Climate-smart agriculture makes good bipartisan policy

Farmers and ranchers are on the front lines of a warming climate, which poses a significant threat to their livelihoods at a time when farm profitability is already at record lows.

These men and women — and the lands they steward — are essential to the food, fuel and fiber that we all need and value. Farmers are also key to increasing our country’s resilience to extreme and variable weather like the heavy, late-season precipitation that caused catastrophic flooding and wrought billions of dollars of damage to America’s heartland this spring.

That’s why this week’s Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on climate change and the agriculture sector is so encouraging. Climate security needs the kind of bipartisan support being shown by Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

Working lands can provide a growing population with food security and essential ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, water filtration and flood mitigation.

The good news for producers — and for consumers who benefit from a safe, affordable food supply — is that climate-smart practices maintain the remarkable productivity of U.S. farms and ranches.

Precision fertilizer application, for example, is a proven way to save farmers money, maintain yields and reduce emissions of a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Conservation practices that improve soil health increase the resilience of farm operations, help to absorb heavy precipitation and reduce annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 4%.

America’s farmers and agricultural industry can provide cost-effective solutions to climate change and other national environmental challenges if they have the right tools, resources and freedom to innovate. This is an area ripe for bipartisan congressional action.

Congress should prioritize support for the farm management tools and funding that will allow the agricultural sector to make long-term, system-wide shifts toward practices that improve soil productivity, reduce emissions and runoff, increase yields and strengthen farms’ resilience to extreme weather.

Existing federal farm programs should make climate resilience a priority funding allocation. Congress should also invest in new research that advances the development of commodity crop varieties and cropping systems that are more resilient to changing regional climate patterns and pests.

This week’s hearing is a positive indicator that agriculture is still an area for bipartisan cooperation, where elected officials come together to do what is best for farmers, ranchers and the natural resources they steward.

Now is the time for Congress to take inspiration from the innovation that has long defined American agriculture, and take action to help people, nature and agriculture prosper in a changing climate.

Bill Couser is a sixth-generation grain farmer and cattle feeder in Iowa. Scott Henry is a fourth-generation grain farmer in Iowa.

This column is co-signed by: Keith Alverson, a sixth-generation grain farmer in South Dakota; Kristin Weeks Duncanson, a fifth-generation grain, hog and vegetable farmer in Minnesota; Justin Knopf, a fifth-generation grain farmer in Kansas; Dick and Cori Wittman, fourth- and fifth-generation grain and cattle farmers and timber operators in Idaho; Fred Yoder, a fourth-generation grain farmer in Ohio; and Callie Eideberg, senior policy manager for sustainable agriculture at Environmental Defense Fund.