Chapter I. Introduction

The U.S. agricultural system, one of the most productive in the world, has been profoundly shaped by government policies, especially over the past 100 years. While very successful at producing inexpensive commodities, agriculture in the United States also contributes to significant environmental and health harms, employs millions of people in often unsafe and poorly paid positions, and promotes chronic disease as much as good health.

Agriculture uses our most fertile land to produce what we need most— often known as the four Fs: food, feed, fuel, and fiber. While we continue to need those, we must add a fifth F: our future. This represents both the future of agriculture, which depends on stable weather patterns, and the future of humanity. We must see climate stabilization—through the zero-emission production of plants and animals that can sequester carbon in soil and biomass—as an appropriate aim of agriculture and agricultural policy.

The U.S. agricultural system, shaped by geography, markets, culture, and hundreds of years of federal policy, generates an enormous amount of food. Agriculture in the United States produces about 430 billion pounds of food each year, amounting to more than 3,600 calories per person per day—far more than the approximately 2,300 calories per person per day recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. The United States exports about 20% of the food it produces, mostly grains and meats, and imports about 15% of the food it consumes, mostly produce and seafood. In addition to being abundant, our food is cheap—Americans pay about one-third less for their food than they did in 1980.¹

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Despite this success, however, our current food system presents some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century.

The wealth produced by agriculture also comes at great cost to the environment and to public health. Agriculture occupies more than half of the contiguous United States, thus excluding other uses, including non-agricultural grasslands and forests that, of course, have different ecological and climate impacts. Agriculture is one of the largest sources of water quality impairment, contributing to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone; eutrophication and algae blooms in Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, and thousands of other water bodies; and contamination of drinking water supplies. Industrial agriculture’s use of pesticides exposes many millions to toxic chemicals through their jobs, communities, and food. Diet-related disease now costs Americans more than one trillion dollars a year—more than smoking—while food insecurity plagues millions of families.

These impacts have left agriculture as the only major sector of the U.S. economy where estimated externalities significantly exceed the sector’s earnings.² The coming years promise even more challenges. Agriculture is threatened by more extreme and erratic weather and other hazards brought about by climate change; agricultural production increasingly relies on marginalized foreign labor; and the power of agribusiness continues to grow.

Agricultural policy has traditionally focused on the narrow interests of commercial farmers and ranchers.

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Department of Agriculture (USDA), explaining that the cabinet-level department “primarily serves a single (albeit important) constituency: farmers and ranchers (and, to a lesser extent, their customers).”³ Recent lawsuits, congressional hearings, and media reports have also demonstrated that the farmers and ranchers served by USDA are overwhelmingly white, male, and wealthy. We found through a Freedom of Information Act request that of the billions of dollars distributed to farmers through the Trump Administration’s trade war bail-out payments, 91% went to male farmers and 99.4% went to non-Hispanic white ones. If agriculture is to achieve climate neutrality, agricultural policy must serve a much broader constituency. Such changes will not only reduce emissions, but they will also help improve public health and reduce inequality.

While most climate change-focused policy debate, research, and advocacy has concentrated on the energy and transportation sectors, there is growing recognition that agriculture also can—and indeed must—be an integral part of the climate change solution. This book seeks to help accelerate that transformation.

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Many other books have focused on the technologies and practices that can help food producers reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase carbon stored in soil and biomass, and become more resilient to the ravages of climate change. However, few focus on the changes in federal, state, and private policies that will be necessary to ensure that producers adopt these practices widely enough and fast enough to meet the challenge presented by the climate crisis. That is the goal of this book.

Unlike almost all other sectors of the economy, agriculture is both a source and a sink for greenhouse gases. In other areas, the goal is to reduce emissions through lowered demand (such as energy-efficient buildings and appliances) or clean supply (such as wind or solar power).

We use two terms throughout this book to describe agricultural methods that reduce net agricultural emissions. The first, “climate friendly,” refers to practices or strategies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or increase soil carbon sequestration when compared to conventional methods. While superior to standard practices, climate-friendly practices are not necessarily optimal, either in terms of their climate benefits or their overall benefit to society. By contrast, “carbon farming” describes a suite of climate-friendly practices and strategies designed to result in optimal environmental, societal, and climate outcomes.⁴ For example, since anaerobic digesters—expensive systems that compost animal waste and burn the gas it produces for energy—reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrial livestock facilities known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), they may be climate-friendly. But because they help sustain a system of agricultural production with significant emissions and other negative externalities—and do nothing

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to improve ecoystem or community health—they do not meet our definition of “carbon farming.”

There is a further difference between climate-friendly and carbon-farming approaches: the former seeks to reduce emissions while optimizing productivity, whereas the latter adds increased carbon sequestration as a goal.

Throughout the book, we call for “climate-neutral” agriculture. This is not because we think that agriculture cannot feasibly become a net sink. On the contrary, as our emphasis on carbon farming indicates, we think that agricultural production should be organized to ensure that farms sequester more than they emit. Nonetheless, there is a risk that treating agriculture as a carbon sink may make it easier to forego much-needed emissions reductions in other sectors. In addition, standard approaches significantly undercount agriculture’s climate change impact and there are numerous uncertainties regarding the science, practice, and permanence of carbon sequestration in agriculture. We must be exceedingly careful not to overestimate agriculture’s longterm potential to reduce net emissions—even while we work to maximize its sequestration capacity.

One final note regarding terminology: we use “farmer” throughout the book to refer to owners or managers of all agricultural operations, including ranches.⁵ This differs from the increasingly common practice of separating farmers and ranchers (or graziers) into distinct categories and using a third term, such as “producer” or “operator” when referring to both. Our primary motivation is to avoid clunky and unnecessary formulations, but this decision also represents a philosophical conviction.

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environmentally beneficial one. In short, ranchers don’t just manage grazing livestock, they also manage plant life.⁶

Agricultural production is one of the least regulated industries in the country, enjoying a near-comprehensive exemption from environmental regulations, which scholars refer to as the “anti-law” of farms and the environment.⁷ This allows large-scale industrial operations to adopt highly polluting, inexpensive practices that drive smaller or more sustainable farms out of business or force them to forego more responsible practices in order to be able to compete. Policymakers will need to regulate the worst practices in order to allow farms to escape this vicious cycle. Although relatively few farms use carbon-farming practices—which often are not supported by agrochemical companies or other agribusiness institutions—these practices almost always improve soil health. The most promising practices increase biological diversification and incorporate perennial plants, dramatically improving nutrient management, water-holding capacity, pollination, and weed and pest control, in addition to soil health. They thus can increase yields, enhance resilience to climate change, and, in the right policy environment, increase farm profitability. If farmers were to adopt these practices, they would improve their businesses, help their communities, and protect our environment.

This book contains the only comprehensive overview of the science, existing law, and policy proposals on agricultural emissions in the United States. Although most of the book is on agriculture, we also include a discussion of emissions in other parts of the food system to help readers develop a broader understanding of potential emissions reductions.

Chapter II looks at the stakeholders in farm policy. It argues that farm policy must not only meet the needs of farmers, but should also focus on the interests of non-white farmers, farmworkers, and rural residents.

Chapter III discusses how agriculture can contribute to massive decreases in emissions, sometimes called “deep decarbonization.” It outlines the threats climate change poses to agriculture and the need to build resilience in order to build food security for our country. It further details the sector’s current levels of emissions from production, explains how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standard analysis significantly understates agriculture’s climate change impact, and identifies uncertainties inherent in measuring

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the impacts of wide-scale biological systems. Finally, the chapter outlines agriculture’s capacity to sequester substantial amounts of carbon.

Chapter IV examines the on-field strategies, practices, and technologies available to increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce agricultural emissions while maintaining productivity. (Although they are important parts of the food system, we do not discuss fisheries and aquaculture in this book because they present very different greenhouse gas and legal issues.)

Chapters V and VI detail public law pathways—both amending existing federal and state legal regimes and enacting new ones—for reducing net agricultural emissions. Chapter V begins by identifying pathways for improving public agricultural research, development, and extension efforts, and then considers opportunities to reform federal subsidy, conservation, credit, and trade programs. It also provides recommendations to improve grazing practices on government land and expand perennial agriculture. Chapter VI then evaluates public policy pathways outside of USDA, focusing on regulatory strategies as well as tax policy, Small Business Administration lending programs, biogas subsidies, and greenhouse gas pricing.

Chapter VII describes non-public law approaches, focusing on how the private sector, including philanthropic organizations, can stimulate carbon farming. The topics covered include agricultural research, financing for carbon farming, measuring carbon content, conservation tools, and carbon markets.

Chapter VIII looks at overall food system emissions. It provides an overview of strategies for reducing upstream emissions—those that stem from the manufacture of farm inputs—and downstream emissions—those that result from food processing, distribution, consumption, and waste.

Chapter IX examines the potential to encourage the consumption of climate-friendly foods through national dietary guidelines and through procurement at all levels of government, as well as through private-sector initiatives, such as certification schemes and healthier menu options. Chapter X concludes.

For many years climate-change policy almost entirely ignored agriculture, while agricultural policy has only served to intensify climate change. Fortunately, the United States is now energetically exploring how agriculture can play a major role in curbing climate change. This is exciting, yet challenging since the sector is decades behind. This book hopes to help policymakers, advocates, farmers, and others to shape effective and equitable policies toward climate-neutral agriculture.

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Key Recommendations

• The agriculture sector in the United States is highly productive, turning out about 3,600 calories per person per day, far more than the approximately 2,300 per day needed. In addition, U.S. agriculture produces over 4,000,000 metric tons of cotton and 16 billion gallons of biofuel each year.

• Agriculture occupies over half of the land in the contiguous United States, contributes to air and water pollution and climate change, and has undergone significant changes in the last decades. Now, most food, feed, fuel, and fiber is produced on highly concentrated, heavily mechanized, specialized, and chemical dependent operations.

• Unlike almost all other sectors of the economy, agriculture is both a source and a sink for greenhouse gases.

• While a fair amount is already known about agricultural practices that can help farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration, significant policy changes are needed to accelerate the widespread adoption of these practices, and focused research could dramatically improve the productivity and environmental outcomes of these practices.

• Policymakers can take full advantage of agriculture’s potential to decarbonize the economy only by making use of the sector’s dual capacity to minimize emissions and maximize carbon storage.

• Agricultural production should be organized to ensure that farms sequester more carbon than they emit while at the same time maintaining productivity.

• There is a risk that treating agriculture as a carbon sink may be used to justify forgoing much-needed emissions reductions in other sectors.

• Studies show a wide range of results regarding the ability of agricultural practices to increase soil carbon or reduce emissions. We must not overestimate agriculture’s long-term potential to reduce net emissions, and should not suggest not-yet-achievable precision in calculations.

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• Agricultural production is subject to few environmental regulations; policymakers will need to consider regulating the most polluting practices at the largest operations to enable more sustainable farmers to compete.

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1. JEAN C. BUZBY ET AL., ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE, USDA, THE ESTIMATED AMOUNT, VALUE, AND CALORIES OF POSTHARVEST FOOD LOSSES AT THE RETAIL AND CONSUMER LEVELS IN THE UNITED STATES 11 (2014) (EIB-121); ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE, USDA, Calorie Availability and Importance of Food in Household Spending Are Inversely Related, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=77755 (last visited Jan. 23, 2021); Elizabeth Mendes, Americans Spend $151 a Week on Food; the High-Income, $180, Gallup, Aug. 2, 2012, https://news.gallup.com/poll/156416/americans-spend-151-week-food-high-income-180.aspx; Economic Research Service, USDA, Exports Expand the Market for U.S. Agricultural Products, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58396 (last visited Jan. 23, 2021); U.S. Food & Drug Administration, FDA Strategy for the Safety of Imported Food, https://www.fda.gov/food/importing-food-products-united-states/fda-strategy-safety-imported-food#:~:text=To%20help%20meet%20these%20consumer,of%20its%20overall%20food%20supply (last visited Jan. 23, 2021).

2. KPMG INTERNATIONAL, EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED: BUILDING BUSINESS VALUE IN A CHANGING WORLD 9 (2012). See also The Rockefeller Foundation, True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the U.S. Food System, July 2021 (finding that, while Americans spend $1.1 trillion on food each year, the true cost of food, including the impact on human health, climate change, biodiversity, and livelihoods, is $3.2 trillion per year), https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/True-Cost-of-Food-Full-Report-Final.pdf.

3. E-mail from Lisa Brown to Adam Hitchcock, John Podesta, William Daley, Christopher Edley Jr., Valerie Jarrett, and Federico Peña, AR—Executive Summaries—Energy & Natural Resources Cluster (Oct. 21, 2008) (published by WikiLeaks), https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/26312 (last visited Oct. 23, 2020).

4. “Carbon farming” includes grazing and animal husbandry. As Eric Toensmeier notes in The Carbon Farming Solution, there are “several, sometimes conflicting, definitions of carbon farming.” However, it is generally described as a system of agricultural economics and practices organized around carbon sequestration. ERIC TOENSMEIER, THE CARBON FARMING SOLUTION 6 (Brianne Goodspeed & Laura Jorstad eds., 2016). “Regenerative agriculture” is another term for largely overlapping agricultural practices. See generally RODALE INSTITUTE, REGENERATIVE ORGANIC AGRICULTURE AND CLIMATE CHANGE (2014).

5. Likewise, we use “farm” to refer to all agricultural operations, including ranches.

6. In recognition of this, many ranchers and graziers refer to themselves as “grass farmers.” See, e.g., VERMONT GRASS FARMERS ASSOCIATION, About Us, https://www.vtgrassfarmers.org/about-us/ (last visited Jan. 23, 2021). See also, e.g., Seth Watkins, Farming Evolved: Agriculture Through a Different Lens, TEDxDesMoines (July 30, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ0wP9FJU1s.

7. J.B. Ruhl, Farms, Their Environmental Harms, and Environmental Law, 27 ECOLOGY L.Q. 263, 265-328 (2000).

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