U.S. Counts on “Climate-Smart” Farms to Slow Global Warming

For decades, leading US farm leaders likened efforts to rein in harmful climate change as attacks on agriculture itself, aligning with oil and gas industry groups to block policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

That stance has slowly shifted in recent years, and now, fueled by $3.1 billion in federal grants, farm country is poised to shape a new era of “climate-smart” agricultural practices and take a significant role in addressing the dire consequences of a warming planet.

The actions can’t come fast enough. A panel of international scientists warned in March that the world faces a “rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future,” and that the actions implemented over the next few years will have consequences “now and for thousands of years.”

Biden Administration Outlines Options for Colorado River Emergency Plan

Following a brief but intense period of consultation and analysis, the Biden administration unveiled a pair of short-term options to sustain water levels in key Colorado River reservoirs in the next three years.

Framed by the salt-encrusted canyon walls above Lake Mead, officials from the Interior Department joined colleagues from state and tribal agencies to release a draft supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) that describes how operating procedures at lakes Powell and Mead might be altered to preserve water. The alterations could reduce water deliveries to the lower basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada by as much as a quarter combined next year and even more in 2025 and 2026.

The big question: how will those cuts be distributed among the states?

U.S. Pushes Farmers to Develop A New Crop: Energy

With the exception of federal and state programs to convert corn into ethanol and soybeans into biodiesel to fuel cars and trucks the United States has never regarded farming as a primary energy producer.

That changed when Congress passed the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act last August. The law provides $140 billion in tax incentives, direct loans, and grants to replace fossil fuels with cleaner renewable energy that lowers emissions of carbon dioxide.

Along with the wind and the sun, the raw materials for a significant portion of that energy is directed at agriculture — from corn fermented into more ethanol, and methane from the billions of gallons of liquid and millions of tons of solid manure produced by big dairy, swine, and poultry operations.

Despite pushback from environmental groups concerned about increased water pollution from a new tide of farm wastes, developers across the country see opportunities to build ambitious renewable energy projects to convert crops and agricultural wastes to low-carbon energy.

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