Conservation

America’s farmers have an opportunity to be a hero in addressing climate change through improvements in productivity and climate-smart practices, so says Robert Bonnie.  However, the USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation, recently said a successful climate program “has to work for agriculture.” Bonnie spok...

American Farmland Trust released its 2023 Farm Bill advocacy platform this week.  It’s a series of policy recommendations focused on supporting farmers and ranchers in protecting their land from development, combating climate change, and enabling a diverse new generation of farmers to better access land and build businesses. “The farm b...

The USDA said it will invest $25 million this year in the Conservation Innovation Grants On-Farm Innovation Trials Program.  Through CIG, partners work to address the nation’s water quality, water quantity, air quality, soil health, and wildlife habitat challenges, all while improving agricultural operations.  The on-farm c...

Oregon Department of Forestry released a four-episode series of videos, recently, as part of its Federal Forest Restoration Program. ODF officials said the goal is to show how the program is working to conserve and protect the state’s federal forestland. " ...

The deadline for the USDA’s second round of funding for Climate-Smart Commodities is Friday, June 10th. This funding pool is for partners proposing projects between $250,000 and $5 million. The proposals should emphasize the enrollment of small and-or underserved producers, and-or monitoring, reporting, and verification activities developed at minority-serving institutions. ...

Last week, a group of Senate Democrats requested the 2023 budget include funding for Farm Bill conservation programs. Senators Michael Bennet of Colorado, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Chris Coons of Delaware led the effort in a letter to the Senate Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee ...

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced this week that the USDA is accepting more than two million acres via the Conservation Reserve Program’s general signup. It’s the first of the program’s multiple signups occurring this year. With about 3.4 ...

According to the EPA, American agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions fell over 4% from 2019 to 2020. The recent Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks shows ag represents only 10% of total U.S. emissions, much lower than other economic sectors. Far ...

Conservation could receive the most focus of any of the Farm Bill titles, as a new one is being crafted at this time. What with growing areas of emphasis, such as climate smart tag agriculture. A recent Agripulse panel was asked what they thought would be the most important part of a 2023 Farm Bill conservation title ...

Earth Day was last week, and the agriculture community used the time to celebrate the conservation efforts farmers and ranchers perform every day to help reduce emissions. Shelby Myers, American Farm Bureau Federation Economist, said data from the EPA shows agriculture consistently accounts for just 10% ...