Climate change

Iowa Farmer Battles Today's Pests While Eyeing Tomorrow's 'Mean Sixteen' Threats

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:52:50 GMT

For Worth County, Iowa, farmer Sarah Tweeten, the list of high-priority agronomic threats isn’t a political abstract — it’s a harsh reality she deals with every season.

Farming with her parents, Brian and Julie, and her uncle Roger, Tweeten has been steering the partnership toward more resilient cropping practices since joining the operation in 2021. This includes shifting from conventional tillage to strip tillage and splitting nitrogen applications.

The changes are part of a broader mindset: Protecting yields today from weeds, disease and insects while aggressively preparing for the next generation of agronomic threats. This forward-thinking approach is what led Tweeten to Washington, D.C., earlier this week as a Farm Journal Foundation farmer ambassador to help introduce a new report: “ The Mean Sixteen: Major Biosecurity Threats Facing U.S. Agriculture and How Policy Solutions Can Help. ”

Today’s Battles and Tomorrow’s Warnings
Researched and developed by Stephanie Mercier, PhD, the report takes an in-depth look at 16 significant pest issues U.S. farmers face now or could realistically in the future.

Tweeten is already battling a couple of the problems that underpin the urgency behind the research. For example, Palmer amaranth (pigweed) is gaining ground in her fields and across Iowa. The pervasive broadleaf weed can drastically reduce yields, with studies showing corn yield reductions between 11% and 91% and soybean yield reductions of 17% to 68%.

“We’ve struggled with pigweed as it continues to establish more resistance to our herbicides in our toolkit,” Tweeten says.

Two additional agronomic issues the report details include:

1. Asian Soybean Rust. First detected in the U.S. in Louisiana in 2004, this fungal disease has spread to southern states like Georgia and Mississippi. Scientists warn that warming winters could enable its migration to the Midwest, adding to existing disease pressures.

2. Corn Ear Rot. It can lead to aflatoxin production, making corn unmarketable and posing risks to humans and livestock. Aflatoxin is an issue Pickens County, Ala., farmer Annie Dee says is an ongoing problem for corn growers in her area.

“If we have aflatoxin, it can be impossible to sell the corn,” says Dee, also a Farm Journal Foundation Farmer ambassador.

A more recent threat she references is the impact of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (bird flu) on local poultry farms.

Since January 2022, HPAI has been confirmed in a commercial or backyard poultry flock in all 50 states.

(USDA)

“An important market for us is poultry feed meal, so that’s a constant worry. The trickle-down effect is if we can’t move our corn then we can’t meet our financial obligations,” Dee adds.

Despite agricultural R&D offering a high ROI — $20 in benefits for every $1 spent — the Farm Journal Foundation report notes public funding for ag research has been declining over the past two decades.

“Farmers urgently need sustained support for aflatoxin research and prevention because these risks threaten our yields, our markets and the trust consumers place in American agriculture,” Dee says.

U.S. public spending on ag research and development has been falling for two decades.

(USDA-ERS)

African Swine Fever Has ‘Devastating Potential’
Looking to the future, Tweeten says she is concerned about African swine fever (ASF) and its potential to impact crop farmers as well as hog producers. The highly contagious swine disease hasn’t been detected in the U.S. mainland, but it isn’t far away. ASF has been confirmed in the Caribbean countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, roughly 700 miles from Miami, Fla.

“Being a farmer from Iowa, where we have probably eight times the amount of pigs as we do people, an outbreak of ASF would be just devastating to our state,” Tweeten says.

Hogs are among the biggest customers for the corn and soybeans Tweeten and her family grow. If African swine fever were to shut down hog production or exports, it wouldn’t just be a blow to livestock producers – it would hurt the entire agricultural community, she contends.

Read about 5 livestock diseases that could impact U.S. food security and economic stability.

Food Security Is National Security
When it comes to justifying funding for ag research, Tweeten knows there’s competition for every federal dollar. But she believes agriculture deserves a front-row seat — not only because of its economic weight and impact on farmers, but because of its role in national security.

“There’s that argument that food security is national security,” she says. “If there’s one thing COVID made us aware of, it’s that a disruption to our food chain can be terrifying, quite frankly.”

The pandemic made consumers and policymakers more aware of supply chain vulnerability. In 2020, the shock to the supply chain came from a human disease and logistical bottlenecks.

(Sarah Williams Photography)

Next time, Tweeten says, the disruption could just as easily come from animal or plant disease — whether African swine fever in hogs, Asian soybean rust or some other pathogen in crops. She worries about scenarios where farmers could face a fast-moving disease or crop pest while critical tools are still hung up in regulatory delays.

Her message: Farmers need a full toolbox, not one that’s half-built by the time a threat arrives.

“Ag needs to be in a good position when these sorts of emerging diseases and pests come into the country,” she says, “to have the tools in our toolbox ready for farmers to pull out.”

About the Farm Journal Foundation
The Farm Journal Foundation is a farmer-centered, non-profit, nonpartisan organization established in 2010. It works to advance agricultural innovation, food and nutrition security, conservation, and rural economic development.

Unexpected Impact From Illinois Dust Storm Hits Corn, Soybeans

Wed, 28 May 2025 17:44:08 GMT

It was bad enough Illinois farmers affected by the May 16 dust storm saw priceless topsoil blow off their fields and into the hinterlands. Adding insult to injury, many corn and soybean growers now face not only damaged or destroyed crops but will need to reapply fertilizer and herbicide products in some scenarios, says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.

“If you ever tried to imagine what the Dust Bowl was like in the 1930s all you had to do was be in central Illinois that Friday afternoon,” Ferrie says. “You didn’t need your imagination to experience the Dust Bowl, you got to live it. Now, granted, it was only a few hours long. But it blew soil, it blew residue, it blew trees over, did property damage in some areas, and some of our most precious, McLean County soil was deposited in Lake Michigan.”

On Friday, May 16, 2025, an NOAA satellite captured images of a dust storm that pushed across northern Illinois, northern Indiana and the metropolitan area of Chicago. The dust storm was driven by strong winds, gusting over 60 mph at times.

(NOAA)

Not only McLean County topsoil went north to Chicago and beyond. Ferrie is concerned recent surface-applied herbicides and nitrogen were likely blown away with the soil and residue, too.

“Some of these fields that were sprayed that did not receive a rain to move it into the soil and get it activated are at risk now,” he explains. “We’ll need to keep an eye on these fields for weed escapes and the loss of nitrogen. We can make some estimates on the nitrogen losses with nitrate testing, but herbicide losses will only show up in weed escapes.”

Additional Consequences From The Storm
Ferrie, who is based just south of Bloomington, Ill., reports the dust storm generated a number of farmer requests, calls asking him to come inspect fields for crop damage. He notes that affected cornfields looked like they received a hard frost. With soybeans, some fields had plants sheared off at the ground level.

“In most cases with corn, I saw mainly cosmetic damage, and the corn will bounce back,” Ferrie says. “But in cases where the corn was covered up by dust, the crop will not come back, and it’ll need to be replanted. This occurred mainly where grass strips worked like a snow fence and the dirt piled up on the corn. In some areas buried in residue, we may need to burn that off the field before we can replant.”

Farmers who want to apply fertilizer or herbicides will benefit from holding off making any spray applications until affected crops show signs of a robust recovery, primarily in the form of new growth, he adds.

“Growth out of the whorl tells you that things are getting back on track,” Ferrie says. “We e do want to apply [herbicides] based on weed height, but this would be one time where I would put a pause on it and let this corn recover before we come back in with our post applications.”

Third Consecutive Year Of Spring Dust Storms In Illinois
Rains totaling 1” to 3” in the days following the storm, helped replenish soil moisture levels and start the recovery process in some affected corn and soybean crops.

But Ferrie points out that the dust storm marked the third year in a row such an event has swept through parts of Illinois, and the storms have cast a bad light on production agriculture in the region.

“Guys, we need to step back and take a minute to evaluate what we just witnessed,” Ferrie says. “Our soil went a quarter mile in the air, blew all the way to Chicago, closing roads and causing accidents.”

Such risks and consequences from dust storms are garnering more critical attention from the general public and scientists.

A 10-year study done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published by the American Meteorological Society in 2023, found a total of 232 deaths occurred from windblown dust events between 2007 through 2017.

“We found that dust events caused life losses comparable to events like hurricanes and wildfires in some years,” says Daniel Tong, research scientist at NOAA and an associate professor of Atmospheric Oceanic and Earth Sciences at George Mason University, in a news release. “Greater awareness could reduce crashes and possibly save lives.”

Haboobs, another term for intense dust storms, can occur anywhere in the U.S., but are most common in the Southwest , according to the National Weather Service. El Paso, Texas, has seen 10 in 2025 alone, reports Inside Climate News .

El Paso, Texas, has been hit by 10 dust storms so far this year.

(Tom Gill)

Two other recent examples of severe dust storms include:

March 3 – a crash involving 11 vehicles on Interstate 10 occurred near Albuquerque, N.M., left three people dead. Authorities there say heavy dust storms contributed to the crash by severely limiting visibility.

March 14 – Kansas Highway Patrol officials reported eight fatality victims from an Interstate 71-vehicle pileup that occurred during a dust storm.

Fortunately, no fatalities were reported as a result of the Illinois dust storm that occurred May 16.

Calls For Action To Reduce Dust Storm Numbers
A number of individuals and organizations in Illinois are calling for agronomic practices that will prevent or limit such events in the future. One of those is Robert Hirschfeld, Director of Water Policy at Prairie Rivers Network, an independent, state affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation

“These are man-made ecological disasters, driven by a form of agriculture that exploits and depletes the land, leaving millions of acres of soil exposed and eroding for half the year,” Hirschfeld said in a statement distributed three days after the Illinois storm. “We can’t keep farming this way.”

Hirschfeld wants the issue to be addressed formally via legislative action: “If we want real change, we have to move beyond voluntary conservation and start requiring practices that keep soil in place and pollution out of our water.”

Steps Farmers Can Take
While no one can control the weather, farmers can adjust their management practices to reduce the risk of dust storms, according to Illinois Extension. A logical first step is to reduce the number of tillage passes, especially in fields adjacent to busy highways, to begin moving toward conservation tillage.

Additionally, increased soil productivity can be achieved through reduced erosion, enhanced water infiltration, and decreased water evaporation during dry periods, according to the USDA Managing Crop Residues in Corn and Soybeans research report.

Ferrie says many of the farmers he works with are “great stewards of their land and are able to keep their soils in place.”

He advocates using a systems approach in production agriculture that will protect vulnerable soils and other resources (see A System for Every Soil) .

“There are many tools in the toolbox we can use to accomplish this,” he says. “We can work together to implement practices that will eliminate [dust storms] from happening in the future.”

Check out Ferrie’s latest Boots In The Field podcast to hear his specific recommendations and additional insights.

RFK Jr. and Zeldin Comment on How They Would Implement Trump Policy

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 22:46:07 GMT

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday (Jan. 29) before the Senate Finance Committee lasted over three hours, revealing key points:

Vaccine stance: Kennedy attempted to soften his past anti-vaccine rhetoric, stating support for vaccines but struggling to explain previous controversial statements.
Health policy priorities: He emphasized addressing chronic diseases, promoting safe food, removing conflicts of interest in health agencies, and using “gold-standard science.” Kennedy said that federal dollars spent on SNAP and school lunch programs could be one place to start, “helping kids” avoid obesity and chronic illness by cutting out sugary drinks and “ultra-processed foods.” He would also fund federal research into the link between food additives and chronic illnesses, though he didn’t specify which ingredients sparked the most concern. “I don’t want to take food away from anybody,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy emphasized his support for American farmers, stating:
- “American farms are the bedrock of our culture, of our politics, [and] of our national security.”
- He was a “4-H kid” and spent summers working on ranches.
- He wants to work with farmers and food producers to remove burdensome regulations and unleash American ingenuity.
Agricultural practices and health. Kennedy expressed concerns about current agricultural practices:
- He criticized the use of certain chemicals in farming, stating they destroy soil microbiomes and cause erosion.
- He linked chemical-intensive agriculture to health problems, mentioning clusters of cancers, autoimmune diseases, and obesity in farming communities.
- He called for incentivizing transitions to regenerative agriculture and less chemically intensive practices.Kennedy told Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) that farmers are affected by cancers and autoimmune illnesses that he believes are caused by ingredients like food dyes. “We need to fix our food supply,” Kennedy said, noting that “seeds and chemicals” used by U.S. farmers are “destroying our soil” in the long term. When asked about Kennedy’s “seeds and chemicals” comment, Grassley told Politico: “I’ll have someone from Iowa State University talk to him.”
Collaboration with USDA. Kennedy emphasized his intention to work closely with the Department of Agriculture:
- He stated that MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) “simply cannot succeed without a partnership a full Partnership of American farmers.”
- He committed to working collaboratively with USDA and other federal agencies before implementing policies affecting food supplies.
- Kennedy mentioned that President Trump instructed him to work with Brooke Rollins at USDA to ensure policies support farmers. Rollins told reporters last week that she was supportive of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. “But what is important and, if confirmed, what my role will be, will be to strike a balance between defending our farmers and our ranchers but also working with Bobby Kennedy, who I adore, to effectuate the president’s vision on all of the above,” Rollins said
Regulatory approach. Kennedy outlined his approach to agricultural regulations:
- He promised to work with farmers to remove burdensome regulations.
- Kennedy acknowledged the “very thin margins” farmers operate on and stated he doesn’t want any farmer to leave their farm for economic or regulatory reasons.
- He agreed that agricultural practice regulations should primarily be left to USDA and EPA.
- “I expect you to leave agricultural practice and regulation to the proper agencies,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Kennedy. That means, for the most part, leaving policies that impact farmers to USDA and EPA, Grassley clarified.
Future of agriculture. Kennedy shared his vision for the future of American agriculture:
- He called for fixing the food supply as a top priority. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told Kennedy that he was happy the nominee addressed the “social media rumors” about agriculture.
- “You made it very very clear you’re not going to tell Americans what to eat, but you do want Americans to know what they’re eating,” Lankford said, calling that a “pretty fair perspective” on food policy.
- Kennedy advocated for supporting the transition to regenerative and sustainable farming practices.
- He mentioned plans to rewrite regulations to give smaller operators “a break.”
- Throughout the hearing, Kennedy attempted to position himself as an ally to farmers while also advocating for changes in agricultural practices to address health and environmental concerns.
Controversial past: Democrats challenged his history of health misinformation and grasp of Medicare and Medicaid.
Republican support: Some GOP senators backed Kennedy, with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) calling him “awesome,” though the final vote remains uncertain.
Financial concerns: His financial ties to lawsuits against Merck raised conflict-of-interest questions.
Abortion stance: Kennedy sidestepped direct answers but aligned with Trump’s anti-abortion policies, shifting from his previous pro-choice stance.

Bottom line: With strong opposition and divided support, Kennedy’s confirmation vote is expected to be closely contested. Today he attends another confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The Senate Finance Committee expects to hold its RFK Jr. vote next week.

Zeldin Confirmed as EPA Administrator

On Wednesday (Jan. 29), the Republican-led Senate confirmed former Congressman Lee Zeldin as the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a 56-42 vote. A staunch Trump ally, Zeldin is expected to steer the agency in alignment with the former president’s environmental policies.

Vote breakdown: All 53 Republicans backed Zeldin, joined by three Democrats — Sens. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), and John Fetterman (Pa.).
Policy direction: Zeldin is expected to roll back environmental regulations, emphasizing economic growth and private-sector collaboration.
Biofuel policy. Zeldin has raised concerns among ethanol and biofuel advocates due to his past opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and ethanol. However, during his confirmation process, Zeldin made some commitments that suggest a potential shift in his stance. As a congressman, Zeldin had a history of opposing biofuels and the RFS. He signed letters expressing concern about proposed RFS volume increases, citing issues with the “E10 blend wall.” In 2017, Zeldin cosponsored an unsuccessful bill to repeal the RFS. He raised concerns about the validity and practicality of higher ethanol blends like E15 and E85. But during his confirmation process, Zeldin made several statements that indicate a potential change in his approach:
- He committed to giving producers and the industry certainty in the marketplace regarding Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs).
- Zeldin acknowledged the importance of the RFS issue to President Trump and certain senators.
- He stated that no person or industry has any special influence over his decision-making, addressing concerns about his past connections to the oil industry.
Biofuel industry representatives have expressed cautious optimism:
- The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) looks forward to working with Zeldin on keeping the RFS on track and addressing other priorities like E15 availability.
- The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) encouraged Zeldin to pursue the role biofuels can play in U.S. energy dominance.
- The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) appreciated Zeldin’s commitments to follow the law regarding RVO rulemakings and supporting year-round E15 nationwide.

Of note: While Zeldin’s past positions raised initial concerns, his recent statements during the confirmation process suggest he may be open to working with the biofuels industry in his new role as EPA Administrator.

Climate stance: Critics warn his leadership could weaken climate initiatives, favoring fossil fuel interests.
Reactions: Republicans praise his “common-sense regulation” approach, while environmental groups call his confirmation a serious setback for public health and environmental justice.

Bottom line. As Zeldin assumes leadership, his tenure is likely to reshape the EPA’s role in U.S. environmental policy for years to come.

Cassidy Casts Doubt on RFK Jr.’s HHS Nomination

Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) delivered a blunt message to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during Thursday’s hearing, signaling serious concerns about his nomination for Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.

“I’ve been struggling with your nomination,” Cassidy stated in his closing remarks, a potential roadblock for Kennedy, given Cassidy’s influential position on the Senate Finance Committee. If Cassidy votes against Kennedy in the panel’s decision, the nomination may not advance.

The Louisiana senator expressed deep skepticism about Kennedy’s stance on vaccines, questioning whether he could be trusted to uphold sound public health policy. Cassidy specifically criticized Kennedy’s history of vaccine skepticism, warning that such views could erode trust in essential immunizations.

“A worthy movement, called MAHA, to improve the health of Americans?” Cassidy asked. “Or will it undermine it, always asking for more evidence and never accepting the evidence that is there?”

He also recounted a recent case of two children dying in a Baton Rouge ICU from vaccine-preventable diseases. “My concern is that if there’s any false note, any undermining of a mama’s trust in vaccines, another person will die from a vaccine-preventable disease,” Cassidy warned.

Beyond his own reservations, Cassidy’s remarks signal broader challenges for Kennedy’s nomination. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a childhood polio survivor, is unlikely to back a nominee with anti-vaccine ties. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also remain key votes to watch, with both urging Kennedy to support vaccinations.

Cassidy, up for re-election in 2026, has already drawn a Trump-aligned challenger, State Treasurer John Fleming. Though Cassidy emphasized his desire for Trump’s policies to succeed, he warned that anti-vaccine rhetoric could tarnish Trump’s legacy.

“I want President Trump’s policies to succeed,” Cassidy said. “But if there’s someone that is not vaccinated because of policies, of attitudes we bring to the department, and there’s another 18-year-old who dies of a vaccine-preventable disease… The greatest tragedy will be her death. I can also tell you an associated tragedy will be that it will cast a shadow over President Trump’s legacy, which I want to be the absolute best legacy.”

Bottom line: With Cassidy’s support in doubt and broader Senate skepticism, Kennedy’s path to confirmation remains steep.

Top Takeaways from Zeldin’s Confirmation Hearing for EPA Lead and the Impact On Ag

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 13:36:43 GMT

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, underwent hours of testimony Thursday, commenting on everything from year-round E15, the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) and the controversial WOTUS rule. When pressed about climate and environmental policies, Zeldin stated he believes climate change is real.

During the hearing, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) asked Zeldin to ensure access to year-round E15, but he did not make a definitive commitment, responding cautiously. Zeldin stated that while he couldn’t prejudge the outcomes of any processes, he acknowledged the importance of the issue to Sen. Ricketts and President Trump.

His exact words were: “Senator, while I can’t prejudge outcome of processes to follow across the board, I know how important this issue is to you and I know how important this is to President Trump.”

Despite this non-committal response, leaders of ethanol industry groups, including the American Coalition for Ethanol and Growth Energy, expressed appreciation for Zeldin’s commitment to doing his part to ensure nationwide availability of year-round E15.

Zeldin’s Stance on Ethanol
Zeldin’s stance on ethanol has been a point of interest, given his previous opposition to ethanol usage mandates during his time in Congress. Zeldin was asked about upholding legal deadlines for new Renewable Volume Obligations (RVO) standards, which are part of the RFS program.

Ricketts criticized the Biden administration for setting RVOs below industry production levels and not meeting the law’s deadlines. Zeldin expressed his commitment to implementing the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as written by Congress.

He stated, “If confirmed, I commit to you that I will faithfully execute the law as written by Congress.” This statement was seen as an attempt to reassure senators from agricultural states who are concerned about the EPA’s implementation of biofuel policies.

Zeldin addressed his past opposition to ethanol usage mandates. He acknowledged that his views on the issue have evolved since his time in Congress.

Zeldin stated, “My position has evolved. I’m not in the same place I was years ago.”

He explained that his perspective has changed due to conversations he’s had with farmers, producers, and others in the industry. Zeldin emphasized that he now has a better understanding of the importance of ethanol to rural economies and energy security.

To further illustrate his evolving stance, Zeldin mentioned that he has visited ethanol plants and spoken with industry stakeholders.

He said, “I’ve learned a lot more about ethanol. I’ve visited plants. I’ve talked to a lot of people in the industry.”

WOTUS Rule Opposition
The EPA nominee has been vocal about his opposition to the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. He expressed strong criticism of the Biden administration’s decision to reinstate and expand the WOTUS rule. Zeldin argued that the WOTUS rule represents federal overreach and places an undue burden on farmers, landowners, and local governments.

He stated that the rule would negatively impact agriculture, construction, and other industries by expanding federal authority over water bodies and wetlands. The congressman emphasized that the expanded definition of WOTUS would lead to increased regulations and permitting requirements for activities on private property. He contended that this expansion of federal control would hinder economic growth and development in rural areas.

In his statement, Zeldin called for the repeal of the WOTUS rule, advocating for a more limited interpretation of federal jurisdiction over water bodies. He supported efforts to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority in implementing the rule, arguing that states should have more control over their water resources.

Zeldin’s position on WOTUS aligns with many Republican lawmakers who view the rule as an example of government overreach and excessive environmental regulation. His statements reflect a broader debate about the balance between environmental protection and economic development in water resource management.

Zeldin’s Criticism of EPA Staff
Zeldin made notable comments regarding EPA staff. He criticized EPA employees for what he described as their attempts to undermine the Trump administration’s policies.

Specifically, Zeldin accused some EPA staff members of leaking information to the media and actively working against the administration’s agenda. He expressed concern that these actions were hindering the implementation of policies and creating unnecessary obstacles for the agency’s leadership. The congressman’s remarks were part of a broader discussion on government accountability and the role of career civil servants in executing administration directives.

Zeldin emphasized the importance of loyalty to the current administration’s goals, regardless of personal political beliefs.

Climate Change and Climate Policies
As for his position on climate change, the hearing showed the political dynamics and implications surrounding the issue considering President-elect Donald Trump’s stance, particularly as seen through an exchange involving Zeldin with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). Sanders emphasized the existential threat of climate change, framing it as a matter transcending politics. Whitehouse voiced concern about Zeldin’s ability to resist fossil fuel industry influence.

Zeldin stated, “I believe that climate change is real,” marking a departure from previous EPA leaders during the first Trump administration and from President-elect Trump, who has previously labeled climate change a “hoax.”

Regarding EPA’s role in regulating carbon dioxide emissions, Zeldin referenced a 2007 Supreme Court decision, noting that while the ruling grants the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, it does not mandate such action. He emphasized that the agency is “authorized, not required” to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

When pressed on specific climate policies, such as reducing reliance on fossil fuels, Zeldin refrained from committing to particular actions. He expressed a desire to collaborate with scientists and policymakers, stating, “I don’t sit before you as a scientist.”

In response to inquiries about campaign donations from fossil fuel companies, Zeldin asserted that financial contributions would not influence his decisions, emphasizing his commitment to impartiality in his role as EPA Administrator.

Of note:
Throughout the hearing, Zeldin underscored the importance of protecting the environment without hindering economic development. He stated, “We can, and we must, protect our precious environment without suffocating the economy.”

Economists React to Zeldin’s Nomination

December Ag Economists’ Monthly Monitor

(Lindsey Pound )

In the December Ag Economists’ Monthly Monitor and prior to this week’s hearing, Farm Journal asked economists about what Zeldin’s past stance on ag issues could mean if he’s approved as the next EPA adminstrator.

Based on Zeldin’s track record, 60% of economists said they don’t think Zeldin’s policies will be positive for agriculture. 40% said they do think his policies will be good for agriculture.

In the survey, economists said:

“I expect there to be fewer new regulations in the Trump Administration. This is positive for agriculture.”
“I imagine many of the tax credits for new demand (either low carbon fuels or carbon programs) will be on the table to be cut.”
“He generally is not a fan of the RFS. My guess is that he will impact the RFS only marginally.”
“A deregulatory agenda could be positive for many farmers, but Zeldin has a record that is not favorable toward biofuels. How he (and the President) will address biofuel issues is unclear--in the first Trump administration, there were many large disputes between pro-biofuel and pro-fossil fuel interests.”
“His track record is negative toward liquid biofuels, which is a big part of our domestic demand.”

Related News:

Trump Taps Lee Zeldin to Lead EPA; What Does It Signal for Agriculture?

How To Elevate Agriculture: Ag Retailer Steps Up On The TEDx Stage

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 21:04:44 GMT

A man who is no stranger to advocacy was on a mission. Mike Twining has been working toward taking a fact-based appeal to the stage of TEDx—the primetime way of sharing big ideas with potentially a big audience for big impact.

This spring, mission accomplished . Twining spoke at a TEDx event hosted by Grand Canyon University and delivered his talk “Saving the Planet With Your Food Choices.”

In his day job, Twining is vice president of sales and marketing at Willard Agri-Service, and for the past 40 years, he’s worked side by side with crop consultants to help farmers make the best decisions agronomically, environmentally and economically. Twining has taken on leadership roles within the Agricultural Retailers Association and stepped up to the call when needed, so much so that ARA awarded him the Excellent in Advocacy Award just last year.

But the calling to take his message to TEDx stage was greater than any doubts that surfaced about being in a room that may not include a single other person familiar with commercial agriculture.

“I hope my ideas spark curiosity and conversation beyond the standard sound bites we all hear about how our food is raised,” Twining says. “It’s easy sometimes to think that we have all the information, but still draw the wrong conclusion. Agriculture is one of the few industries that can scale globally in the next decade to meaningfully reduce climate change.”

He proposes there are three topics around food products we are consistently misled as consumers:

Organics
Genetically modified organisms
Glyphosate

And he proposes how consumers can incentive solutions with food buying purchases to give farmers the right tools and incentives.

The full presentation is available here (and it’s a tight 12 minutes.)

The Impact of Climate Change on Farm Workers

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 14:30:30 GMT

In past blogs, I have written about the effect that climate change is having on specialty crops, livestock, pollinators, and availability of water for irrigation. Today, I want to explore how climate change, especially excessive heat, is affecting the productivity and well-being of farm workers. As of 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimated that about one-third (or 50 million) of U.S. employees had regular outdoor exposure as part of their work responsibilities. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 1.6 billion people work outside on a regular basis.

Last year (2023), was the warmest year on record across the world, with the annual average temperature exceeding the 20th Century average by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit (F) and breaking the previous record (from 2016) by nearly one-third degree F. As a result of high temperatures already experienced through the first six months of 2024, various analyses calculate that there is more than a 90 percent probability that this year’s global average temperature will exceed last year’s, setting yet another record.

Earlier this year, the UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO) released a report which found that over 70 percent of the world’s workforce is exposed to extreme temperatures at least once per year, resulting in nearly 19,000 work-related deaths and nearly 23 million work-related injuries or illnesses from this cause alone. It also predicted that the incidence of these deaths and injuries would likely rise over time due to the effects of climate change. The people in occupations most at risk from this problem include agricultural, construction, natural resource management and refuse collection workers.

Extraordinary hot weather is not the only health hazard faced by farm workers that has increased as a result of climate change in recent decades. In 2020, a year in which a severe drought covered most of the country, the National Interagency Coordination Center tallied more than 59,000 wildfires burning more than 10 million acres of land. That total of acres affected was more than double the total recorded for 1993. While a large share of wildfires are ignited by human carelessness or arson every year, scientists believe that the increased intensity and scope of wildfires overall is at least in part due to the effects of climate change.

Agriculture workers are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of heat and smoke. Outside activities such as digging irrigation ditches and picking crops can raise body temperatures and increase respiratory rates, making workers more susceptible to heat stroke.

At the federal level, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra (whose father picked crops in California), convened a task force of climate and health experts in March 2024 from agencies within his Department to discuss how to better protect farm workers from these hazards. At the time, there were no federal regulations in this area. In July 2024, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) started the rulemaking process on this topic by proposing a new rule under which farmers and other businesses would have to develop a heat injury and illness prevention plan (HIIPP) and monitor heat conditions for workers. Even indoor work sites would have to identify areas that have potentially hazardous heat exposure. The rule has different heat-index triggers at 80 degrees F and 90 degrees F. The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on July 2nd, and OSHA will accept comments on the proposed rule through early November.

There have been a variety of responses at the state level to this problem. A handful of states (California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Minnesota) have established laws with standards for worker safety in extreme heat, although the current Minnesota law applies primarily to indoor workers. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the states of Florida and Texas passed laws barring local jurisdictions from establishing standards in this area. These are two of the top five states in terms of employing farm workers, potentially putting tens of thousands of workers at risk.

In 2011, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a nonprofit that represents Florida farm workers, established the Fair Food Program (FFP), which provides certification to farms which follow strict worker safety rules, including allowing workers to take 10 minute breaks during every two hours of work during the hottest part of the year. According to a February 2024 article in the Washington Post, that certification allowed those farms to sell to a select group of companies such as Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart. The buyers would agree to pay a small premium for produce from farms where workers are protected and blacklist farms that get kicked out of the program. In exchange, they have been able to tout their ethical practices, a selling point with a growing number of U.S. consumers worried about the working conditions for those who produce their food.

The Coalition has convinced a number of farms in states other than Florida to follow their FFP guidelines, a number that grew earlier this year after the U.S. Department of Agriculture offered up to $2 million in subsidies to farms that abide by guidelines such as FFP’s. Similar standards have also been adopted by worker groups in other countries, such as in Chile and South Africa. Part of the enforcement process has been the practice of the FFP sending auditors to participating farms, to learn by interviewing workers if those operations are abiding by the rules. If farms are found out of compliance, their certification can be suspended, which loses them access to the FFP’s buyer network.

To Farm is to Adapt

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 12:00:00 GMT

By John Rigolizzo, Jr.: Berlin, New Jersey USA

The first dandelion of the year showed up early.

This sign of spring appeared in the middle of February, in what has been a mild winter here in New Jersey—not the “ wrathful nipping cold ” of Shakespearean drama, but a temperate season that has reminded me about the possibilities of climate change and its challenges for farmers.

My little flower has benefitted from a few special factors. It has received a lot of sun from the south. It’s also rooted close to the house, which probably has reflected heat.

In this pleasant microclimate , it sprouted.

Around the time it appeared, I read an article about the Gulf Stream , the warm ocean current that starts in the Gulf of Mexico, runs north along the eastern seaboard of the United States, and shapes the weather in our region and beyond.

Apparently it’s slowing down .

A study released last fall claims that over the last four decades, the Gulf Stream has decelerated by 4 percent. The authors call it “the first conclusive, unambiguous observational evidence that this ocean current has undergone significant change in the recent past.”

What this means, assuming it’s true, is anyone’s guess, except to say that our world is dynamic and unpredictable.

A fading Gulf Stream also may affect the climate.

I believe climate change is real, but I’m no alarmist. The climate is always changing and we’re always adapting to that change and the weather it delivers. Every time you step out the front door, you make decisions and adjustments, choosing between coats and jackets, boots and shoes, and more.

Why should tomorrow be any different?

Farmers know all about climate and weather adaptation. Our economic lives depend on dealing with the problems of hot and cold as well as wet and dry. The prevalence of weeds, pests, and disease are also connected to the weather.

To farm is to adapt.

One possible result of a weaker Gulf Stream is harsher weather events. That means farmers in North America and Europe may find themselves selecting hardier crops that can thrive in shorter seasons and more extreme conditions.

Technology has supported the ability of farmers to adapt. The availability of GM technology over the last generation has allowed us to grow more and better food in a wider range of conditions. The newer innovation of gene editing, involving New Genomic Techniques (NGTs), also holds tremendous promise.

I’ve already made an adjustment on my farm: This year, I’m planting about 40 acres of sorghum .

The United States is the global leader in the production of this grain, which can be used for both human consumption and animal feed. It’s a tough crop that can grow in conditions that would wither or kill other plants. A single rain can carry it for a whole season.

I started growing sorghum years ago because I liked its hardiness. Yet sorghum has a challenge. It contains less protein than other staple crops. Pound for pound, it’s less valuable than corn.

The decisions about what to grow and in what quantities involve geography, soil quality, and crop rotation—and, of course, climate.

I stayed with sorghum when I discovered a niche market for it in bird seed. I’ve tended to think about agriculture in terms of food for people and livestock, so this was unexpected. It turns out that those sacks of “wild bird food” in garden centers and elsewhere are full of sorghum. Game birds such as quail and turkeys especially seem to like it.

Taking up sorghum was one of my adaptations as a farmer, based mostly on a demand for it but also with an eye toward climate conditions.

I have no idea how the climate will change in the decades ahead, what the farmers of the future will grow on the land that I’m working now, or whether the strength of the Gulf Stream will have anything to do with it. I assume my successors will make the best choices they can based on the information they have, the experience they’ve gained, and the information and technology available to them.

In other words, they’ll face surprises. They will assess, make decisions and will adapt, as farmers always have.

Looking out the window, I can see my next challenge: The lawn grass is starting to grow.

John Rigolizzo, Jr. is a fifth generation farmer, previously raising 1,400 acres of fresh vegetables and field corn in southern New Jersey. The family farm now raises 70 acres of field corn and John advises local farmers on growing and marketing retail vegetables. John volunteers as a board member for the Global Farmer Network www.globalfarmernetwork.org

Coastal Disruptions from Climate Change Threaten Agriculture

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 14:52:45 GMT

Over the last few decades, rising sea levels are starting to have an impact on people and/or economic activity which are located in coastal communities around the world as well as many island nations that have little or no elevation above sea level. According to the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), global average sea levels have risen 8-9 inches since 1880. Their research indicates that about one third of the increase is due to the thermal expansion of ocean water as it has gotten warmer, and about two-thirds is due to meltwater flowing back to the ocean as glaciers and ice sheets on land melt. These effects are occurring as a result of climate change.

While that overall average is quite modest, it conceals a great deal of variability that matters in certain regions. For example, local sea level is rising much more quickly than average in areas along the Gulf of Mexico, as local agriculture and other businesses (like oil and natural gas drilling) are pumping water out of aquifers much more quickly than it can be replenished naturally, resulting in soil compaction and the ground sinking and settling. Scientists have determined that the sea level around Grand Isle, Louisiana (which is 109 miles south of New Orleans), has risen by 24 inches since 1950, and that rate of rise has accelerated over the last decade, now rising by over 1 inch every 2 years.

Recognizing the risk that rising sea levels present to their populations, leaders of a group of small island nations have banded together to push the rest of the world for aggressive actions to combat climate change. At the meetings that led to the Paris Accord in 2015, this group insisted that the threshold that the world should strive to maintain was remaining below the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase above pre-industrial levels that would minimize the environmental impacts of climate change.

That grouping known as small island developing states (SIDS) includes 39 island nations such as Barbados and Haiti in the Caribbean Sea, Timor L’Este and Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean, as well as 19 regions which are part of larger sovereign nations, such as the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and New Caledonia (a French territory 900 miles east of Australia). At the current rate of sea level rise projected over the next several decades, some of the more low-relief islands, such as the Maldives (Indian Ocean) and Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean could be rendered uninhabitable by 2050. Collectively, these SIDS members have about 65 million people living in their territories, and many of them are at risk of being forced to leave their homes due to the envelopment of the sea as a result of climate change. That surge would nearly triple the number of current refugees worldwide, from the current estimate of 36.4 million to more than 100 million. Such an increase, even if realized over a period of multiple decades, would place an enormous burden on the world’s humanitarian institutions. FAO data indicates that those countries also produced $19.7 billion worth of agricultural goods on average between 2017 and 2021, which would need to be replaced on the world market if those island nations had to be abandoned.

More locally, agricultural land along the Atlantic Coast in the United States has also been experiencing saltwater intrusion in recent decades as a result of sea-level rises. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predict that sea levels along the East Coast will rise by about a foot over the next 30 years. In the last few years, researchers at the University of Maryland have been evaluating this problem, both by mapping its impact on coastal fields in the Eastern shore areas of Delaware and Maryland and looking at ways to help farmers cope with these changes.

A 2019 article in Bioscience by a number of University of Maryland researchers ( Tully et al. ) found that many fields along the Eastern Shore with common cash crops planted — like corn and soybean — suffer from observed salinity levels equivalent to 3.8 parts per trillion (ppt), which is roughly double the level at which crop growth is known to be substantially impaired.

The USDA Climate Hub that is focused on agriculture in the U.S. Northeast is also collecting and sharing data and research on the saltwater intrusion issue. At a USDA research facility near Cape May, New Jersey, scientists are developing plant and conservation solutions for farmers in coastal zones to address saltwater intrusion and other environmental issues.

The increase in saltwater intrusion in coastal areas around the world is due to a range of factors–some naturally occurring, such as droughts, infiltration of seawater into groundwater aquifers that are near the coast, and increased frequency of storm surges and higher tides that bring seawater further inland. Other factors are primarily human-induced, such as the use of water management practices such as irrigation and how water control structures are connected.

A farmer in New Jersey is finding ways to continue to use his land even after saltwater intrusion has occurred. In a February 2024 article in Civil Eats, Mr. John Zander describes his intention to plant test plots of various tidal grasses. Since such species can survive in salty conditions, he plans to use the biomass for animal bedding and weed control, and also hopes to sell some of the plants as living ‘plugs’ to neighboring farmers to help them establish field buffers and also to local conservation groups.

Other farmers are opting to enroll such fields in USDA conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) or the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), to either help to mitigate the damage or take the affected fields out of production entirely.

Have You Heard of Scope 3? It Offers Opportunity for Agriculture

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 19:43:45 GMT

You might have heard the term Scope 3 thrown around. It’s all the buzz lately in the world of sustainability. But what does it mean?

A company’s emissions are broken down into Scopes 1, 2 and 3. This helps them account for different categories of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions:
• Scope 1 refers to direct emissions controlled by the company, which include emissions from their operations and facilities.
• Scope 2 addresses indirect emissions from energy an organization purchases or brings in to operate the business.
• Scope 3 covers indirect emissions from the company’s supply chain, both upstream and downstream.

Scope 3 is where things get interesting for farmers and the rest of agriculture’s “upstream” supply-chain partners. Upstream means all of the materials and transportation required before something gets to the company for production or processing.

We’re all aware companies are evolving their sustainability strategies. Increasingly, they’re working to meet the sustainability demands of their customers and the various voluntary initiatives established by their leadership and downstream supply-chain partners. As a result, businesses must be able to measure and reduce their Scope 3 emissions. It’s especially important for companies whose supply chain includes agriculture. Like it or not, agriculture is considered one of the primary contributors of GHG emissions and climate change. McKinsey & Company recently reported agriculture is responsible for about 24% of global emissions, making agricultural emissions a major focus of decarbonization efforts.

Onerous as this sounds, this creates tremendous opportunities for farmers who have already reduced emissions, or will in the future, through on-farm practices, such as reduced energy usage, improved soil health measures and reduced machinery passes on a field.

When will Scope 3 opportunities be available in your area? This is the big question. Many existing and new companies are collaborating to understand which methodologies, strategies and systems are required to support this new type of sustainability accounting in a way that’s consistent and realistic for our fragmented industry. New pilot programs are popping up regularly. But, so far, they have been concentrated in very small regions and vary greatly from one program to the next.

If you believe you have practices that could support Scope 3 reductions, talk to your local agribusiness partners to see what’s available in your area. Consider reaching out to your grain elevator, meat packer, dairy processor or other supply-chain partners.

If there is a new sustainability company or expert reaching out to you for a meeting, take the time to listen. They could be bringing you new opportunities to monetize sustainable practices on your farm or providing valuable information to help better educate you on decarbonization or Scope 3 opportunities in your area. Not every opportunity might be right for your farm, but taking the time to get better educated on the landscape will be valuable now and in the future.

Heather Gieseke’s insights help position agribusinesses for growth and profitability – from risk management to carbon mitigation, emission reduction and other agriculture advocacy related initiatives. A leader of Pinion’s sustainability practice, Heather champions sustainability for the farm, family and business.

What's Causing These Frigid Temperatures Right Now?

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 20:48:23 GMT

Another round of arctic freeze is blasting the U.S. The first round of cold weather brought historic temperatures, with Montana’s temperatures falling to 40 to 50 degree below zero. With another round of frigid temperatures blanketing the U.S. again, what’s behind the cold?

While El Niño can be to blame for the back-to-back winter storms, something else is spurring the cold. Brad Rippey, USDA meteorologist, says moisture pumping up from the Gulf is a hallmark of El Niño.

“As I always say, you can’t blame an individual or a single storm and El Niño, but you start looking at the overall patterns, and there’s absolutely no question that when you start seeing a pattern setting up like this, a storm pipeline from the Pacific coming across the Southwest and into the Midwest or east, that is El Niño,” says Brad Rippey, USDA meteorologist.

The cold, however, is being pushed down from the north. Drew Lerner of World Weather says the arctic air is caused by a warming that occurs in the stratosphere, which is outside of where we live in the troposphere. Sudden stratospheric warming events, like what the U.S. is experiencing now, can be caused by large atmospheric waves in either the stratosphere or the troposphere. Planetary waves have ridges and troughs like ocean waves, but span huge distances in the atmosphere.

“The stratosphere, when it turns warmer, it expands that layer in the atmosphere and it pushes, puts pressure on the troposphere and forces cold air that’s aloft down to the surface. And then it gets spread out from the arctic,” says Lerner. “What happens a lot of times when you get these stratospheric warming events is that you displace the polar vortex and or you split it into two vortices, and that’s what’s happening.”

He says this can lead to a splitting of the polar vortex, so instead of cold air being locked above the polar region, it pushes further south into the mid-latitudes.

The good news? This latest round of frigid air is short-lived. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 10-day forecast, which is below, shows a much more mild view, at least compared to what we’re seeing now.

4 Stories to Learn More About a Vertical Tillage System

Wed, 27 Dec 2023 22:41:01 GMT

All signs point to incentives for farmers to reduce tillage and grow cover crops. Some farmers will factor these incentives into their profit/loss statements, which will be a game changer. Through the Inflation Reduction Act, there might even be situations where farmers will find they can net more profit by complying with government carbon incentives versus maximizing yield.

Vertical tillage is not a single tool or a single pass — it is a comprehensive system, says Ken Ferrie. Through the Farm Journal Test Plot program and Ferrie’s experience in hundreds of clients fields, the following stories will provide the foundation you need to understand a vertical tillage system and the important first step of removing horizontal layers.

1. Considering Vertical Tillage? Here Are 5 Benefits

The concept of vertical tillage is well-known, but what it entails isn’t fully understood in some corners of farm country. In simple terms, Ken Ferrie says a true vertical tillage system involves understanding the soil profile, addressing compaction issues, ensuring that each pass achieves the goal of the system, respecting residue cover and providing a well-prepared seedbed for the planter pass. Simply put, a vertical system means managing the entire soil profile for uniformity.

2. Now’s the Time to Transition to a Vertical Farming System

For decades, moldboard plows, disks and field cultivators, all horizontal tillage tools, have been the go-tos for fieldwork. That’s changing as fears about climate change come into focus. There are various vertical tillage systems — conventional vertical tillage, one-pass-and-plant vertical tillage, no-till and strip-till. How do you decide which tillage system fits your operation and temperament?

3. Do You Have Soil Compaction and Density Changes That Impede Roots and Water? Here’s How to Find Out

Identifying horizontal layers is a crucial first step when converting to vertical tillage. There is lots of Farm Journal Test Plot data to explain why it’s so important. Reduced tillage and covers require a vertical system, from which compacted soil layers and sudden density changes have been removed. On-farm tests confirm removing compaction and density layers before transitioning to a vertical system can add 15 bu. to 20 bu. per acre and might lower cost of production.

4. Shatter Your Yield Barriers One Layer At A Time

So — you have probed or dug and found the layers put in place by horizontal farming tools. What’s next? “Now it’s time to find the best way to remove them,” says Ken Ferrie. Focus on depth, shatter, spacing and horsepower — and avoid recreational tillage at all costs. A combination of strip-till and cover crops might help remove layers on highly erodible land where you are not allowed to till.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack Reveals the Final COP28 Declaration Will Not Focus on Agriculture and Food

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 20:28:02 GMT

Despite calls from countries to focus on food and agriculture as a way to meet the world’s climate goals, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack revealed that the final COP28 declaration would not focus on agriculture and food. This decision was influenced by a request from the G77 group of developing countries for additional review and participation related to agriculture and food, leaving no time for negotiations.

While Vilsack highlighted the importance of a special day dedicated to agriculture and food policy and the participation of U.S. farm and food leaders, he considered the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Change, signed by 152 nations, and commitments by countries and companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fund related projects as significant achievements. However, some observers were disappointed because this would delay progress until June 2024.

Today, at the first-ever day dedicated to food and agriculture at a COP conference, we’re proud to highlight the steps we’re taking to tackle the climate crisis, invest in food systems innovation, and bring new opportunities to producers #COP28 pic.twitter.com/69uyWVdmcZ
— Secretary Tom Vilsack (@SecVilsack) December 10, 2023

Vilsack mentioned the Agriculture Innovation Mission (AIM) for Climate , a joint initiative between the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates aimed at addressing climate change and global hunger through increased investment in climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation.

Regarding reducing meat consumption, Vilsack said he had not heard much about that goal but instead emphasized strategies for reducing methane emissions related to livestock. The U.S. is taking a leadership role in methane reduction through research, feed additives, recapturing methane for energy production, and managing manure.

A Focus on Dairy to Start

Leading into the meeting, there was a lot of talk about how agriculture practices and food production may be impacted by the climate goals. And to start the meeting, dairy was on the list.

According to a report from Reuters last week, advocacy groups said that tackling livestock methane should be a major priority at this year’s COP28 summit. In addition, at the summit in Dubai this week, six of the world’s largest dairy companies announced an alliance to cut methane emissions from dairy cows.

Reuters reported members of the Dairy Methane Action Alliance include Danone, Bel Group, General Mills, Lactalis USA, Kraft Heinz and Nestle. The Alliance says it will begin reporting their methane emissions by mid-2024 and will write methane action plans by the end of that year.

While the world’s largest dairy companies are working together, it’s also sparking an argument of how essential dairy is in the diets of people around the globe.

#UN #Roadmap to 1.5 #Livestock plan unveiled at #cop28 listed in this thread.

Livestock plays a crucial economic role contributing to the livelihoods of about 1.7 billion poor people and 70 percent of those employed in the sector are women
— Steven Middendorp (@smiddendorp22) December 10, 2023

Cop28: An Explanation

What is COP28? It’s a meeting of politicians, diplomats, NGOS and representatives of national governments. There are also other stakeholders who attend to try to influence the outcome. The meeting actually dates back to June of 1992 when 154 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At the time, those countries agreed to combat human impacts on the climate.

COP meetings have been held every year since, with a different country becoming the COP president. Since that country is in charge of organizing the meeting, the host city typically moves year to year. Then, any new agreements struck from that year’s meeting, is typically named after the host city, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement and the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact.

According to the COP28 website, the goal is to “correct course and accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis.” The website also states, “COP28 is where the world will take stock of progress on the Paris Agreement – the landmark climate treaty concluded in 2015 – and chart a course of action to dramatically reduce emissions and protect lives and livelihoods.”

The Goal

According to COP28 organizers, the science shows “to preserve a livable climate, the production of coal, oil, and gas must rapidly decline, and global renewable power capacity – including wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy – needs to triple by 2030. At the same time, financing for adaptation and investments in climate resilience need a quantum leap.”

COP28 organizers say the goal is to create “concrete solutions to the defining issue of our time.”

Climate Change and Drought--How Can Farmers Adapt?

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 18:30:03 GMT

Facing the possibility of extended droughts has always been a problem for farmers, especially those crop farmers who rely on consistent rainfall to produce a good crop. According to the American Meteorological Society, drought is defined as “a period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance”

Over the last few decades, droughts have become more frequent and more severe as a result of the effects of climate change, at least in some regions of the world. According to a study published in Nature Communications in May 2021, anthropogenic forcing due to climate change has increased the drought frequency, maximum drought duration, and maximum drought intensity experienced in large parts of the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

Within the United States, the Southwest U.S. is not seeing a strong trend in annual precipitation over the full period of record (1895–2023), but rising temperatures and evaporation have led to more rapidly depleted soil moisture, runoff and streamflow in an already arid region. As a result, episodic droughts feature higher temperatures than past droughts and are more impactful on the hydrology of the region, which is already stressed by human use, as described in my previous blogs on the Colorado River system and groundwater depletion.

In recent years, the federal crop insurance program has paid out a larger amount of indemnities from crop losses due to drought than just a few decades ago, both in absolute dollars and as a share of total indemnities. Insurance indemnities paid as a result of drought-induced crop losses averaged $2.65 billion between 2017 and 2021, more than nine times higher than over a comparable period in the early 1990’s, according to data collected by USDA’s Risk Management Agency. Drought-related indemnities accounted for 22.6 percent of all indemnities in the earlier period, while the share increased more than 37 percent to 31 percent for the more recent period.

In the face of increased drought pressures, farmers have a number of options on how to respond. Crop farmers have the opportunity to switch away from their current crop choices to plant more drought resistant crops, such as moving away from corn, which needs 20 to 25 inches of rain annually to produce good yields, to grow a crop like grain sorghum (also known as milo) instead, which needs only 15 inches of rain per year to thrive. Both are coarse grains which are often used to feed livestock, although processed corn has other uses such as ethanol and industrial starch for which sorghum is not often used.

Adoption of conserving agricultural practices such as cover cropping and no-till cultivation can help to improve the soil’s ability to retain water, and can help reduce yield losses in drought situations, especially after the new practice has been in place for several years. Higher soil carbon content makes the soil more resilient to all kinds of shocks, including both droughts and heavy rains.

Farmers raising rain-fed crops also have the option to install irrigation equipment to either replace or supplement the water they receive from the sky, although such equipment is costly to install and operate. A 2019 analysis by the University of Missouri found that it cost $230 per acre annually to install and operate a center pivot irrigation system on a 160-acre field, over and above the normal costs such as seed and fertilizer purchases associated with raising corn or soybeans on that field under rain-fed conditions.

Overall, total irrigated cropland in the United States increased by about one-quarter between 1987 and 2017, according to data collected under USDA’s Census of Agriculture every five years. There has been a marked increase in irrigated cropland acres in the eastern half of the United States over the last several decades, increasing from accounting for only seven percent of irrigated U.S. acres in 1957 to 29 percent as of the 2017 Census of Agriculture. However, as climate change continues, this solution will become increasingly problematic in some regions, as water flow in major surface water systems (such as the Colorado River basin) and groundwater availability both are expected to decline.

Newer technologies, such as seed varieties bred (or genetically engineered) for drought tolerance can also be brought into the mix. As a result of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project undertaken during the first decade of this century by CIMMYT and IATA, both centers of the CGIAR system, millions of African farmers now have access to seed to grow drought-tolerant maize (corn), helping them improve their yields by as much as 30 percent. Much of this work was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Even though this initial DTMA research was conducted using conventional breeding practices, the drought-tolerant trait they created has now been incorporated into corn seed available to U.S. farmers using both conventional breeding and genetic engineering techniques. By 2016, 22 percent of acres planted to corn in the United States had drought-tolerant protection.

The success of the DTMA project has spurred similar research regarding drought tolerance in other major cash crops around the world, including coffee plants in Uganda, soybeans and wheat in Argentina, rice grown in India, the Philippines, and Nepal, and canola in Canada. The drought resistant soybean and wheat varieties in Argentina and the drought resistant rice varieties, developed by scientists in the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), have all been released to farmers in the named countries for production, while the others have not yet reached that stage.

Within the United States, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) has funded a number of such projects, including looking at drought tolerance in potatoes at the University of Maine and in rice at the University of California at Berkeley. The Foundation received an additional $37 million in the recent extension of the 2018 farm bill to continue its work overall, but more investment in research into helping farmers adapt to drought conditions under climate change is needed.

Now's the Time to Transition to a Vertical Farming System

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 14:45:53 GMT

For decades, moldboard plows, disks and field cultivators, all horizontal tillage tools, have been the go-tos for fieldwork. That’s changing as fears about climate change come into focus.

Sooner or later, you’re going to be pushed (or led, depending on your perspective) toward vertical systems by government incentives.

“The world is asking farmers to fight climate change by reducing tillage and planting cover crops,” says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal field agronomist.

“Governments want you to adopt vertical systems to disturb the ground as little as possible and keep it covered year-round — essentially what existed when our cropland was covered by native prairie. I expect climate-smart initiatives will include financial incentives for reduced tillage and cover crops. That will create opportunities for farmers in vertical systems. However, soil layers left by horizontal, full-width tillage systems could cause those vertical systems to fail.”

No one argues horizontal farming doesn’t have advantages.

“Horizontal spring tillage lets us plant into warmer soil with more uniform moisture,” Ferrie says. “That gets plants off to a faster start. Weed control is cheaper, and fewer specialized attachments are required on planters. But unfortunately, horizontal tillage doesn’t match up with the climate incentives I see coming down the pike.”

Vertical farming can be profitable, but it’s harder to manage.

“Among our consulting clients, vertical systems — no-till, strip-till and others — produce the highest return on investment,” Ferrie says. “On the other hand, they also produce the lowest. It depends on whether growers understand and know how to manage their vertical systems.”

What is Vertical Farming?

“Merely no-tilling or using a vertical harrow or similar vertical tool does not mean you’re in a vertical system,” Ferrie says. “A vertical system exists only after all horizontal layers, usually caused by horizontal tillage, are removed, and the soil is managed so as to not put them back in.

“A vertical system lets roots grow downward without restriction,” he adds. “The soil’s bulk density changes gradually, versus suddenly, so roots can adjust and penetrate, rather than flattening out along the top of a layer. Likewise, without sudden density changes, water will move downward and be stored in pore spaces. It will wick back up as water evaporates from the surface of the soil or through plant leaves.”

Horizontal Versus Vertical

“Pretend you have a huge vacuum that sucks up all the loose soil following a tillage pass,” Ferrie says. “After horizontal tillage, you would find a flat horizontal plane. Vertical tillage leaves a rougher sawtooth effect.”

Tools for Vertical Farming

Vertical tools include disk rippers, in-line rippers, chisel plows, field cultivators with spikes instead of sweeps, strip-till bars, row warmers, vertical harrows and no-till planters.

“Most farmers mix and match tools for primary and secondary tillage,” Ferrie says. “In horizontal systems, they might use a vertical tillage tool, such as a disk-ripper, in the fall for primary tillage and follow with a disk or field cultivator when spring rolls around. Or they might make one pass in the spring on soybean stubble with a soil finisher or high-speed disk. But all these secondary tools leave a horizontal tillage layer, a sudden density change that roots might have trouble coping with.”

For vertical farmers, typical programs include:

Chisel plowing in the fall and one or two passes of a vertical harrow in the spring.
Vertical harrowing in the fall, leaving a sterile seedbed for planting in the spring.
Vertical harrowing in the fall, followed by one pass with a vertical harrow in the spring to warm and dry soil for planting.

Conventional vertical tillage is fall primary tillage with a chisel, disk-ripper or in-line ripper (shattering soil across the width of the implement) and leveling in the spring using a vertical tool with no gang angle. “The leveling pass is like screeding concrete — knocking peaks off into the valleys, rather than using a sweep to level soil from below,” Ferrie says.

No-till or strip-till after all the old soil layers have been removed.

Most farmers need to implement multiple practices.

“In some fields, no-till might work great on 70% of the acres, but the other 30%, with drainage or soil-type issues, need to be strip-tilled,” Ferrie says. “So the whole field will work better in a strip-till format. Sometimes a more aggressive fall program is required to manage continuous corn residue, wheel track issues, manure application or new fields that need compaction removed or fertilizer mixed in.”

Golden Rules of Vertical Systems

When consulting clients consider transitioning from a horizontal to a vertical farming system. Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie offers four rules he considers essential:

The shallower a horizontal soil density layer, the more it costs in terms of yield and profit. “A 2"-deep layer causes more problems than an 8" plow sole,” Ferrie says.
The last tillage pass before transitioning to a vertical system must not be horizontal (because it will leave a density layer that will last for years).
Keep the seedbed sacred. “Ear count is always of utmost importance,” Ferrie says. “That requires a perfect seedbed, and creating one takes more management in vertical systems. If you’re not ready to put forth the time and management to achieve a uniform stand in a vertical system, it’s better to remain in a horizontal system.”
Allow three years to transition to a vertical system. “It will take that long to acquire management skills and equipment and prepare your soil for a vertical system,” Ferrie says.

Weather Events Weigh On Ag’s Bottom Line

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 12:00:00 GMT

The world is getting riskier. Just monitoring weather is no longer enough. Agribusinesses and farmers alike need to have a plan designed to navigate weather challenges.
As an example of weather-related costs, ag co-ops’ insurance premiums have risen 40% or more this year.

In 2021, Hurricane Ida’s direct hit on Bayer’s largest glyphosate plant pushed the manufacturing site offline for nearly two months. That one event sent supply shockwaves through the agriculture industry. Bayer saw herbicide sales jump 44% in 2022 after other producers and constrained Chinese suppliers failed to plug the gap.

As extreme weather events affect the profitability of agriculture, here are four areas to bring focus to the ripple effect.

Warmer Oceans Set the stage for storm intensity, weather cycles

“We’ve never had warmer oceans,” says Jon Davis, chief meteorologist with Everstream Analytics. “We care about this because this is the fuel. This is the driver that brings the extreme weather events to the forefront that affect agricultural and energy markets and that affect people on a global basis,” he says.

Using satellites to measure ocean temperatures around the world, meteorologists have recorded the warmest sea surface temperatures in 40 years, Davis explains. Using the technology to explore paleo meteorology, he says it could be extrapolated these are the warmest ocean temperatures in thousands of years.

Ocean temperature fluctuation triggers transitions between El Nino and La Nina events.

“The past three years, we were in a La Nina event with colder than normal water temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific. This is a year of transition. We started out with La Nina conditions, and now we’re seeing moderate El Nino conditions develop,” Davis explains.

The U.S. has experienced more dryness due to the La Nina cycle, but that could change into next year. Davis expects a year of impact from this El Nino.

Hurricane Season

“In the seven global basins in the world, every one has had a Category 5 storm this year. That has never happened,” Davis says.

He says the warmer ocean temperatures provide the fuel to seed this level of storm activity.

“It’s the energy or octane that storms have to rapidly intensify and rapidly develop even in pretty far northern locations,” he says.

Waterway systems

Dryness and drought have brought key waterways to worrying levels for global supply chains and trade. Mississippi River levels are lower this year than they were this time last year. And last year was a historically low water event.

“There’s a couple times a year where it’s game time more than others, and harvest season is one of those periods. You need to have our supply chain operating on all cylinders,” says Soy Transportation Coalition executive director Mike Steenhoek. “It’s a movie sequel none of us wanted to watch, but yet we’re watching it. It’s having an impact on the efficiency of barge transportation.”

This fall, fewer barges are connected to form a single unit. And barges are being loaded to lighter weights.

“This is a major issue from a transportation and logistics standpoint,” Davis says. “There are some alternatives to the Mississippi, but the alternatives are extremely expensive. And there’s certainly no easy answer.”

The supply chain is also being affected by issues on the Panama Canal, which handles 40% of all U.S. container traffic.

“Panama is one of the wettest countries in the world. But they need incredible amounts of fresh water to make the canal work to take ships up 10 stories and then down 10 stories.” Davis says. “It’s all done by fresh water in the lakes in the middle of Panama.”

He notes 80 million gallons of fresh water are required for each of the 15,000 vessels that go through the Panama Canal in a year. Low water levels have slowed traffic since mid-summer. Lake Gatun, the primary lake supporting the canal, is at its lowest seasonal level since 1965.

“We don’t see any improvement in the short term, and we don’t see any in the long term because El Nino tends to suppress rainfall across Panama,” Davis says.

Extreme events bring higher levels of loss

Ken Zuckerberg, lead farm supply and biofuels economist for CoBank, says insurance premiums are on the rise for ag co-ops , and at least one underwriter has exited the space.

“The price of coverage is going up because the markets providing this coverage are worried about these trends — the frequency of events continuing,” he says.
U.S. losses to weather- and climate-related catastrophes totaled $170 billion in 2022, $155 billion in 2021 and $114 billion in 2020. Last year’s total almost tripled the long-term average dating to 1980.

“Higher losses translate to higher rates — i.e., the premium charged per unit of loss exposure—which is logical to adequately compensate the insurance carrier for the increased risk of more frequent and severe losses,” he says.

Zuckerberg reports ag cooperatives paid between 40% to 60% more (risk-adjusted) during the 2023 renewal season. For customers who experienced property losses from 2020 to 2022, insurance rates increased up to 100%.

“Deductibles are increasing — sometimes five times the original level — and there are a lot of exclusions. The devil is in the details,” Zuckerberg describes. “If there was ever a time to dedicate some internal staffing to the risk management function, it’s now.”

El Nino and Climate Change Make a Bad Pairing for Global Agriculture

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 13:47:56 GMT

The combination of the latest El Nino episode, which is a marked increase in Pacific Ocean temperatures, and climate change, have adversely impacted weather and thus agricultural production all over the world over the last few months. In June 2023, NOAA announced that a new El Nino episode is underway, the first one since 2018-2019. To make such a determination, they must find that monthly sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are expected to warm +0.5° Celsius above normal, with the expectation that the warming will persist for at least five consecutive overlapping three month periods. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is the government agency within the U.S. Commerce Department which is charged with “bettering our understanding of our natural world and helping to protect its precious resources, which extends beyond national borders to monitor global weather and climate.”

The effects of El Niño are typically focused in the southern hemisphere, leading to reduced precipitation and increased chances for droughts and wildfire in places such as Indonesia and Australia. However, with the current El Niño only having been identified in the last few months, it may be too early to specifically attribute any recent weather events to this periodic phenomenon.

With respect to the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions that have generated climate change over the last several decades, the levels have resumed their rise in the last few years after slowing as a result of the economic lockdowns imposed in most countries during 2020 due to efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, GHG emissions are estimated to have dropped 4.6 percent in that year, but increased 6.4 percent in 2021 and 0.9 percent in 2022, which was somewhat less than expected. As of May 2023, the U.S. observatory at Mauna Loa in Hawaii recorded a new record high carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration level of 424 ppm, a 7 percent increase since 2010 (figure below).

Source: Climate.gov

Scientists are increasingly attributing the serious weather events that have occurred so far this year to climate change, at least insofar as climate change has extended or amplified certain extreme weather events. These include the recent heat domes that battered the U.S. Southwest earlier this summer–temperatures exceeded 110 degrees F for 31 straight days in Phoenix, AZ–or the extensive wildfires in central Canada that have scorched more than 37 million acres through mid-August. A shift in prevailing winds brought smoke from those wildfires to the U.S. east coast in June, bringing air quality to dangerously hazardous levels in cities like New York and Washington DC.

We do know that the planet experienced its hottest global average temperature on record in early July of this year, with the record being broken on four consecutive days between the 3rd and the 6th according to data collected by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service since 1940. The new record is 17.23 degrees Centigrade (63.1 degrees Fahrenheit). This figure averages temperatures in the northern hemisphere, where it was the height of summer, and the southern hemisphere, where it was the middle of winter. Australia just closed the books on what was likely its warmest winter in history.

One of the most vivid manifestations of climate change in recent years has been the emergence of persistent and expansive wildfires around the world. In 2023, in addition to the Canadian fires mentioned above, wildfires in Hawaii, Laos and Kazahkstan in Asia, Greece and Italy in Europe, Algeria and South Africa in Africa, and Chile and Argentina in Latin America have consumed millions of acres and killed dozens of people so far.

The bad weather caused by the combination of El Nino and climate change has already had some impact on this year’s crops. The winter wheat crop, planted last fall in several Plains states and harvested this summer, received relatively little winter precipitation and was under severe heat stress in key producing states such as Kansas in the early summer. In June 2023, USDA projected a 22 percent decline in that state’s winter wheat production as compared to last year’s level. While the current projection for overall U.S. production level for hard red winter (HRW) wheat is actually slightly increased over last year, it is feared that the weather problems mentioned above likely created serious quality problems for the crop.

The August 2023 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) publication by USDA projected only a modest decline in corn and soybean yields for the 2023/24 crop, despite the severe or extreme drought afflicting key regions of the main producing states in the Midwest. Their current national estimates of 175 bushels/acre for corn and 50.9 bushels/acre for soybeans represent a slight decline relative to recent trends but are still modestly higher than yields for the 2022/23 crops. However, the recently completed Midwest crop tour conducted by Pro Farmer found the August USDA estimates to be slightly inflated, projecting 172 bu/acre for corn and 49.7 bu/acre for soybeans instead.

A significant portion of the world’s agricultural lands was still suffering from low soil moisture and groundwater levels as of late July. The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor indicated that agriculture was most threatened in parts of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and in southwest and eastern parts of Europe and southwest Australia. Despite those areas of concern, USDA was predicting in its August WASDE report that world wheat, rice, and coarse grain production for the 2023/24 crops would be higher than for the last two years, but reduced production is expected in major exporting countries for wheat and only slightly increased for coarse grains and rice exporters. Total exports of wheat and rice are expected to decline in 2023/24 compared to the previous year’s level.

Drought is More than just 'Water Stress' for Corn and Soybeans

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 12:36:24 GMT

This article was written by Jamie Sears Rawlings, manager of Climate-Smart Content at Trust In Food. Learn more at www.trustinfood.com

One of the greatest agronomic challenges facing producers today is the multi-year drought pattern affecting the Corn Belt, says Mike Zwingman, director of agronomy, row crops for Verdesian Life Sciences.

“The impact of drought is more than just water stress,” Zwingman says. “It greatly impacts nutrient uptake and lowers yield potential after drought stress because the plant misses out on some critical nutrient uptake periods.”

As producers in drought-stricken areas monitor how abiotic stress affects their yields, many are looking for solutions to help manage plant health in dry conditions. Nutrient efficiency and management are critical components to creating a more resilient production system.

America’s Conservation Ag Movement sat down with Zwingman to get his perspective on nutrient use, the National Corn Yield Contest and the next generation of products to help producers manage emerging pressures on their operations.

Over your two-decade career in agriculture, how has conservation agriculture evolved?

I don’t think conservation farming principles have changed over the past two decades. No-Till has been a common practice my entire career; cover crops have also existed during that time. What has changed is the focus and intensity of those practices. I understand that none of these practices are new, but how to effectively execute them is the most important lesson I have learned.

Why is nutrient use efficiency important for producers right now? What are some of the factors that are spurring interest?

From the grower’s perspective, economics is the biggest driver of Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE); managing cost of production and yield optimization are two of the most essential things growers can do when prices are so volatile. That is not to say they aren’t worried about conservation issues; often, those things are tied together.

How does nitrogen stabilization and nutrient efficiency fit into your sponsorship of the National Yield Contest’s new Nitrogen Management Class? Why is this new class important for producers? 

We are excited to be part of this new class of the National Yield Contest because it so profoundly aligns with the DNA of who Verdesian is. I have been saying for years that we have significantly improved Nitrogen Use Efficiency in my lifetime; the problem is that it may be one of the best-kept secrets in our industry. This contest gives us the platform to show consumers, and the rest of the value chain, how good at it we really are.

How do nutrient optimization strategies help producers tell their story with the value chain and consumers who are increasingly interested in production methods?

It focuses on many things growers already have been doing to improve Nutrient Use Efficiency and allows them to invest in and explore new technologies that accelerate that improvement. At Verdesian, we support those efforts by developing some of those new technologies as well and providing clarity on how they best fit into a producer’s operation.

How does growing production transparency affect the future of agriculture?

Our customers are more separated from agriculture than ever before in history but also have more concern about how their food is produced as well. This paradox allows for a vast stream of misinformation to flood the internet and mind-space of the end user. We have both the responsibility and opportunity to change that by being more transparent and inviting people to see what we do.

In a segment that has some residual efficacy concerns from early bad actors, what are some ways Verdesian has been successfully communicating the value of biological products to producers?  

For us, it all starts with explaining exactly how a specific product works either in the soil or in the plant to benefit Nutrient Use Efficiency. That begins with the hard work of the people in our lab to identify modes of action as we go to the field to generate yield data for the grower. We also work extremely hard to get the recommendation on how to use it in the field. We have the right processes in place to allow us to do both those things.

What does the next generation of grower solutions look like, and how is your R&D addressing the challenges growers are facing today and the burgeoning demand for sustainable products? 

I am extremely proud of and excited about the products in our pipeline. Soon we plan on having releases in the micronutrient space, phosphorus enhancers category, and some new technology for the planter box. All of those new technologies address stress management and NUE.

Why is it important for Verdesian Life Sciences to be part of coalitions like America’s Conservation Ag Movement and Agriculture’s Clean Water Alliance? 

There is no better indicator of what is important to a company’s culture than where it invests its talent, money and other resources. At Verdesian, we are committed to developing new technologies that enhance Nutrient Use Efficiency to benefit the environment, grower sustainability and the end user, because that is who we are.

Are Arizona Crops Sizzling as Temperatures Soar? One Farmer Says the Heat is Normal for July

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 22:23:40 GMT

Global temperatures may have set a new record in July, according to some early analyses. As the high U.S. temperatures stole headlines this week, the Biden administration rolled out provisions to protect workers from extreme heat.

The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, says scientists confirmed July is on track to be the world’s hottest month on record. One study suggested global temperatures in July could beat the previous record set in 2019 by 0.2 degree Fahrenheit.

Arizona is seeing a streak of heat. Earlier this month, Phoenix broke a 1974 record for the consecutive number of days the temperature reached more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service.

Yuma County, Arizona farmer John Boelts says the heat people are experiencing in his area is typical for July.

“The heat always impacts us, but I think the best way to describe it is we’re used to that,” says Boelts, who along with his wife, Alicia, operates Desert Premium Farms in Yuma, Ariz. “That’s normal weather for July and the low desert here in Yuma,” he adds.

The streak of heat in Arizona isn’t the only news generator this week. The state also recorded the all-time record low one day this week, when Phoenix Sky Harbor reached a low of 97 degrees on Wednesday. That made it the highest low temperature ever recorded on July 26 in the city.

“As a teenager starting to work in ag full time myself, I can remember leaving to go to work and passing the bank signs, long before we all had thermometers in our vehicles, and it was not unusual to see 94, 95 or 99 degrees at sunup here in Yuma as you’re driving through town headed out to the field. So that’s kind of what we’re experiencing now,” he says.

His area is known for growing crops like leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower that are then shipped across the U.S. and Canada, but those crops aren’t grown during the heat of the summer in Arizona.

“This time of year, we know it’s going to be hot. So we’re growing crops like cotton and sudangrass, and we’re preparing our land in a way that’s appropriate for the time of year and the season in this type of weather, because we’ll start planting fall melons and our winter produce crops in August,” Boelts says.

Crops like cotton need heat and a lot of sunshine, making it ideal for Arizona in the summer. Boelts says he and other farmers were more challenged by the second consecutive year of record cool temperatures in May and June.

Blame It (Partially) On El Nino

What’s causing the warm temperatures that parked across the South and Southwest earlier this month, but then crept into the Midwest this week? USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey says for the South, the problem heat started in mid-June.

“That’s when we started to see some trouble brewing in Texas. More recently, that’s expanded into the western United States, especially the Desert Southwest. That heat that’s coming up from the South is likely more related to El Nino than anything we’ve seen to this point,” says Rippey. “So, you can likely blame some of that high heat in Texas and Arizona, for example, on the developing El Nino.”

Rippey says there’s also some linkage to the high pressure system over Canada and the heat over Texas this week.

“It’s sort of a blend between blocks, if you will, and that is creating some of the extreme heat that we’re seeing in the western Corn Belt and in the Great Plains this week. But again, that’s not completely related to El Nino,” Rippey adds.

NOAA officials declared El Nino arrived in June, but the signs of it have been minimal so far. Earlier this year, some officials predicted the arrival of El Nino would bring ample rainfall to the Corn Belt and other favorable changes. However, Rippey says the current summer weather isn’t too far off course with a typical El Nino.

“The thing about El Nino is its biggest impacts on the northern hemisphere weather typically occur during the cool season as you move into October and beyond, so that October to April timeframe,” Rippey says. “That’s when you see the consistent signal within Nino, usually wet in the southern United States, mild and often dry across the North.”

Signs of Change

He says those El Nino effects are still months away, but for now, El Nino is a contributing factor to the heat in the deep South.

As Boelts manages Arizona heat every year, he says this year he and other residents are hopeful the moisture situation continues to turn more favorable not only for where he lives, but also to support the water level in the Colorado River.

“We know we’re not going to get a lot of rainfall, so we’re very dependent on being able to irrigate our crops with Colorado River water,” he says. “And we’ve been very excited to see that the Colorado River watershed has received a lot of moisture this year, not just in Arizona, where we contribute heavily to the Colorado River watershed, but also in the in the upper parts of the basin in Utah and Colorado. We’re moving in the right direction, refilling those reservoirs. And so we’re hopeful that we’re at the beginning of a trend of improvement.”

Ag Climate Data Collection to be Improved with $300 Million Investment

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 21:24:05 GMT

Ag accounts for 11.2 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to a USDA’s 2020 estimates . While these estimates are two years old, USDA intends to improve the future measure, monitoring, reporting and verification of ag climate emissions via a $300 million investment announced on Wednesday.

“We have to improve the scientific backbone of our programs. This new investment by USDA in improving data and measurement of greenhouse gas emissions…is unmatched in its scope and potential to increase accuracy, reduce uncertainty and enhance overall confidence in these estimates,” says Tom Vilsack, USDA secretary. “We’re data driven, and we seek continuous improvement in our climate-smart agriculture and forestry efforts.”

With the funds and stakeholder recommendations in tow, USDA says it will:

• Create a soil carbon monitoring and research network
• Establish a GHG network
• Expand data management, infrastructure and capacity
• Improve models and tools for assessing GHG outcomes at state, regional and national levels
• Improve NRCS conservation standards and use data to reflect GHG capture opportunities
• Revamp coverage of conservation activity data
• Strengthen GHG inventory and assessment programs at the USDA

The investment follows the ethanol industry calling out the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for using obsolete data to measure ethanol’s GHG contributions.

“EPA is using outdated analysis from more than a decade ago to measure the carbon intensity of ethanol and other biofuels, despite the Department of Energy having updated data,” says Chris Bliley, Growth Energy’s senior vice president. “This practice limits ethanol markets.”

Related story: Fuels Parity Act Could Open a New Market Door for Ethanol

New legislation, titled the Fuels Parity Act , was introduced in the U.S. House to address the EPA GHG data and market limitations. While this act could help open market doors, the Food and Ag Climate Alliance (FACA)—an 80+ member ag coalition that includes committee members from groups such as Farm Bureau and NASDA—is confident this USDA funding will help pry open market doors as well.

“FACA supports science-based evaluation mechanisms for GHG quantification that account for the diversity and breadth of ag and forestry production systems. This work is critical to enhancing trust and confidence in the measurement of emissions outcomes that will allow new markets to flourish,” said FACA in a press release .

The $300 million will be tapped from the $20 billion Inflation Reduction Act that was signed into law in August 2022.

Conservation and CRP Rates Discussed in Latest House Panel Hearing

Thu, 25 May 2023 14:49:22 GMT

During a House Agriculture Conservation, Research and Biotechnology Subcommittee hearing , lawmakers discussed concerns about the ability of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) to manage new climate-related funding, staffing challenges, and CRP payment rates.

Leaders of the NRCS and FSA are tasked with addressing staffing shortfalls to deliver conservation and farm programs and implement new climate-related funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) suggested that the NRCS might only be able to spend around $3.9 billion of the $4.95 billion allocated to it under the IRA for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).

Terry Cosby, NRCS Chief, expressed confidence in the agency’s ability to administer these funds, mentioning a recent notice of funding availability that made up to $500 million available for FY 2023. The influx of IRA money has allowed the NRCS to offer more contracts under programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

Lawmakers questioned the barriers to hiring new staff, to which Cosby replied that a lack of college graduates in relevant fields was a limitation. The agency is collaborating with land grant universities to address this issue. The agency has received 1,500 applications for 200 openings for soil conservationists around the country, although it is murky how many will meet all the requirements.

Who understands carbon sequestration?

Questions were also raised about the current knowledge gap around carbon sequestration and its impact on current and future programs. Both Cosby and FSA Administrator Zach Ducheneaux emphasized the importance of accurate data for driving enrollment and participation in these programs.

House Ag Chairman G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) Thompson added that he also thinks lawmakers should revisit restrictions placed on the IRA funding that look to target it to climate-related efforts, saying he believes local resource concerns should guide how it is spent.

“We can’t prioritize one natural resource concern over all others and we shouldn’t prioritize one solution above all others,” he said.

On the farm bill front

Thompson raised the possibility of bringing some IRA conservation funding into farm bill baseline. He used the hearing to approach a big issue: The nearly $20 billion in funding for conservation programs contained in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The funding is not currently included in the baseline for the next farm bill, and Thompson suggested that a portion of the funds should be brought into the baseline. That would make it easier for lawmakers to shift those funds to other efforts in the farm bill.

Included in the funding were $8.45 billion for the cost-sharing Environmental Quality Incentives Programs; $3.25 billion for the Conservation Stewardship Program, directed toward working lands; $4.95 billion for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which coordinates stewardship on multiple properties; $1.4 billion for the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program; $1 billion for conservation technology assistance; and $300 million to measure carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas reductions from conservation practices.

Discussion about the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) focused on rental rates for transitioning farmland to conservation and the competition with farmers for prime land. Both Ducheneaux and Cosby highlighted the efforts to provide data and incentives to make the best choices for land use and conservation.

Some lawmakers say the CRP is paying farmers to take land out of production that competes with farmers looking to rent farmland. The rental rates were capped in the 2018 Farm Bill, but USDA has offered incentives and adjustments to CRP rents in a bid to attract more acres.

Subcommittee member Brad Finstad (R-Minn.) said CRP payment rates were higher than they should be and making it hard for farmers to find additional cropland. Increasing program payments as the Biden administration did in 2021 in a bid to boost CRP enrollment “incentivizes farm country to take high-quality land out of production,” Finstad said.

Young farmers especially say high CRP rates have essentially “forced them to compete with the federal government” for land, Finstad said. But Ducheneaux countered that CRP incentives “give the producers a meaningful choice” about what to do with their land. He said FSA was looking at refining its use of an erodibility index to more precisely evaluate land that is being offered for enrollment.

“The choice that they [landowners] make with their resources is not for us to dictate. Our job is to get the opportunity out there in front of them, so that they make the best choice,” Ducheneaux said.

Background

About 23 million acres are currently enrolled in the program at the end of March, including 8.4 million in general sign-up, which is aimed at larger tracts; 8.2 million in continuous sign-up, which is focused on smaller, more environmentally sensitive tracts, and 6.4 million in the grasslands option.

Two million acres enrolled through the general or continuous sign-up options are scheduled to leave the program in October unless they are re-enrolled, including 1.5 million acres enrolled via general signups and 500,000 acres enrolled via continuous CRP efforts.

Contracts currently scheduled to expire in September 2024 fall to only 480,000 and rise to just shy of 1 million acres in September 2025. Through the end of March, just over 44,000 acres were enrolled via the continuous signup in FY 2023 while 888,000 acres were enrolled in FY 2022. Annual CRP enrollment is capped at 27 million acres under the 2018 Farm Bill.

NASA’s Newest Mission is Focused on Helping U.S. Farmers

Thu, 25 May 2023 12:38:23 GMT

When you think of NASA, do missions to the moon or Mars come to mind? If so, you might be surprised to learn that NASA is focused increasingly on missions closer to home – those on planet Earth.

“We have 26 different missions underway, with satellites orbiting Earth, studying the entire planet as a system—the land, the atmosphere, the oceans, all of it,” says Karen St. Germain, director for science at NASA.

The information gleaned by NASA scientists today is disseminated to various organizations for use, including USDA. For instance, data gathered by NASA routinely informs the USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) monthly reports.

NASA’s Role In Agriculture

As the agency looks to the future, St. Germain says NASA expects to work more closely with farmers and other members of the agriculture community through a new program called Acres.

Established in March, Acres is a consortium of partners working across the U.S. agricultural spectrum to develop observatory-based data and tools to help increase food production, while protecting or restoring soil, water and other natural resources, says Alyssa Whitcraft,

founding director and a professor in the department of geographical sciences at the University of Maryland. University staff provide administration and oversight for Acres.

She says initial objectives developed for Acres are based on feedback from Midwest farmers, gathered during individual and group discussions in 2022.

Three of the consortium partners’ broad objectives for Acres include:
1. Supporting a deeper understanding of U.S. agricultural land use, productivity and sustainability
2. Developing on-farm decision support tools for smart agronomy
3. Strengthening environmental and human resilience to climate change and global hazards

“Farmers and ranchers are looking for information to help them make all sorts of decisions, from water use to what crops to plant and when,” says St. Germain, in a press release. “NASA is always looking for new ways to help people find and use science to inform their decisions, so we’re very excited about this new consortium to help America’s farmers use NASA Earth science data.” Read more here: The New Space Jam: Delivering 51 Years of Satellite Data to America’s Producers

‘Down To Earth’ Applications

Some specific applications for the data include: helping to optimize nitrogen applications and irrigation scheduling to support early detection of pests and disease; to provide information tools to support local food production; and to bolster soil health, says Brad Doorn, NASA program manager for water resources and agriculture.

“We want farmers to know that their space agency has an agriculture program that is focused on understanding their needs and finding solutions with them,” Doorn says.

In recent years, NASA has been working to ensure that members of the U.S. agriculture industry are connected directly to the agency’s agriculture work, particularly through its Earth Applied Sciences program.

NASA Acres builds on the success of NASA Harvest, a globally focused consortium also based at the University of Maryland.

More information about Acres and how to get involved is available at nasaacres.org.

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Ag Will be Granted $11 Million to be Part of the Climate "Solution"

Tue, 16 May 2023 20:10:03 GMT

John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, highlighted the need to address ag sector emissions in the fight against climate change during his keynote address at USDA’s recent AIM for Climate Summit. He noted that ag production accounts for 33% of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it essential to focus on reducing these emissions in the pursuit of a net-zero future.

“We can’t get to net zero, we don’t get this job done, unless ag is front and center as part of the solution,” Kerry said.

Details

Ag generates 10% to 12% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The food system as a whole —including packaging, transportation, and waste management — generates a third of global emissions, according to a 2021 study published in the academic journal Nature Food.

As the global population continues to grow, emissions from food systems are projected to cause an additional half a degree of warming by mid-century. Kerry stressed that lives depend on developing the necessary tools to lower ag emissions, urging for innovation within the sector. The global food system, which encompasses land-use change, agricultural production, packaging, and waste management, generates approximately 18 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, or 34% of total worldwide emissions.

A Farmer’s Reflection on Climate

Fox Business News recently interviewed Nicole Ort Moke of Ort Farms. She said “agriculture is very green and as farmers we are the most invested in keeping the land sustainable, keeping it viable for future generations. And everything we do, environmentally, that’s always at the top of our mind.”

Nicole was asked to comment about making planters and other farm equipment electric vehicles.

“Going electric with the tractors, the concerns that I have are, are they able to be efficient enough with keeping up the battery life and having enough horsepower for us to be able to feed the nation in an economic, affordable way?”

The outlet then talked with Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish author and the president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is the former director of the Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen. He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Lomborg was asked if the U.S needs to restrict farming on a vast scale. Lomborg’s response:

“What John Kerry is telling us is that a third of all emissions come from farming, most of that is in developing countries and remember, what is it that is also mostly a core part of the world? It’s a lot of people starving. There’s something fundamentally wrong about that. Look, there’s maybe 750 million people who are starving, but do we need to make it harder to do ag? No. The solution is focused on innovation. First, what matters a lot more is to get cheaper and more food so you can feed your kids. That’s not what John Kerry is pushing for,” he says. “Secondly, if we innovate to have better ag that produces more at lower cost, it also helps the environment because it reduces climate emissions because you don’t need to cut down a lot of forests.”

Upshot

Lomborg says Kerry’s solution to the climate problem is not going to work and should be withdrawn. He says the U.S. and other countries should be spending the money that we’re spending on innovation and technology.

“Look at all the other problems that are also facing the world. All these problems have smart solutions as we just talked about for ag. This is about getting more innovation, especially for the world’s poorest for cassava and sorghum and all these other grains… all these other ag products that don’t get a lot of funding because they’re not growing in rich countries. Those could be better, cheaper, more effectively produced. More production, lower price and lower emissions.”

The pros and cons of focusing on U.S. ag’s climate change:

Pros:

Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions: Agriculture is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane and nitrous oxide. By focusing on sustainable farming practices, emissions can be reduced.
Carbon sequestration: Certain agricultural practices, such as cover cropping and no-till farming, can help sequester carbon in the soil, reducing atmospheric CO2 levels.
Improved water management: Sustainable agriculture can help manage water resources more efficiently, reducing stress on freshwater sources and mitigating the effects of droughts and floods.
Biodiversity protection: Promoting agricultural practices that protect habitats and ecosystems can contribute to biodiversity conservation and support ecosystem services that are crucial for human well-being.
Food security: Climate-resilient agricultural practices can help ensure a stable food supply in the face of climate change-induced threats like extreme weather events, pests, and diseases.
Economic benefits: Investing in sustainable agriculture can create jobs and stimulate economic growth in rural areas, fostering the development of green technologies and practices.

Cons:

Short-term economic costs: Transitioning to sustainable agricultural practices may require significant investments in new technologies, infrastructure, and training, which could be costly in the short term.
Resistance to change: Farmers and other stakeholders might be resistant to change due to a lack of understanding, financial incentives, or concerns about potential negative impacts on their livelihoods.
Trade-offs and unintended consequences: Focusing on agriculture alone may not be sufficient to address climate change, and some solutions might lead to trade-offs with other environmental, social, or economic objectives.
Political challenges: Policy changes necessary to support sustainable agriculture may face opposition from powerful interest groups, such as the agribusiness sector or the fossil fuel industry, making it difficult to implement effective policies.
Global coordination: While focusing on U.S. agriculture can contribute to mitigating climate change, it’s essential to recognize that climate change is a global problem that requires international cooperation and coordination to address effectively.

While people like Kerry say this focus can yield significant environmental, social, and economic benefits, others note there are challenges to overcome, such as the short-term costs, resistance to change, and the need for global coordination.

The news comes as USDA announces $11 billion for rural clean energy transition. The Biden administration plans to make nearly $11 billion in grants and loan opportunities available to rural electric providers to help them transition to clean energy.

This represents the largest investment in rural electricity since the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. The funds aim to support cleaner energy, create new jobs, reduce energy costs, and combat climate change.

Clean energy grant details

The Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program will make $9.7 billion available to eligible rural electric cooperatives for deploying renewable energy systems, zero-emission systems, and carbon capture systems.

The Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program will provide $1 billion in partially forgivable loans to renewable-energy developers and electric service providers for financing large-scale solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydropower projects, and energy storage systems.

To apply for the New ERA program, eligible entities must submit a Letter of Interest between July 31 and August 31.

For the PACE program, USDA will accept Letters of Interest starting on June 30 until Sept.29. Loans through the PACE program may be forgiven by 40% of the loan amount, and up to 60% for applicants in Puerto Rico, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, and Tribal communities.

Background on energy grants

Cooperatives are tax-exempt and can’t take advantage of renewable energy tax credits that large power companies can get. The loans and grants are meant to fill that gap and speed rural America’s transition to clean energy, instead of coal and oil-burning power plants.

The funds can be used to deploy renewable energy systems, zero emission systems and carbon capture systems.

Doomsday Addiction: Celebrating 50 years of Failed Climate Predictions

Fri, 05 May 2023 12:58:32 GMT

The apocalypse is tomorrow, and if not, the day after will do. Declarations of the world’s demise are a dime a dozen, the fare of dignitaries, politicians, scientists, and celebs: The end is nigh—and getting nigher.

Coupled to the certainty of doomsday is the fall of farming. Hand in hand, Armageddon and agriculture are bedmates. On March 20, 2023, the United Nations warned of humanity’s ticking “time-bomb,” and released a “report of reports” enumerating a multi-trillion-dollar plan to implement climate policies across the globe. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proclaimed the report a “survival guide for humanity” and called for the phase-out of fossil fuels: “Dear friends, humanity is on thin ice—and that ice is melting fast.”

Guterres’ remarks were particularly ironic, considering only a month earlier a Global Energy Monitor report revealed China’s expansion of coal capacity to unprecedented levels—six times larger than the rest of the world combined—via the construction of two new coal plants per week.

Despite Guterres’ pronouncement , there is nothing new under the sun—no matter how hot or cold it burns. A quick look at 50 years of cataclysmic predictions is in order.

Goodnight, Irene

In the 1960s, overpopulation and famine forecasts were all the rage. Despite the Green Revolution, which spurred crop yields across the globe, Paul Erlich, a Stanford biologist and end times prophet, preached a starvation gospel: “The Green Revolution...is going to turn brown.”

In 1968, with world population at 3.5 billion (7.9 billion as of 2023), Erlich penned The Population Bomb and lobbed an incendiary grenade in the opening lines of his prologue: The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…

Lauded by the press, Erlich amplified insistence on a “dying planet” and ramped up his warnings.

August 10, 1969, Erlich in the New York Times: “We must realize that unless we are extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.”

April 1970, Erlich in Mademoiselle: “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

Erlich was not alone. In the early 1970s, a host of voices supported his beliefs.

Harvard biologist and Nobel Prize winner George Wald , speaking at the University of Rhode Island in November 1970: “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

Dennis Hayes, key organizer of Earth Day, in The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970: “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”

Kenneth Watt, UC Davis ecologist: “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

Next up, the Ice Age cometh.

Big Cold

In 1970, as greenhouse theorists pushed a rise in average temperature, plenty of prognosticators asserted a big freeze. Kenneth Watt sounded the ice alarm, speaking in Pennsylvania at Swarthmore College: “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

Also in 1970, the Boston Globe ran with a chilling headline, “Scientist Predicts A New Ice Age By 21^st Century.” In the associated article, researcher James Lodge warned, “Air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the next century if population continues to grow and earth’s resources are consumed at the present rate…”

The Guardian, Jan. 29, 1974, echoed the Globe: “Spy Satellites Show New Ice Age is Coming Fast.”

Time joined the cooling trend June 22, 1974: “Telltale signs are everywhere, from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7 F.”

Newsweek weighed in on April 28, 1975, warning that global cooling would significantly impact agriculture. “There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production…”

“The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the Earth’s climate seems to be cooling down,” the Newsweek article continued. “Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.”

Following Newsweek, the New York Times piped in on July 18, 1976, with additional gloom on agriculture’s demise attributed to global cooling. “… the news for the future is not all good. The climate is going to get unreliable. It is going to get cold. Harvest failures and regional famines will be more frequent. Weather will probably make history—again.”

“The relationship of global climate to food supplies is a case in point: climatic researchers are becoming alarmed that in the next 10 to 100 years humanity will be unable to feed itself—not through technological insufficiency or political mischief—but because of climatic changes that it can barely understand or control.”

Even in 1978, global cooling was a “No End” fact, according to another New York Times article: “An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.”

However, just a year after the global cooling article, the New York Times predicted catastrophe via global warming in a February 1979 story : “Climatologists Are Warned North Pole Might Melt,” featuring a jarring opening paragraph: “There is a real possibility that some people now in their infancy will live to a time when the ice at the North Pole will have melted, a change that would cause swift and perhaps catastrophic changes in climate.”

It was the end of the 1970s and big cold failed to arrive. Bring on big heat.

Baking and Burning

Acid rain concerns kicked off the 1980s, but generally were replaced late in the decade with a flood of headlines on heat, greenhouse effect, and sea levels.

In 1982, Mostafa Tolba , executive director of the UN’s Environment Program, pointed to the possibility of widespread devastation in less than 20 years. He cited “an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust.”

On June 30, 1989, the Associated Press squeezed decimation into a tight, 11-year window, with an ominous article, “Rising Seas Could Obliterate Nations,” containing a jaw-dropping opener: “A senior UN environmental official (Noel Brown) says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”

In 1990, aware the apocalypse was stalled, Mostafa Tolba, doubled down: “We shall win or lose the climate struggle in the first years of the 1990s. The issue is as urgent as that.”

In February 1993, Thomas Lovejoy, assistant secretary for Environmental and External Affairs at the Smithsonian Institution, stressed the world had one remaining decade of opportunity to avoid calamity. “I am utterly convinced that most of the great environmental struggles will be either won or lost in the 1990s and by the next century it will be too late.”

The 1990s was a steady chain of doomsday assurances, but the heaviest hyperbole was yet to be unleashed.

Cannibals, Toast, and Chaos

In 2006, former vice-president Al Gore projected that unless drastic measures were implemented, the planet would hit an irreversible “point of no return” by 2016. Game over.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Climate Panel, one-upped Gore in 2007, insisting 2012 was the year of irreversibility. “If there is no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

In April 2008, media mogul Ted Turner provided far more detail than either Gore or Pachauri, emphasizing the consequences of climate inaction. “Not doing it will be catastrophic. We’ll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not 10 but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state like Somalia or Sudan, and living conditions will be intolerable. The droughts will be so bad there’ll be no more corn growing.”

The acclaimed godfather of global warming, James Hansen, drew a line in the sand testifying before Congress in June 2008, on the dangers of greenhouse gases: “We’re toast if we don’t get on a very different path. This is the last chance.”

A year later, in July 2009, then-Prince Charles chimed in, asserting the planet had 96 months to avoid decimation: “…irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it.”

Only three months later, UK prime minister Gordon Brown urged nations to pull a historical handbrake ahead of a climate conference: “There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years and more. If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. By then, it will be irretrievably too late.”

In 2014, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius upped Brown’s 50 days to 500. “We have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

Twelve years to 2031. In January 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put her chips on 2031 as the potential end of days. “Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it? And, like, this is the war—this is our World War ll.”

Eleven years to 2030. Echoing Ocasio-Cortez in March 2019, but shaving off a year, UN General Assembly President Maria Garces declared an 11-year window to escape catastrophe: “We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet.”

In June 2019, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden threw his support behind Ocasio-Cortez’s dozen-year projection: “Science tells us that how we act or fail to act in the next 12 years will determine the very livability of our planet.”

Full circle back to 2023, and the UN’s latest “ time-bomb ,” released March 20, as described by the Associated Press : “Humanity still has a chance close to the last to prevent the worst of climate change’s future harms…”

In step with near annual UN declarations from the past 50 years, Secretary-General Guterres once again sounded the alarm: “The climate time-bomb is ticking.”

But therein lies the beauty of doomsday predictions: When one fails, make another.

For more from Chris Bennett (cbennett@farmjournal.com 662-592-1106) see:

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Judas Goats: Agriculture’s Bizarre, Drug-Addicted Masters of Deceit Once Ruled the Killing Floor

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

Young Farmer uses YouTube and Video Games to Buy $1.8M Land

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

The Arrowhead whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

US Farming Loses the King of Combines

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Rat Hunting with the Dogs of War, Farming’s Greatest Show on Legs

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Latest IPCC report predicts dismal consequences for global agriculture due to climate change

Wed, 03 May 2023 14:10:43 GMT

On March 20, 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released its 6th Assessment Report (AR6), which looks at the likelihood that current and planned climate change mitigation activity will succeed in keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Centigrade (C), and the implications of the likely path of climate change for the global economy. Data on greenhouse gas emissions used in the analysis are from 2019, and do not reflect any changes in economic activity that occurred as a result of COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns that occurred worldwide. The previous report (AR5) was released in 2014, prior to the commitments that 195 countries made to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Paris Accord, which was negotiated in December 2015.

The IPCC is the arm of the United Nations charged with advancing scientific knowledge about climate change and its likely impact on the world we live in. They recruit scientific experts from multiple relevant disciplines from around the world to produce and assemble peer-reviewed reports on a periodic basis that reflect the most recent credible research about how climate change impacts both the natural environment and man-made infrastructure, and the physical and economic implications of those impacts. The Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) for the sixth round of IPCC assessments can be found here .

Overall, the report finds that, to date, the planet has warmed approximately 1.1 degrees C since the end of the 19th century due to a steady increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and that countries which are signatories to the Paris Accord have not implemented policies that will put the planet on a path to keep us below that crucial 1.5 degrees C threshold. In fact, at our current rate of GHG emissions, the authors estimate that we will have cumulatively exhausted the global carbon budget that would keep us below 1.5 degrees by about 2030, or less than ten years from now. In order to avoid that likely scenario of overshooting that 1.5 degree C target, governments will need to undertake immediate and deep GHG emission reductions in all sectors during this decade.

Globally, the agricultural sector (including forestry) accounted for about 22 percent of GHG emissions in 2019, when land use changes stemming from agriculture are included. The increasing temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events (such as droughts and floods) that have occurred already due to the current levels of GHG gasses in the atmosphere have exposed millions of additional people in developing countries to both food security and water security problems. Although agricultural productivity has increased in recent years, that rate is slower than it otherwise might have been due to climate change. A 2021 article published in Nature Climate Change found that climate change has hampered growth in agricultural productivity in recent decades, estimating that agricultural productivity growth cumulatively is 21 percent lower than it otherwise would have been since 1961 if climate change were not a factor. Ocean warming and acidification has impacted the health of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors worldwide. Studies that separate out climate change from other factors affecting crop yields have shown that yields of some crops (e.g., maize and wheat) in many lower-latitude regions have been affected negatively by observed climate changes, while in many higher-latitude regions, yields of some crops (e.g., maize, wheat, and sugar beets) have been affected positively over recent decades.

The SPM report identifies a number of steps that can be taken in the food and agriculture sector to help farmers adapt to the effects of climate change. They include:
• cultivar (seed) improvements,
• on-farm water management and storage,
• soil moisture conservation,
• irrigation,
• agroforestry,
• community-based adaptation,
• and farm and landscape level diversification in agriculture.

However, some farmers, especially those with limited resources in developing countries, face financial or institutional constraints in adapting their operations to climate change. To date, there has been very limited funding made available from either public or private sources to help smallholder farmers with adaptation strategies. According to the United Nation’s International Fund on Agricultural Development (IFAD), smallholder farmers receive only 1.7 percent of global climate finance funding, despite cumulatively accounting for roughly one-third of global agricultural production.

The report warns that the effectiveness of adaptation measures will wane with increasing warming over time. The higher the magnitude and the longer the duration of overshoot of the 1.5 degree C target, the more ecosystems and societies are exposed to greater and more widespread changes in climatic impact-drivers, increasing risks for many natural and human systems.

A lengthy separate report entitled Special Report on Climate Change and Land issued in 2022 has a chapter on food security which provides more detailed information than the SPM report. Modeled estimates of corn (maize) production suggest yield declines of 10 to 20 percent in many parts of the world if we overshoot the 1.5 degrees C target by a significant amount, and that modeled results reflect only changing climatic conditions and not the likely impact of increased pest and crop disease pressure, which would further increase losses. On the livestock side, higher temperatures would adversely impact the health and reproductive capability of ruminant animals, decrease the nutrient uptake from forage and grazing, and increase the cost of operating intensive livestock facilities such as confined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s), due both to higher feed costs and higher energy costs to keep the animals cool in summer and warm in the winter. The global aquaculture sector will also be impacted, due to short-term losses due to extreme weather events to both current production and infrastructure damage, while in the longer-term, aquaculture operations could suffer from lack of access to fish seed and fresh water and eutrophication of their water-holding facilities.

John Phipps: There's Only One Thing Worse Than a Wet Spring

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 20:23:40 GMT

One of the advantages of advancing age is the ability to start worrying earlier. For farmers who essentially do the same things at the same times each year, we gradually accumulate a mental file of what those years were like. Most fade into a mass of average growing seasons, but those with particular problems stick in memory more clearly.

For our farm, many ghosts of the past that haunt me are wet years. And even though it’s only the first of April, my brain has decided “why wait until the last second to begin fretting?” While the northern Midwest coped with snow and storms, until March our winter was remarkably mild albeit short on sunshine. A lot of fieldwork was completed in mid-winter. Then after that deceptively warm, dry February, the familiar “cruelest month” began to live up to its name.

On the bright side, our worries from last year about soil moisture inventory are laid to rest, but the specter of a Wet Spring now looms larger. Mid- and long-range forecasts, which we have come to trust more each year speak consistently of colder and wetter than usual days ahead.

Unlike abnormally dry years, soggy ground can’t be corrected with one thunderstorm overnight. Not only does the rain have to stop, but we will need wind and sun for days before we set foot in fields.

Our strange habit of seeking out news of areas even worse off to make us feel better really only concentrates our anxiety. Recollections of Seasons from Heck expand to apocalyptic proportions with each recitation. Even our determined efforts to look on the bright side, like congratulating ourselves for doing a lot of drainage work is thin comfort.

I think my own concerns originated in the words of a climatologist decades ago when he predicted larger and more frequent rain events as the climate changed.

The Corn Belt is a mashup of too wet and too dry every year, and each farm has its own unique weak spot. Around here, a delightful series of relatively benign planting seasons has undoubtedly encouraged that fabled false sense of security, encouraging some to push the limits of machines, humans, and productivity.

If you already run extended hours and enormous machines, what happens when the time available is shrunk drastically? No wonder we hate wet planting seasons. They are the worst. Except for wet harvests, of course.

Making Every Single Drop of Water Count

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 06:00:00 GMT

By Martin Pasman: Tigre, Buenos Aires, Argentina

I farm in a permanent drought.

I farm in a region in Argentina so dry that we receive less than 20 inches of rain each year. Because rain rarely falls from the sky, we have to pump it from beneath the ground and put it into a sophisticated system of crop production that increases the efficiency of our water use.

We must make every single drop of water count.

Our problem is in fact everyone’s challenge. We live in a world of water scarcity—and water will become only more precious as the global population swells beyond 8 billion people and the climate continues to change in unpredictable ways.

Unfortunately, many people never think about water at all. They turn on their faucets and it flows freely. They treat it as a bottomless resource and take it for granted.

World Water Day , marked every year on March 22, gives us an opportunity to recognize the tests that lie ahead. They are considerable. Only a tiny amount of the world’s water is freshwater, but it takes as many as 5,000 liters of water to produce a person’s daily food, according to the United Nations. That’s enough water to fill more than 16 standard-sized bathtubs to the brim.

That’s a lot of water, and soon we’re going to need a lot more of it. Between now and 2050, says the National Intelligence Council of the United States, water consumption may increase by as much as 50 percent.

To keep pace, we’re all going to have to use water more carefully. The solution will require more efficiency and conservation. Farmers have a big part to play because about 70 percent of the freshwater that people use globally is invested in agriculture.

It also means that the future may look like my farm, where we measure and monitor water all the time because we can’t afford to waste any of it.

Our most important tool to increase water use efficiency is a technique: no-till agriculture .

This means that as we grow corn, soybeans, and wheat, we don’t disturb the soil with plowing, which is a traditional way of preparing the soil and controlling weeds. We break the soil only once every four years, as we rotate our crops and plant potatoes and onions.

The rest of the time, we keep the soil in place and rely on safe crop-protection products, which fight the weeds that seek to steal water and nutrients from our fields. The corn and soybeans are especially useful in this endeavor because they are GM, which means they are built to defeat weeds and are ideally suited to our goals of water conservation.

The no-till technique improves the soil’s infiltration, reducing the amount of moisture that runs off our fields or evaporates into the air. It allows our water to work for the benefit of our crops.

I’m proud to say that Argentina is a pioneer in the development of no-till agriculture, and South America leads the world in the adoption of this water-conservation method.

The water we use comes from deep below our farm. With wells that penetrate more than 300 feet into the ground, we tap into an aquifer . This feeds our system of center-pivot irrigation , which then supplies the water to our crops. Each pivot has its own well.

As we deliver water to our crops, we strive to maximize both yield and conservation, giving the plants the exact amount of water they need to flourish and never more. This involves precise measurements as well as good timing because we want water to arrive during the key stages of a crop’s growth.

We measure the daily use of water of our crops with a weather station and monitoring our soil moisture to know the outputs of water. On the other hand, we measure the amount of irrigation and rain that our crops receive. With all this data we make a weekly water balance to check if our “soil water account” is in red or blue so we can correct quickly

To make sure we’re doing our best, we use soil probes to measure moisture and satellite images to study results. Both technologies are important to our work right now, and we believe they soon will improve significantly and help us conserve even more water.

As we conserve, we also expand—and push the agriculture frontier into more areas of permanent drought, where it otherwise would be impossible to grow crops and produce food.

As the world recognizes World Water Day, I know that I am producing food in a stable and sustainable way, creating value for my family, our team, our community and the state.

Martin Pasman grows potatoes, onions, cereals and oilseeds in Argentina, along with cattle, utilizing no-till and center-pivot irrigation. Martin is a member of the Global Farmer Network. www.globalfarmernetwork.org

The Global Farmer Network is looking for farmers to join our next cohort. If you are, or you know of an exceptional farmer who is passionate about agriculture, please complete a nomination form. Those accepted will join the next Roundtable and Communication Training program to be held September 10-16, 2023 in Washington, DC.

USDA’s Cover Crop Program Would be Made Permanent through Biden's Budget

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 22:23:44 GMT

A $6.8 trillion budget proposal was released by the Biden administration on Thursday with the continued “bottom up, middle out” theme, according to USDA.

“The President’s budget provides USDA with the tools needed to serve all Americans by providing effective, innovative science-based public policy leadership at home and around the world,” Tom Vilsack, USDA secretary said in a press release .

The proposed budget includes:

• $19 trillion to be borrowed through FY 2033
• 10.2 trillion in interest on national debt
• $3 trillion in debt deficit reduction
• $6.9 trillion for spending

So, what’s ag’s stake in the $6.8 trillion plan? As is generally the theme in a farm bill, nutrition would take most of the cake.

Nutrition and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

According to the release, the administration anticipates 6.5 million people will participate in SNAP. To meet these “critical” SNAP needs, the proposal devotes $6.3 billion of a total $7.1 billion in nutrition for SNAP.

“The budget also includes $15 billion over 10 years to allow more states and schools to leverage participation in the community eligibility provision to provide healthy and free school meals to an additional 9 million children,” the release says.

Ensuring SNAP availability is one obstacle. Ensuring food is available for purchase is another issue the budget looks to address.

Supply Chain Resilience

COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine war exposed many broken supply chain links. To solder the chain back together, the White House plans to create programs that will:

• Bolster markets through oversight by the Agricultural Marketing Service.
• Safeguard livestock against pests and disease through Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) investments.
• Ensure “safe and healthy” work environments by hiring more inspectors and health officials.

“These programs build on the pandemic and supply chain assistance funding in the American Rescue Plan to address COVID-19 pandemic-related vulnerabilities in the food system,” the plan says.

The supply chain won’t be the only sector to see new or reestablished programs. A similar approach will also be taken up in the climate department.

Climate Resilience

Cover crop pilot programs would be made permanent if this budget were to pass.

With $208 million more in conservation funds from the 2023 enacted funding level, the NRCS would work to “increase the voluntary adoption of conservation practices that sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with agricultural production.”

Related article: Producers Eliminate Fungicide and Insecticide Use, Cut Fertilizer 50%

To put the investments in motion, NRCS would use draw on federal, state and private conservationists to hire “thousands” of employees that would be available to rural America.

These employees would also work alongside climate researchers, which will also be funded in the budget.

Ag Research

In the past, many legislative officials have speculated American ag is falling behind in research compared with other countries. But research might finally see its needs met if this budget proposal passes.

“The People’s Republic of China has become the largest funder of agricultural research and development in the world, surpassing the U.S. and the EU” the report says. “The budget restores American innovation in agriculture by providing a total of more than $4 billion, a $299 million increase above the 2023 enacted level, for ag research, education and outreach.”

Some, including Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Ca.), feel these research funds are long overdue.

“This administration is taking an important step toward undoing years of underinvestment – as public funding for agriculture research has declined by one-third since 2002,” Carbajal said in a press release.

A letter sent in February to the Office of Management and Budget by Carbajal and other members of Congress stressed the need for increases in ag research.

If these proposed investments are taken-up, Carbajal says American innovation in ag will be “restored.”

Taxes

Arguably the heaviest hitter in the budget bundle is rooted in tax changes that would make American’s pay “their fair share” toward the nation’s debt, according to Janet Yellen, U.S. treasury secretary.

To ensure the “share” is paid, the budget would:

• Raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. For most farmers this would be almost an 100% tax increase from 2017 when most farmers only paid 15%.

• Include several proposals to eliminate or reduce tax deductions and credits related to oil and natural gas operations.

Many farmers have ground that enjoys oil and gas revenues. This could indirectly reduce those revenues.

• Any farmer with a net worth greater than $100 million would be subject to a minimum tax rate of 25% on all income included unrealized gains not yet tax.

As an example, assume a farmer is worth $125 million and they have $25 million on unrealized gains not yet taxed. They would owe $5 million that can be paid over 9 years in the first year of this proposal or 5 years thereafter.

Plus, if the asset is illiquid, they could make an election to defer the tax until the asset is sold but would owe an “interest charge”. There appears to be no refund if your net worth decreases.

• Increase the Statute of Limitations from 3 years to 6 years for prohibited transactions and material misstatement of assets in a retirement plan.

• Treat all capital gains and dividend income for taxpayers with more than $1 million of taxable income as being taxed at ordinary rates.

As example, assume a farmer had $500,000 of capital gains and $1 million of other net taxable income. All of the capital gains would be taxed at 44.6%.

The administration wants to make farmers and their heirs pay capital gains taxes on any transfers of appreciated property either via gift or at death. They have increased the exemption amount to $5 million per person or $10 million for a married couple and allow portability of any unused amount at the first death.

Related article: Review of President Biden’s Green Book

So, what are the odds of this budget passing? It depends on who you talk to.

Upshot

According to Jim Wiesemeyer , ProFarmer policy analyst, democrats in the House and Senate aren’t sure they’ll produce their own budget documents, saying they’ll review Biden’s proposal and only draft their own resolutions if they need to take a different approach from the president.

Paul Neiffer , farm CPA, believes, with the House in Republican control, there is little chance that much of this will pass in