The climate change bill in Congress has several issues that must be confronted before the legislation can gain enough votes to pass the Senate and continue through the legislative process. One of the more contentious issues facing the bill is whether or not the legislation will ultimately prove beneficial for the U.S. agriculture industry.As Margery A. Gibbs correctly highlights in her story for the Associated Press, whether or not the climate change bill will be good for U.S. agriculture depends on who you ask. Some believe the additional financial burdens of any legislation will be too great for farmers to be able to withstand, while others feel the legislation will be a financial windfall for farmers and ranchers.
Opponents of the bill often claim “it would lead to skyrocketing fuel and fertilizer costs.” The current cost of fuel and fertilizer is already causing economic hardships for many farmers. Proponents argue any increase in costs to production will be more than offset by cap and trade provisions that allow companies “to meet their pollution targets by investing in offset projects, such as farms that capture methane or plants trees.”
While agricultural emission are excluded from the bill, the legislation does cap emissions from large polluters like power companies and manufacturers, among others. According to Gibbs’s article, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that the current proposals before Congress would cost those engaged in agricultural production an additional 1 to 7.2 percent in income losses from increased energy costs—increased energy costs will naturally cause the cost of fertilizer to rise too. However, the USDA also reports that those costs are “outweighed” by the financial benefits farmers can reap from the bill. Farmers can engage in processes that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions (like methane capture, no-till farming, planting trees, etc.) and sell the amount of carbon they are capturing to larger polluters through the cap and trade program so that the larger polluters can meet the guidelines set by the bill.
This is not enough to convince Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska, the Secretary of Agriculture under the George W. Bush Administration, who believes the USDA report is incomplete. According to the AP article, Johanns stated, ‘"[w]e still have a question about how is this going to impact livestock, corn, soybeans and wheat in our state . . . This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why would the leadership of the House ... put a bill out when they hadn't had analysis on the ag sector? That not only impacts farmers and ranchers, it impacts consumers."’
Despite the senator’s concerns, the National Farmers Union supports the legislation if the USDA administers the agricultural offset program and farmers who already engage in carbon sequestration practices can receive benefits from the new legislation. The Farmers Union also points out that the cost of doing nothing to address climate change could ultimately cause far more financial pain for those engaged in agricultural as the earth’s natural systems are affected by increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and other fluctuations in the biosphere.
For their part, the American Farm Bureau Federation has “denounced the legislation as an energy tax in disguise, saying energy costs alone could spike well beyond the 20 percent estimated by the federal government.” As this blog has previously reported, the American Farm Bureau Federation is part of an ongoing effort to fund and organize anti-cap and trade rallies and protests across the country. Joining the Farm Bureau in this effort are the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the conservative organization Freedom Works. The group these organizations are funding to stage these rallies is called Energy Citizens.
So where are actual farmers on the issue? Naturally, farmers fall on both sides of the climate change debate. Gibbs quotes two farmers in her story who have two very different opinions about the effect of the bill. South Dakota cattle producer and grain farmer Doug Sombke is for the bill, "People are so afraid of this energy cost thing; that just amazes me . . . In the last two years, we've still seen energy costs go up, and not just the 15 or 20 percent like they're predicting. We've seen it go up 200 percent. We survived that; we'll survive this small increase."’ Nebraska rancher Sallie Adkins does have concerns, ‘“I just think the major concern in agriculture today is how we can keep our cost of production affordable to stay in business and still be competitive with other markets[.]"’
Much like health care, expect this debate to continue long into the fall congressional session. To read the Associated Press story click here.
Posted: 09/01/09
