Farmers and Ranchers – It’s Time to Act

As world leaders gather at the Cop15 Conference in Copenhagen to discuss global climate change action, farmers and ranchers need to pay attention to the big news at home.

Yesterday, the E.P.A. released its long anticipated ‘endangerment finding’ that concludes carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are threatening to public health, requiring the federal government to regulate emissions of these gasses under the Clean Air Act.

This is bad news for farmers.

For farmers, E.P.A action means all the regulation, with none of the economic opportunities of ‘cap and trade’ legislation. Since the start of this debate American Farmland Trust has maintained that in the absence of congressional action, the E.P.A. will regulate, and so farmers must work toward legislation that creates economic opportunities and minimizes costs for the agricultural sector. Yesterday, our warnings came to fruition.

Farmers and ranchers must realize that we no longer have the luxury of “this is bad for us” rhetoric – the Obama administration, the general public and the international community are moving forward with either legislation or regulation. Last month we made significant improvements to the former, with the Clean Energy Partnership Act of 2009, that helped to maximize agriculture’s role in clean energy legislation – we can build on this momentum, and avoid E.P.A regulation.*

Moreover, numerous recent studies indicate that increases in production costs to agriculture producers as a result of greenhouse gas limits from legislation, will be balanced by the ability to participate in offset markets and the production of alternative energies. These will result in net economic benefits for agriculture—and provide greater income than the increased cost of production.

E.P.A regulation will not provide income to offset production costs. It’s that simple.

The affects of climate change could be devastating for agriculture – including more catastrophic weather patterns and drought . Avoiding the issue altogether will have equally devastating consequences.  The agriculture community must recognize this and proactively work toward comprehensive climate legislation that will provide net benefits to their industry.

Otherwise, farmers and ranchers should prepare for regulation.

I strongly believe that by playing a positive role in climate change legislation, agriculture has a terrific opportunity to be part of the solution to the most critical environmental concern of our time. I don’t know a single farmer that doesn’t want to leave his/her farm to the next generation, better than they received it. This is an opportunity to employ that mentality on a global scale-and leave the planet (and the farm) better than what we inherited.

*Slides from our recent webinar on “Opportunities for Agriculture in the Clean Energy Partnership Act.”

About the Author: Jon Scholl is President of American Farmland Trust. Prior to AFT, he served as Counselor to the Administrator for Agriculture Policy at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Jon and his family operate a corn and soybean farm in McLean County, Illinois.