USDA kicks off effort for climate smart commodities partnership

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently kicked off the implementation phase for projects funded through the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program.

Work by project partners began on the formal implementation of the climate smart production practices, marketing, quantification, monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas benefits. USDA launched the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Learning Network—to help generate key lessons learned as those projects are implemented with collaboration of all the project partners.

USDA Undersecretary Robert Bonnie said this voluntary effort is incentive based.

“It’s about working hand in hand with farmers, ranchers and forest owners to demonstrate that American growers and landowners can feed the world by the fuel and fiber that society needs, all while we protect the climate,” he said. “Project partners are now beginning work on several implementations.”

Bonnie and others at USDA are excited about the broad reaching effort of the program and there are currently 141 selected projects covering things in every state, commodity group and farm sizes.

As a beneficial way to tackle climate change, USDA believes farmers and ranchers can deliver a sustainable way to deliver on this need.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said American farmers are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the demand by creating new markets, markets for climate smart commodities—which can benefit farmers, ranchers and producers of all sized operations and benefit the environment. He hopes farmers will take advantage of the more than $3 billion invested to kickstart the market through the partnership.

Seventy of the first projects announced in 2022 have concluded negotiations and Vilsack is looking forward to seeing those projects hit the ground running with enrollment of farmers and landowners. They’ll be more opportunities as agreements on the remaining projects are being finalized.

Panelists respond

Vilsack quizzed three panelists about what something like this does for their operations. Rob Larew, president of the National Farmers Union, Rita Hite, CEO of the American Forest Foundation and PJ Haynie, chairman of the National Black Growers Council, were featured on the panel.

Vilsack questioned Larew as to what he’s heard from farmers in terms of climate smart commodities. Larew said this is something many really need right now.

“Farmers Union members, like a lot of farmers and ranchers everywhere, really make up a very diverse set of producers in terms of the style of agriculture, our geographic conditions, and what market opportunities currently exist,” Larew said.

Looking at a plan that brings answers to questions farmers and ranchers have—often include things like what does it mean for me? What are the obstacles or benefits?

“There’s a lot of excitement tied to the possibilities right now,” he said. “At the end of the day, farmers want to be a sustainable operation. That’s true on the environmental side, but also it has to happen on the financial side.”

Larew thinks this will begin to create opportunity for feeding these climate markets. Hite agreed, even though forestry is a different aspect of agriculture.

“First, when we think about the kind of climate solutions out there, when you think about the landscape forests and forest products are huge opportunity,” she said. “We can double the climate solutions that forests and forest products are providing. And by the way, the things that we need to do in our woods to activate forests as a climate solution are also things that improve the health, the resilience and the productivity of our family forests.”

From forest owners she’s hearing there are already landowners signed up for the Family Forest Carbon Program with about 50,000 acres enrolled.

Haynie said some rice farmers have already jumped on board with one of the programs being offered. Rice is one of the leading methane emitting crops and by allowing rice farmers to be a part of this program they have the opportunity to be incentivized to change production practices and be better stewards of the land, all while still growing the commodity they know how to grow.

Market opportunities

Vilsack said the market opportunity this program provides incentives like a direct link to a market that may be willing to embrace or pay a premium for something is important to recognize.

“It’s very important because those are the niche opportunities that farmers need for that additional downstream revenue,” he said. “A couple of cents per bushel, or a couple of cents a hundredweight for a rice farmer who’s using the proper practices to grow rice more sustainably more environmentally friendly, are huge.”

Retailers are looking for things like that, and Haynie hopes costs can be passed back and there won’t be too many hands in the pot from middlemen. The “farmers are the ones who are actually doing all the work,” he said.

Hite said markets are essential and there’s really no way to scale what’s being discussed with respect to the climate action or opportunity to produce fiber at a bigger scale.

Hite hopes coming from this partnership is work that will demonstrate there’s a marketplace and value that can be sustained over time.

“That’s our hope coming out of this partnership work is that we can actually demonstrate that product so that there is a marketplace that will value it and sustain it over time,” she said.

Markets are an absolutely essential component and paired with existing NRCS programs or USDA programs, go a long way toward incentivizing a lot of producers who want to look at either incorporating different practices or other things.

“This project will accelerate that in many, many ways,” Larew said. “(And) have all the added benefits of soil health, etc., but it is that additive impact of the marketplace that is going to drive this even further.”

Combine that with the information necessary to have the certainty behind it to make markets sustainable into the future is critical.

All three were excited for the future implications of the program partnerships. Hainey said the only measurement stick should be success—being able to show marked improvement and quantification is part of it.

“I’m hoping down the road we can look at the numbers that where we started with this program and 2023-2024 and we can see how those acres have grown and also shifting to other commodities,” he said. “And as we all strive to be more climate smart.”

Hite said she won’t be surprised to see thousands of landowners implementing climate smart action, and she hopes to have worked with small and underserved landowners who are often overlooked.

Larew said in some ways if down the road things remained the same, he hopes that those tough questions have evolved. Growers can question how they become part of a program like this.

“How do we grow the emerging markets that are getting started here because I think that’s the level of buzz and excitement that is going to make this longer lasting?” he said. “But you know, I think that three years from now, we’re going to have those projects that prove a concept isn’t working here.”

There’s going to be a lot of opportunity out there are “folks are going to continue to innovate off of what is learned out of these partnerships in ways that we’re not even conceptualizing right now,” Larew said.

For more information about the partnership network visit www.usda.gov/climate-solutions/climate-smart-commodities.

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].