted comments outlining the most important factors in implementation.² We believe these funds should be easy to access for farmers of all sizes. We also believe that funds should be dedicated to agricultural practices that reflect agroecological principles and should not be spent on ineffective, false climate solutions, such as anaerobic methane digesters and manure lagoons on large-scale animal operations, which subsidize an environmentally damaging system.   

In 2023, with the five-year Farm Bill set to expire, the opportunity for building on the progress of the IRA is strong and should not be wasted. With additional federal conservation spending in the Farm Bill, we can get closer to addressing why so many farmers are closed out of CSP and EQIP.  

Why do some states receive more funding than others? 

Unlike other programs run by the federal government where funding is based on population, dollars for conservation programs are allocated based on a formula that considers factors such as cropland and grazing land acreage, erosion, river and stream impairment, and national priorities determined by USDA.³ Historically, this formula has benefited states such as California, Texas and Minnesota. 

Nationwide, under current law, 50% of EQIP funding is required to go toward livestock-focused practices, and 10% of EQIP funds should benefit wildlife habitat.⁴ Because these percentages are nationwide; if a state such as New Hampshire cannot allocate 50% of its funding for livestock practices, that funding can be reallocated to a different state such as Iowa that can. While there are climate-resilient livestock practices, such as advanced grazing management and pasture improvements, that provide wildlife habitat, there are also some conservation program-funded livestock practices that are anything but resilient. As IATP laid out in its 2022 report Payments for Pollution, industrial livestock practices, such as manure lagoons and animal mortality facilities, use a significant portion of EQIP funds, running counter to the purpose of the program.⁵   

Luckily, the additional funding through the Inflation Reduction Act does not include the 50% funding requirement for livestock, with funding instead targeted toward practices USDA designates as “climate smart.” Since the livestock set aside is arbitrary and, in some instances, contrary to the intent of EQIP, we encourage Congress to remove this requirement in the upcoming Farm Bill.  

Is UDSA awarding more farmers EQIP and CSP contracts? 

In 2022, more farmers received CSP and EQIP contracts than in each of the previous four years. Particularly for CSP, not only did the percentage of applicants receiving awards rise, but also more total contracts were awarded. While there are marked improvements in 2022, we are still scratching the surface when it comes to demand for these programs. In Minnesota, for example, only 241 of 3,001 CSP applications in 2022 were awarded contracts, or roughly 8%.  

Minnesota has long been a leader in conservation agriculture, awarding more CSP contracts than any other state since 2010.⁶ Many of the 2,760 applications that were not awarded contracts could have improved soil health, water quality or simply provided an extra source of income for farmers. It is difficult to determine what happens to land that would otherwise be enrolled in a conservation program. Undoubtedly, some of the land is conserved anyway. More likely, however, much of the land that would otherwise be in a CSP or EQIP contract continues being farmed conventionally.  

Table 1. 2022 EQIP Applications and Contracts Awarded by State⁷ 

Table 2. 2022 CSP Applications and Contracts Awarded by State⁸ 

Have more farmers received CSP and EQIP contracts lately?

Figure 1 examines the percentage of applications to EQIP and CSP that turned into contracts.⁹ The graph reveals several interesting trends. Since budget sequestration in the early 2010s, and to an extent since the 2018 Farm Bill, when Congressional funding for CSP was stair stepped down from approximately $2.3 billion per year in FY 2019 to a projected $1.4 billion per year in FY 2023,¹⁰ there is a clear downward trend in CSP enrollment. The cut in funding, combined with confusion around renewal eligibility, changing ranking tools and a weakening of the original comprehensive intent of CSP, are likely factors in the persistent gap. During the previous administration, there was a push to gear CSP more toward first-time conservationists and de-emphasize the need for graduation between EQIP and CSP. This new emphasis on first-time conservationists made long-held ranking criteria that helped farmers apply to these programs with confidence less clear, leaving farmers in the lurch.  

In just one year, between 2021 and 2022, the percentage of approved CSP applicants jumped 10%, all without an influx of new money from Congress. This increase could reflect several factors, including increased technical assistance capacity in local USDA offices, increased emphasis on CSP nationwide, more farmer-to-farmer conversations about the program and many other factors. It will be interesting to track trends over the next several years as funding from the Inflation Reduction Act enters the stream.  

Has progress been made on outreach to farmers of color?  

One way USDA could improve is in the data it collects; as it stands now, we simply do not have as much information as we would like on how conservation programs serve farmers of color in each state. We know how many EQIP contracts were awarded in each state to “socially disadvantaged producers” — USDA’s term for farmers of color — but we know neither how many applied in the first place, nor how many chose not to apply. We also do not know this information is broken down by race, and we must rely on anecdotes to know how these programs serve, for example, Native American communities or Hmong farmers in Minnesota. The United States farmer population is diverse with different needs for different farmers. It is important to know which groups of farmers USDA is serving well and where improvements can be made so outreach and service can be most useful.  

Table 3 lists the number of contracts by state that go to farmers of color, as well as average contract size.  

Table 3. Number of Contracts/Financial Assistance, EQIP, Socially Disadvantaged Producers, 2022¹¹ 

In Table 4, you can see data on the number of EQIP contracts awarded to farmers of color (coded as socially disadvantaged producers by USDA) compared to the total percentage of farmers classified as socially disadvantaged. In many cases in 2022, farmers of color received an outsized proportion of EQIP dollars, though there are still states where this gap is reversed (such as Arizona). This is good news, especially considering the decades of discrimination farmers of color have faced when interfacing with USDA and other federal agencies.  

Data collection on farmer demographics and program usage needs to be improved. It remains difficult to determine how many Black, Native and Asian American farmers in each state are served by programs such as EQIP.  

Nationwide, popular EQIP practices for farmers of color include prescribed grazing, brush management and fencing.  

Table 4. Percentage of EQIP Contracts Awarded to Farmers of Color by State, 2022¹² 

What policy solutions are needed?  

• Double Farm Bill spending on conservation. 
• Remove the 50% EQIP set aside for livestock practices. 
• Continue to improve outreach and access to credit and land for farmers of color.  
• Continue to improve outreach and access to credit and land for small, medium-sized and beginning farmers. 
• Incorporate the Agriculture Resilience Act and the Justice for Black Farmers Act into the Farm Bill. 
• Expand advanced payment options, including up to 100% of cost. 

While much progress has been made in connecting farmers with EQIP and CSP over the last year, more needs to be done. We should build on the success of the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure consistent funding for conservation programs continues for decades to come. These programs provide much-needed economic buffer from the risks inherent in farming in the 21st century. IATP was among 216 farmer advocacy, conservation and climate organizations that called for a doubling of conservation spending at USDA in the next Farm Bill.¹³ This type of serious investment, along with a focus on agroecological practices, would go a long way in meeting the demand for programs such as CSP and EQIP while helping build resilience for thousands of farmers across the country.  

USDA should build on the progress it has made in connecting conservation programs with farmers of color, as well as small, medium-sized and farms run by beginning farmers. Continuing to improve outreach, access to credit, clearer and more accessible public data, and expanding advanced payment options will help keep farmers on the land and connect conservation programs and climate-minded people with the opportunity to be stewards of the land.  

IATP supports bills such as the Agriculture Resilience Act¹⁴ and the Justice for Black Farmers Act¹⁵ that both expand funding for climate resilience in agriculture and expand opportunities for farmers historically excluded from USDA programs. For such wide-ranging problems, we need comprehensive solutions.  

It is important that resilience-minded farmers and community members participate in making decisions that can improve CSP and EQIP. We encourage readers of this report to engage with their U.S. Senators and Representatives on issues important to them during 2023 Farm Bill negotiations and beyond. We also encourage people to participate in their state and local Technical Advisory Committees through Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the conservation arm of USDA. In many states, these committees make implementation decisions, such as which natural resource concerns to prioritize and when to reach out to farmers and can provide more nuanced information on enrollment trends in a local area.  

If we are to meet our climate goals as a country and as a planet, we will need more conservation-minded farmers able to properly steward their land without breaking the bank. Meeting the challenge of the climate crisis with the help of farmers and ranchers means many more resources are needed. We hope this report highlights this need and can better inform the debate.  

Endnotes

1. National Sustainable Agriculture. Release: NRCS Announces Improvements to CSP and EQIP. https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/release-nrcs-announces-improvements-to-csp-and-eqip/

2. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. IATP comments on implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act. https://www.iatp.org/iatp-comments-implementation-inflation-reduction-act.

3. Congressional Research Service. Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP): Status and Issues. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R40197/13.

4. Cornell Law School. 16 U.S. Code § 3839aa–2 – Establishment and administration. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/16/3839aa-2.

5. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Payments for pollution: how federal conservation programs can better benefit farmers and the environment. https://www.iatp.org/documents/payments-pollution-how-federal-conservation-programs-can-better-benefit-farmers-and.

6. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Closed out: how farmers are denied access to conservation programs. https://www.iatp.org/documents/closed-out-how-us-farmers-are-denied-access-conservation-programs.

7. Natural Resources Conservation Service. Protracts 10 13 2022.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.  

10. U.S. Government Publishing Office. Public Law 115-334: Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ334/PLAW-115publ334.pdf.

11. Natural Resources Conservation Service. Protracts 10 13 2022.

12. Ibid.

13. August 4, 2021 Letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. https://www.nwf.org/-/media/Documents/PDFs/Press-Releases/2021/08-04-21_Letter-216-Groups-Call-for-Double-Ag-Cons-Funding.

14. U.S. Government Publishing Office. 117th Congress, 1st Session: H.R. 2803: To address the impact of climate change on agriculture, and for other purposes. https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr2803/BILLS-117hr2803ih.pdf.

15. U.S. Government Publishing Office. 118th Congress, 1st Session: S. 96: To address the history of discrimination against Black farmers and ranchers, to require reforms within the Department of Agriculture to prevent future discrimination, and for other purposes. https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/s96/BILLS-118s96is.pdf.

See also:

• Natural Resources Conservation Service. RCA Data Viewer. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/data-and-reports/rca-data-viewer.
• Environmental Working Group. Farm Subsidy Database. https://farm.ewg.org/.
• National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. 2023 Farm Bill Platform. https://sustainableagriculture.net/publications/2023-farm-bill-platform/.

The post Guest Post: Still Closed Out appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: USDA Announces Implementation of Equity Work Under the Inflation Reduction Act and Equity Commission Outcomes 

Washington, D.C., March 1, 2023 – In a briefing today, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) outlined plans to implement equity-related funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The Department also presented some of the outcomes from the work of its Equity Commission.

Under Section 22007 of the IRA, USDA must provide financial assistance to producers who have faced discrimination in USDA’s farm lending programs. For this process, $2.2 billion have been appropriated. USDA must administer the assistance through qualified nongovernmental partners under standards developed by the Department.

Existing and interested USDA cooperators who would like to work with USDA should reach out to the Department by March 10, 2023, at askusda@usda.gov. Potential cooperators should share their name, contact information of their organization, and any other organizations with which they may like to partner in this work. More information about these efforts can be found at www.usda.gov/equity.

The administrative process will flow through a national administrator and four regional hubs. Regional hubs will interface directly with the organizations who choose to participate in the process. The process for identifying vendors who will run the regional hubs and act as the national administrator opens today, March 1. The Department expects to identify vendors by late spring 2023.

“NSAC is pleased to see USDA working closely with nonprofit and community-based organizations to ensure that needed financial assistance effectively reaches those who most need it,” said Billy Hackett, NSAC Policy Specialist. “We expect that funds will be distributed in an equitable way among those who have experienced discrimination accessing FSA lending services.”

In addition to the implementation of Section 22007, USDA discussed plans to help distressed borrowers. Section 22006 of the IRA included $3.1 billion to make payments to distressed borrowers, and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) already paid out $800 million to those who were delinquent as of Sept. 30, 2022. USDA is now in phase 2 of these payments, and today announced an additional $43 million in payments to 4,500 borrowers. USDA is also working with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to provide relief on tax burdens associated with delinquent loans.

Additional announcements on the work of the Equity Commission included a description of the Department’s approach to analyzing the work of county committees on their approach to customer service, to analysis of the function of the Office of Civil Rights, and to how the Department supports farmworkers and their families through the existing nutrition programs.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supportingthe long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: USDA Announces Implementation of Equity Work Under the Inflation Reduction Act and Equity Commission Outcomes appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: Briefing Addresses Building Agricultural Resilience for Future Generations 

Farmer/Researcher Panel Encourages Increasing Public Investments in Ag Research

Washington, DC, February 28, 2023 – Yesterday, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), Union of Concerned Scientists, Carbon180, and the Breakthrough Institute hosted a joint briefing on how public funding for agricultural research and development (R&D) has the potential to improve sustainability and build farmer and rancher resilience in the face of increasing food system disruptions caused by climate change. Despite its proven economic and environmental benefits, public investment in agricultural research has stagnated. Adjusted for inflation, annual public agricultural R&D investments in the U.S. have declined by about one-third since peaking in 2002.

Representative Jimmy Panetta (D-CA 19), and Representative Jim Baird (R-IN 4), co-chairs of the House Agriculture Research Caucus, gave opening remarks on the importance of increasing investments in agriculture research in the next farm bill. 

“I plan to work with Republicans and Democrats on the agriculture committee to expand organic research by directing USDA to direct the Agriculture Research Service to expand organic research,” said Representative Panetta.

Representative Baird stated: “I’m excited to be involved with the agricultural committee in DC and I will be the chair of the subcommittee on research, conservation, and biotechnology, all three of which are important. ”

Over the last several decades, publicly funded agricultural research has led to the advancement of countless innovative techniques and practices that have helped farmers across the country increase their profitability and sustainability. All farmers need access to high-quality research that is relevant to their particular region and type of operation.  Existing USDA research programs such as the Long-Term

Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) Network and Climate Hubs, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), and the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) have played a significant role in providing this research even with limited funding. This type of research is particularly critical for diversified and organic growers – who on average tend to be younger, operate smaller operations, and have less access to capital and other resources. 

“In sustainable agriculture growing systems, we can’t follow a standard formula. We don’t just kill all the bugs and weeds and start with a flat empty field. Instead, we work with the unique qualities of our land and ecosystem to grow with as little input and as minimal disturbance as possible, while enhancing the fertility and natural diversity year over year. Managing this is nuanced and site-specific. It requires a whole big toolbox of knowledge and skills, and careful observation to determine which to apply and when and how much,” shared Lindsay Klaunig of Trouvaille Farm in Athens, OH who is a SARE farmer. “Programs like SARE are critical to the continuing survival and success of sustainable farmers like myself, and as climate change continues to disrupt our food systems, sustainable agriculture is poised to best meet the challenges ahead.” 

“We need greatly expanded investments in food and agriculture research across USDA’s REE mission area to ensure long-term food security for all in the face of climate change. This includes the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Economic Research Service (ERS), National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), and the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS),” noted Nick Rossi, NSAC Policy Associate, adding that “through their intramural and extramural programs, these agencies can provide much-needed scientific research and economic data and analysis so that agricultural producers can sustain and improve their operations while helping us reach meaningful solutions to address the climate crisis.”

For additional information on the briefing here. 

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: Briefing Addresses Building Agricultural Resilience for Future Generations appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

A new year generally means a fresh set of opportunities to keep growing, especially when it comes to grants for many agricultural programs operated by the federal government. As we embrace the spring season ahead, USDA has announced a number of funding opportunities for sustainable agriculture. While all of these grants are exciting, it can be challenging to keep track of what is currently available. Below, we have collated all the information that food and farm organizations might need to best utilize the newly released funding resources. From funding guidelines, application deadlines, and program requirements, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has covered everything needed for the latest round of Requests for Applications (RFAs) to support your community of farmers and advocates.

The funding opportunities listed below are broken down into three categories:

• Research and Education Programs
• Nutrition Programs
• Beginning Farmer, Equity, and Urban Agriculture Programs

The RFAs in this post are organized by category and then by application date, from earliest deadline to furthest out.

For more detailed information on these and other USDA grant programs, see NSAC’s Grassroots Guide to Federal Food and Farm Programs. To learn more about funding opportunities and updates within the Local Agriculture Marketing Program (LAMP), click here to read NSAC’s blog post on all Spring 2023 LAMP RFAs.[1] [2] 

Research and Education Programs

Alaska Native-Serving and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions Education Competitive Grants Program

The Alaska Native-Serving and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions Education Competitive Grants Program supports the institutions serving these student populations in their education, research, and community development programs in the broad area of food and agriculture disciplines. The program is especially focused on projects that offer educational equity for underrepresented students and prepare them for careers in food, agriculture, and natural resources. This year, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced $5 million available for grants under this program with no matching requirements. Public or private nonprofit institutions that are Alaska Native-serving or Native Hawaiian-serving that meet statutory requirements are eligible to apply.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here.

Deadline: March 28, 2023

Hispanic-Serving Institutions Education Grants Program

The Hispanic-Serving Institutions Education Grants Program is a competitive grant program that supports the ability of Hispanic-serving institutions to provide higher education programs for outstanding students in food and agriculture sciences, enhancing the future professional workforce in agriculture. NIFA announced the availability of $16 million for education grants for this program with no matching requirements. Only Hispanic-serving institutions are eligible to apply.

Apply: Applications for this RFA can be submitted here.

Deadline: Regular grant deadline is March 29, 2023, Collaboration Grant deadline is March 30, 2023, and Conference Grant deadline is March 31, 2023.

Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI)

The Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) is a competitive grant program operated by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) funding projects that integrate research, education, and outreach activities that will assist farmers and ranchers who have already adopted organic practices to expand their production of high-quality agricultural products and their marketing strategies. The program focuses on projects that deliver research-based information in a practical way to farmers and ranchers. This year, NIFA announced the availability of $44 million for OREI grants.

Those eligible to apply include: state agricultural experiment stations; colleges and universities; university research foundations; research institutions and organizations; federal agencies, national laboratories; private organizations, foundations, or corporations; individuals; or any combination of the groups listed above.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. A technical assistance webinar for applications for OREI will be held online on March 14, 2023. Register here.

Deadline: April 13, 2023

Organic Transitions Program (ORG)

The Organic Transitions Program (ORG) is a competitive grant program that supports the integration of research, higher education, and extension programs to address the challenges of transitioning to organic agriculture. Projects funded by ORG help farmers transitioning to organic agriculture by providing research and education resources that improve the competitiveness of organic operations, offer guidance on understanding the economic and environmental benefits of organic agriculture, and share culturally-relevant alternatives to substances addressed by the National Organic Program. This year, NIFA announced the availability of $7.5 million for ORG grants.

Those eligible to apply include: colleges and universities (including research foundations at a college or university); 1862 Land-Grant Institutions, 1890 Land-Grant Institutions, 1994 Land-Grant Institutions; and Hispanic-Serving agricultural colleges and universities.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. A technical assistance webinar for applications for OREI will be held online on March 14, 2023. Register here.

Deadline: April 27, 2023

Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Sustainable Agricultural Systems (AFRI SAS)

AFRI, USDA’s largest competitive research grant program, funds research, education and extension projects that address food and agricultural systems. The AFRI Sustainable Agriculture Systems program invests in integrated approaches to research, education, and extension activities. The program focuses on projects that take a systems-approach to improving the supply of nutritious and accessible food and reducing the ecological impact of agriculture through economic development and rural prosperity. Earlier this year, AFRI announced the availability of $300 million dollars in grant funds across all AFRI programs.

Those eligible to apply include colleges and universities (including research foundations at a college or university); 1994 Land-Grant Institutions; and Hispanic-Serving agricultural colleges and universities.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. FAQs about the AFRI Sustainable Agriculture Systems program can be found here.

Deadline: July 13, 2023

Nutrition Programs

The Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program Competitive Grants Program

Originally created in the 2014 Farm Bill, and later expanded in the 2018 Farm Bill, the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, or GusNIP, is a competitive grant program that brings together stakeholders from the food and healthcare systems to improve the health and food security of American households that participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). By providing incentives at the point of purchase, GusNIP intends to increase fruit and vegetable purchasing for consumers using SNAP benefits. This year, NIFA announced just over $36 million for GusNIP Nutrition Incentive Program grants.

Those eligible to apply include government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Institutions of higher education that also serve as local, county, tribal, territory or state government agencies are eligible if they provide documentation showing their status as a government agency.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. Two technical assistance webinars for applications for the GusNIP Nutrition will be held online on March 6 and March 16, 2023. Register here.

Deadline: May 4, 2023

The Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program Produce Prescription Program

Originally created in the 2014 Farm Bill, and later expanded in the 2018 Farm Bill, the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, or GusNIP, is a competitive grant program that funds nonprofit organizations and government agencies for projects that increase the purchases of fruits and vegetables for low-income consumers by offering incentives. One of the funding opportunities under this program offers “prescriptions,” or other financial and education incentives, for healthy produce for consumers who either have or are at risk of developing diet-related diseases. By offering these incentives, GusNIP hopes to increase healthy food consumption, and reduce food insecurity and healthcare costs. NIFA announced $10.8 million available for the GusNIP Produce Prescription Program this year.

Those eligible to apply include nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Eligible applicants are encouraged to partner across the food and healthcare system.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. Further resources for applicants can be found here. To watch the recordings of previous webinars on this RFA, click here.

Deadline: May 16, 2023

Beginning Farmer, Equity, and Urban Agriculture Programs

Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (UAIP) Competitive Grants Program

First announced and funded in fiscal year 2020, the Urban Agricultural and Innovation Production (UAIP) Competitive Grants Program made competitive grant funding available for projects that support the development of, and innovation in, urban agriculture projects. Operated by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the program offers two types of grants: planning project grants and implementation project grants. Planning projects initiate or expand the efforts of farmers, citizens, governments, or schools in urban and suburban areas working to develop urban agriculture to address food access issues, business start-up costs, or development of zoning policies. Implementation projects provide funding to accelerate existing urban agriculture spaces and practices that improve local food access and involve the collaboration of multiple partners to support infrastructure, education, and policy implementation.

Those eligible to apply include county governments, nonprofit organizations with or without a 501(c)(3) status, federally recognized Native American tribal governments, Native American tribal organizations other than federally recognized tribes, special district governments, schools serving students in grades K-12, soil and water conservation districts, and city or township governments.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. A recording of a technical assistance webinar for UAIP applicants can be viewed here. NRCS has also published a FAQ for interested applicants here.

Deadline: March 27, 2023

Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program

Created in the 2018 Farm Bill as part of the Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach (FOTO) Program, the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) is the only USDA program focuses on funding projects that provide technical assistance, education, and training for the next generation of farmers in the United States. The program supports local, state, and regional partnerships that create opportunities for beginning farmers to learn and develop business and farm production skills. At the time of publication, the estimated total amount of grant funding available for BFRDP is $28 million, but an official announcement has not yet been made.

Those eligible to apply include collaborative state, tribal, local, or regionally based networks or partnerships of qualified public and private entities, which may include: State Cooperative Extension Services; Federal, State, municipal, or tribal agencies; community-based organizations (CBOs); nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); junior and four-year colleges or universities; foundations maintained by a college or university; and private for profit organizations. Applications that do not involve a network or partnership are not eligible for BFRDP grant funds.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. A technical assistance webinar has yet to be announced, but updates can be viewed here.

Deadline: April 27, 2023

Equity in Conservation Outreach Cooperative Agreements

USDA NRCS is seeking to fund projects that will improve outreach to underserved producers and communities and inform them of opportunities in conservation programs and agricultural careers for students. This new round of funding expands on the initial investment NRCS made in equity-focused cooperative agreements in fiscal year 2022. The agency is offering funds for two-year projects aimed at improving participation in conservation programs within underserved communities as part of their commitment to reducing the barriers that underserved producers face in utilizing USDA services. Eligible projects include those that use technical assistance and outreach to promote NRCS programs, develop community conservation partnerships, inform small-scale and urban agriculture producers, and support the adoption of climate-friendly agriculture practices. NRCS announced the availability of $70 million for cooperative agreements for this grant opportunity.

Those eligible to apply include state and federally recognized Native American tribal governments and organizations, nonprofits with or without a 501(c)(3) states, nonprofit higher education institutions, public and state-controlled higher education institutions, and conservation districts.

Apply: Applications can be submitted here. A pre-recorded webinar with more information can be found here. Additionally, NRCS will be hosting 4 live webinars about this grant opportunity. Information on joining these webinars can be found here.

Deadline: April 27, 2023

The post RFA ROUNDUP: SPRING 2023 SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Laura Zaks
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: Broad Coalition Calls on Congress to Defend Climate Spending in Conservation Programs

Washington, DC, February 27, 2023 – Today, advocates of conservation programs delivered a letter to House and Senate Agriculture Committee leadership calling for the defense of climate focused conservation spending in the Farm Bill. The letter, signed by 644 organizations, businesses, and farmers, makes clear to Congress that the historic investment in conservation programs made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 must be preserved in the 2023 Farm Bill. The IRA provided sweeping greenhouse gas reductions across sectors including farming. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) helped lead, alongside conservation partners, this latest effort calling for durable, increased spending on climate change through conservation programs in the next Farm Bill.

“NSAC is pleased to see the letter reflect the overwhelming support for climate focused spending in conservation programs. By highlighting the simultaneous benefits possible through climate focused conservation, USDA can ensure that climate benefits are also benefits for biodiversity as well as water, soil, and air quality. Climate solutions must build farm resilience, and that requires holistic, systems-based farm support. Along with an agroecological focus, we look forward to seeing USDA prioritize spending conservation funds on farmers of color as IRA funds are rolled out. Protecting USDA’s ability to do that work in the next Farm Bill is one of our top priorities.” said Cathy Day, PhD, NSAC climate policy coordinator.

The IRA allocated $20 billion for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to address climate change through working lands conservation programs. These programs are historically over-subscribed and underfunded, especially the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the program with the strongest suite of tools to support farmers as they mitigate and adapt to a changing climate. The letter delivered today makes clear that IRA funding is essential to addressing both these backlogs and climate change on farms, and must be defended.

“NSAC is excited to see such strong support for climate-focused conservation funding from so many different organizations. Through the next farm bill, we have a real opportunity to create lasting improvements in working lands conservation programs, to start supporting thousands of farmers across the country choosing to do more climate-focused conservation on their farms. It’s heartening to see so many united in pushing for that worthy goal,” Jesse Womack, NSAC Policy Specialist commented.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: Broad Coalition Calls on Congress to Defend Climate Spending in Conservation Programs appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law. The IRA is a far-reaching health care, tax, and climate bill which makes historic investments in a wide array of federal programs to address the climate crisis and aims to reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030. Consequently, it represents a meaningful step forward on addressing the climate crisis and reflects key priorities lifted up by the farmers and communities that NSAC’s members serve.

The IRA contains roughly $20 billion worth of funding for agriculture conservation. This generational investment falls within the popular and often oversubscribed traditional U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) working lands conservation programs, or programs that are designed to support producers making changes to their operations that improve conservation outcomes on their farms. The IRA funds four key conservation programs: the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).

As of February 13, USDA began enrolling producers in working lands conservation programs using IRA funding. This blog post covers a few points farmers and food and agriculture system professionals need to know about how to access IRA funds in CSP and EQIP, and how these conservation programs will be affected.

For Farmers:

IRA funding is already available through the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). In order to access this funding, producers need to call their local Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) office and ask about applying to either program.

In addition to the “new” IRA funding, both CSP and EQIP also have normal Farm Bill funding available. This means there is more money to support conservation through these programs than at any time in perhaps the last 10 years. Farmers should strongly consider applying to both programs, even if they have been unsuccessful in the past, as this year may be the best in recent memory to secure a new contract. 

In both CSP and EQIP, IRA funds will be targeted at conservation practices and activities on this list created by NRCS, and farmers implementing them will be first in line for IRA funding. These farmers may also be awarded CSP and EQIP contracts faster than producers implementing conservation practices not on the list. IRA funds can also support practices that facilitate or support practices on the NRCS list.

NRCS is still able to fund all conservation practices this year. Since there are both IRA and Farm Bill funds available in CSP and EQIP this year, farmers will be able to use both programs to implement whichever practices and enhancements make the most sense for their farm, regardless of where the money comes from. Due to the sharp increase in total funds available, all applications should be more competitive this year.

For farmers accessing IRA dollars, there will be one additional form to complete along with normal program application materials. This form, called IRA Addendum to Appendix to Form NRCS-CPA-1202, is only two pages long and requires little more than a producer’s signature. Producers who are awarded a CSP or EQIP contract funded through the IRA will also receive an IRA Application Approval Letter confirming that their contract was paid for through the IRA.

Finally, every state has updated their application process to give farmers an extended opportunity to apply for IRA funding through CSP and EQIP. To see the newly published application dates for your state, check this national list of program application dates or call your local NRCS office. Some states have pushed application dates as far back as May, but many close as soon as March 10. This is a large shift, as many states originally closed ranking periods for one or both programs last fall. It is best to get in touch with NRCS as soon as possible to have the best chance at accessing IRA funding. Even farmers who applied ahead of the old ranking dates may want to consider reconnecting with their local NRCS office in light of IRA funding.

For Conservation Professionals:

The National NRCS Office has expressed strong interest in partnering with BIPOC lead conservation partners at the state level, both through cooperative agreements and alternative funding arrangements with tribal governments, in the implementation of IRA funding. Now is a great time to check in with your State Conservationist on both of these elements of IRA implementation.

Individual states have received guidance and funding allocations from National NRCS at this time. Guidance includes instructions to create spending plans and ranking criteria for IRA funding pools in both CSP and EQIP in each state. Now is a great time to reach out to your State Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) or State Conservationist to learn about your state’s plans for IRA funding.

As part of guidance to states, NRCS has recommended states limit the use of payment caps for individual conservation practices when spending IRA funding. NSAC is concerned about the potential risk this creates for large contracts supporting less than ideal practices, like methane digesters. If you share similar concerns about NRCS targeting outsized amounts of funding on costly and questionable conservation practices, contact your state NRCS officials.

NRCS has publicly shared a directive outlining some initial guidance for implementing IRA dollars in all the funded conservation programs. For those that want to dig into the details, see that directive here. NRCS has also produced a one-page IRA Fact Sheet to help promote IRA rollout.

While this blog post focuses exclusively on CSP and EQIP, funds are also available through a national ACEP sign up, which we will cover more thoroughly in a separate post. Funding will also be available through a new RCPP competition, which we expect will be announced in the coming months.

NSAC applauds NRCS for their work in implementing the IRA, and is excited to see this historic funding make its way to producers across the country. We look forward to seeing on the ground successes in the coming years and opportunities to continue to address climate change through our nation’s conservation programs.

The post IRA Rollout Begins: Conservation Program Application Dates Change appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report last week which encourages Congress to consider reducing crop insurance subsidies for the highest-income participants and private insurance companies. The report – which comes at the outset of the 2023 farm bill reauthorization – offers evidence-based justifications that support longtime National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) priorities to level the playing field for the diversity of American farmers and ranchers, while saving billions of taxpayer dollars.

What’s in the report? 

The GAO report, titled Farm Bill: Reducing Crop Insurance Costs Could Fund Other Priorities, proposes two opportunities that members of Congress may consider to reduce program costs. The GAO is the federal government’s oversight watchdog responsible for conducting investigations into and rooting out inefficiencies and waste in federal programs. GAO’s independent work is highly regarded and Congress has often acted on its conclusions.

Congress should consider reducing premium subsidies for the highest-income participants.

The first recommendation is to reduce subsidies for high-income participants by introducing an adjusted gross income (AGI) means test, a standard which is applied to Title I commodity programs to prevent farmers with an annual income above $900,000 from remaining eligible for payments funded by taxpayers.

“Not having an AGI limit for the crop insurance program sometimes results in relatively large subsidies for high-income participants,” the report states. This claim is supported by a recent American Enterprise Institute study, which found that the largest 20 percent of farms receive more than 75 percent of subsidies, and that on average these large farmers possess between $3.1 million and $15.7 million in total household wealth. 

Congress should consider (1) repealing the 2014 farm bill requirement that any change to the standard reinsurance agreement be budget neutral and (2) directing USDA to adjust the participating insurance companies’ target compensation to reflect market conditions during the next renegotiation of the agreement. 

The GAO also encourages Congress to consider reforming the mandatory minimum compensation for private insurance companies. Presently, Congress grants private insurance companies a guaranteed annual rate of return of 14.5 percent at the expense of taxpayers – regardless of market conditions. The report notes that in some years, “USDA’s compensation to insurance companies greatly exceeded payments to farmers.” 

USDA is unable to negotiate any savings for the American people due to a statutory provision passed in the 2014 Farm Bill that requires any reinsurance agreement between USDA and insurance companies be “budget neutral.” The recommendations suggested by GAO, and recommended by NSAC in our 2023 Farm Bill Platform, would help ensure public dollars benefit farmers who need it rather than millionaires and private insurance companies. 

The GAO report closes by noting “savings from these changes could be available for other farm bill priorities, such as funding different agricultural programs.”

Longstanding GAO support

The GAO has issued several reports over the past decade reviewing premium subsidies to farmers and compensation to insurance companies for selling and servicing policies. The conclusions offered in the newest report are aligned with those which have been made previously. What follows is a non-exhaustive summary of past GAO recommendations: 

In 2012, GAO suggested that Congress consider limiting the subsidy for premiums that an individual farmer can receive each year or reducing the subsidy for all farmers participating in the program, or both limiting and reducing these subsidies. An annual ceiling of $40,000 would have saved up to $1 billion in crop insurance costs in 2011 and impacted just 3.9 percent of participating farms.

In 2015, GAO found that reducing subsidies for the highest income participants would save federal dollars with minimal effect on the program. Specifically, GAO found that an AGI means test reducing subsidies by 15 percent would impact only about one percent of farmers with an income above $750,000. Contrary to popular arguments against this proposal, GAO found “their decisions to stay in or leave the program would likely not affect the crop insurance program’s actuarial soundness at the national level.”

In 2017, GAO determined that the guaranteed profit rate for private insurance companies exceeds what may be considered a reasonable amount based on market necessities and encouraged Congress to address the bloated guaranteed rate of return. 

History of bipartisan congressional proposals 

There have been numerous attempts by members of Congress in the past fifteen years to act on consistent recommendations from the Government Accountability Office. What follows is a non-exhaustive synopsis of recent farm bill amendments or proposals aimed at reducing federal crop insurance program costs.

In 2008, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) along with Senators Sununu (R-NH), McCaskill (D-MO), McCain (R-AZ), Durbin (D-IL), and Schumer (D-NY) introduced an amendment to reduce the guaranteed profit rate for private insurance companies. “Our amendment… reduces the excessive taxpayer-funded fees that crop insurers receive for servicing their customers,” said Senator Brown in a floor speech. The amendment failed 32-63, but it was the foundation for USDA to win significant savings when next negotiating with private insurers. (This was before the budget neutrality provision introduced in the 2014 Farm Bill disallowed USDA to exercise such flexibility.)

In 2012, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Coburn (R-OK) introduced an amendment to trim crop insurance premium subsidies by 15 percent for those farmers making over $750,000 a year. “How many farmers would be affected by this nationwide?” asked Senator Durbin in a floor speech. “15,000 farmers out of 1.5 million… [And] it saves us $1 billion.” The amendment passed with a resounding 66-33 bipartisan majority. It is not, however, law; the 2012 Farm Bill failed to pass and this text was not included in the eventual 2014 Farm Bill. 

In 2018, Senators Joe Grassley (R-IA) and Durbin along with Senators Flake (R-AZ), Shaheen (D-NH), and McCain (R-AZ) introduced an amendment to modestly reduce premium subsidies by 15 percent only for farmers with an average adjusted gross income in excess of $700,000. It was widely believed that support existed for this amendment to pass in the Senate, but through procedural means it was never allowed to come to the floor for a vote. 

“Today, we have a Farm Bill that is intentionally written to help the largest farmers receive unlimited subsidies from the federal government,” said Grassley upon passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, and in reference to the failed amendment. “For years, the top 10 percent of farmers have received over 70 percent of subsidies from the government. That’s only one of the many reasons it’s so hard for young and beginning farmers to get started.”

Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) along with retired Senators Flake and Patrick Toomey (R-PA) has introduced the Assisting Family Farmers through Insurance Reform Measures (AFFIRM) Act in the 114th, 115th, and 116th Congress. The Act has been projected to save more than $35 billion over 10 years. It would implement a simple cap of $40,000 per farm per year, make farmers with an adjusted gross income above $250,000 ineligible for insurance subsidies, reduce the guaranteed profit rate for private insurance companies, and introduce data transparency measures about who is receiving crop insurance subsidies. 

Most recently, the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) Blueprint to Save America proposed reducing crop insurance premium subsidies by 30 percent and eliminating the federal reimbursements to private insurance companies. The RSC estimated these measures would save taxpayers more than $32 billion over 10 years. The group also proposed eliminating Title I commodity programs, making the case that crop insurance already addresses revenue losses and is a sufficient safety net for commodity farmers.

Will Congress act in 2023?

During last week’s Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on Commodity Programs, Crop Insurance, and Credit, Senator Grassley began his line of questioning by saying, “I hear that [the subject of] payment limitations has not come up yet.” As illustrated above, Grassley has long supported reasonable measures to keep the safety net a tool to help producers recover from unexpected disasters or market shocks rather than an entitlement program for the highest-income farmers. 

“Since 2017, more than $60 billion in ad-hoc disaster assistance has been allocated to supplement crop insurance. If you remember, crop insurance was set up so that farmers would have some certainty and did not have to rely on Congress to get disaster assistance. Crop insurance is already the most expensive farm program title outside of the nutrition title. Do you have suggestions for how we can reduce the sheer size of taxpayer dollars that go to supplemental disaster programs?”

There is an opportunity this year for any member of Congress to raise the mantle for sensible, cost-saving reforms that will improve the federal crop insurance program. Placing modest caps on crop insurance premium subsidies is a common-sense reform from any perspective, whether in relation to fiscal responsibility or climate and equity concerns. Read this recent NSAC blog for more on the case for subsidy reform. 

As a complement to recommendations from GAO, NSAC commissioned a report last summer which proposes several targeted options to reduce federal crop insurance spending that would save up to $20 billion over 10 years and impact on average less than 3 percent of farmers. You can read the full report here.

The post GAO Urges Congress to Reduce Crop Insurance Subsidies… Again appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Laura Zaks
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: USDA Announces Implementation Plans for Inflation Reduction Act and Plans Around Western Water

Washington, DC, February 13, 2023 – Today, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced plans for the implementation of the agricultural conservation provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, an act that provided sweeping greenhouse gas reductions across sectors including farming. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) welcomes the Administration’s approach that encompasses both direct greenhouse gas benefits and the many co-benefits that accompany effective conservation practices.

In addition to the overall implementation of the conservation funds in line with the IRA, the agency also announced a Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action to guide conservation spending in Western states toward practices that address drought and related concerns. The Secretary noted that in recent years, $410 million has gone to such practices through existing conservation tools, and that the USDA will plan to build on those investments and leverage existing tools through the new framework. The Secretary notes significant overlap between the WWF and IRA spending.

“NSAC is pleased to see the emphasis on a multi-faceted approach to IRA implementation. By highlighting the simultaneous benefits possible under the spending, USDA will ensure that climate benefits are also benefits for biodiversity as well as water, soil, and air quality. Climate solutions must build farm resilience, and that requires holistic, systems-based farm support. USDA’s plan to work with local partners in rolling out the programs will strengthen that approach” said Cathy Day, PhD, NSAC climate policy coordinator. 

USDA received more than 450 comments on plans to implement the approximately $20 billion in funding. Although the agency continues to work through the comments and engage in conversation with state-level staff, they are on track to begin implementation so that the funds allocated for this fiscal year (FY23) can be spent on time. States have their allocations and are ready to move forward with FY23 signups for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). For the Agriculture Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), there will be a national signup opportunity. Finally, USDA will open the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) for funding requests soon. USDA is discussing the details of spending the $300 million allocated for measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification of greenhouse gas emissions with states. Measurement of emissions will play a key role in reporting and follow-up on program implementation.

“NSAC welcomes this announcement because of USDA’s specific plans for identifying and enrolling underserved producers via trusted partners who already work with them in states around the country. We hope to see new cooperative agreements with organizations that collaborate with farmers of color to help make this happen. Generally, this funding should make 2023 one of the best years for farmers to utilize conservation programs in a long time.” Jesse Womack, NSAC Policy Specialist commented. 

As an element of the IRA spending, the Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action will help target EQIP funds through the WaterSMART Initiative (WSI). For Fiscal Year 2023, NRCS has selected 3 new WSI priority areas and is continuing to offer funding in 37 prior approved areas, making $25 million in EQIP funding available through the WSI across 12 western states.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: USDA Announces Implementation Plans for Inflation Reduction Act and Plans Around Western Water appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.