5. Coordinating Efforts

Tracking current funding and initiatives will be critical to coordinating government efforts to support perennial agriculture. Congress should provide USDA’s NAC with sufficient funding to document, coordinate, and evaluate government efforts to expand perennial agriculture.

E. Toward Climate-Neutral Agriculture

Farm policy, with its myriad programs, offers unparalleled opportunities to accelerate the shift toward climate-neutral agriculture. We offer above many, but surely not all, the ways that USDA farm policies could be revised to achieve this goal. In early 2021, President Biden issued an executive order directing federal agencies to develop a government-wide approach to combating the climate crisis and tasked the secretary of agriculture to make recommendations for a “climate-smart agriculture and forestry strategy.” USDA issued its 90-day progress report in May 2021.³⁶⁵ The report identifies many of the tools discussed here, including increased research and data collection, reforms to existing programs, and strengthening education, training, and technical assistance.

Unlike in other sectors of the economy, there are already extensive government agencies, research and outreach organizations, and financial institutions that are knowledgeable about farm practices. The federal government also spends tens of billions of dollars through a wide range of programs to directly support agricultural production. The farm economy is profoundly

177

shaped by these forces. This has led to massive public health and environmental problems, but it also provides Congress and USDA with a clear opportunity to modify these programs for the benefit of the public—and achieve climate-neutrality in agriculture. In doing so, they will help make the United States a leader not only in carbon farming, but also in the fight against catastrophic climate change.

Key Recommendations

• USDA must address emissions in a systematic fashion, organizing its research, extension, and technical assistance arms around common goals and priorities. It must further work toward more ambitious national sequestration targets—set by Congress and updated at least every four years—to ensure that the sector achieves climate neutrality.

• Agricultural research in several critical areas, including agriculture’s impact on climate change and the environment, relies almost entirely on public spending, making publicly funded research on carbon farming practices and systems especially critical. The private sector is unlikely to focus research on ways to reduce agriculture’s environmental and climate change impacts.

• Congress should increase funding for climate-related agricultural research and for climate-related outreach, education, and technical assistance.

• USDA should improve its ability to collect, report, and analyze data related to climate change to allow policymakers and the public to effectively evaluate the climate impact of farm practices and programs.

• Congress should repeal §1619 of the 2008 Farm Bill, which prevents government agencies and the public from accessing critical information. Current law also allows USDA to provide data covered under §1619 to other government agencies in a variety of circumstances, which the department should take full advantage of until the exclusion’s repeal.

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• Federal crop insurance policies should treat greenhouse gas-intensive practices as risk-enhancing and reduce or eliminate their premium subsidies accordingly, while ensuring that climate-friendly practices are not discouraged by federal guidelines and requirements.

• USDA should use its rulemaking authority to require farmers receiving commodity payments to adopt cost-effective climate-friendly practices.

• USDA should use its broad authority to support the production, distribution, or marketing of agricultural commodities to develop payment programs for farmers using climate-friendly practices, providing the largest benefits to those practices with the greatest sequestration potential.

• USDA should transition to longer term or permanent land conservation programs while prioritizing land with the greatest climate mitigation potential.

• Congress or USDA should eliminate or reduce conservation payments to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which are a fundamentally carbon-intensive form of animal production.

• Congress should expand funding for comprehensive, whole farm conservation, which research shows has the biggest environmental and economic returns on a per dollar basis.

• USDA should reduce administrative barriers to signing up for conservation programs, including simplifying contracts, increasing administrative support for farmers and ranchers, and creating a comprehensive website to allow farmers to more easily access the wide range of incentives for the promotion of climate stewardship practices.

• Agricultural operations that do not follow basic conservation practices such as cover crops, riparian buffers, and managed grazing, for example, should not be eligible to receive funds through USDA, whether through commodity, crop insurance, or conservation programs.

• Congress should require agricultural lending institutions receiving federal subsidies to offer programs providing favorable credit to farmers and ranchers using climate-friendly practices.

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• Congress should integrate climate concerns into agricultural trade policy and mandate that USDA focus on developing markets for climate-friendly products rather than carbon-intensive ones.

• Agricultural law is long overdue for another transformation for a number of reasons, including the need to incorporate climate stability and resilience as a major goal.

• Congress should create, or USDA should develop, a system that pays for ecosystem services in place of much or all of the current farm safety net programs (especially the commodity and crop insurance programs) to more tightly link these subsidies to sound ecological and climate outcomes.

• Federal grazing fees should reflect fair market value to ensure better stewardship of grazing land to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Policies regarding grazing on federal lands should encourage managed rotational grazing. Current policies that require ranchers and grazers to stock at close to the allocated level regardless of range and weather conditions should be revised to allow them to stock at reduced levels when better for soil, water, and climate change outcomes.

• Policymakers should create new programs and policies designed specifically to boost perennial practices and revise the priorities of existing programs to ensure they no longer disadvantage perennial farming.

_________________

1. Susan Schneider, A Reconsideration of Agricultural Law: A Call for the Law of Food, Farming, and Sustainability, 34 WM. & MARY ENV’T L. & POL’Y REV. 935, 937 (2010).

2. J.B. Ruhl, Farms, Their Environmental Harms, and Environmental Law, 27 ECOLOGY L.Q. 263, 263 (2000). See Margot Pollans, Drinking Water Protection and Agricultural Exceptionalism, 77 OHIO ST. L.J. 1195, 1213-24 (2016), for a discussion of agricultural exceptionalism in the context of drinking water contamination.

3. James C. Scott, Forward to BILL WINDERS, THE POLITICS OF FOOD SUPPLY: U.S. AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN THE WORLD ECONOMY XI (2009).

4. ERIC TOENSMEIER, THE CARBON FARMING SOLUTION 58-59 (Brianne Goodspeed & Laura Jorstad eds., 2016).

5. We provide a brief summary of the environmental co-benefits associated with each climate-friendly practice examined in Chapter IV.

6. Farmworkers are at much greater risk of pesticide poisoning than both the general population and people in other agricultural occupations, such as farmers, significantly affecting farmworker health. Geoffrey M. Calvert et al., Acute Pesticide Poisoning Among Agricultural Workers in the United States, 1998-2005, 51 AM. J. INDUS. MED. 883, 889 tbl.3 (2008), found that 71% of all acute pesticide poisoning cases in the agricultural industry were among farmworkers. There are several long-term health effects associated with both acute and chronic pesticide exposure, including increased rates of cancer, neurobehavioral deficits, depression, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, hearing loss, diabetes, obesity, and respiratory disease. Aaron Blair et al., Pesticides and Human Health, 72 OCCUPATIONAL & ENV’T MED. 81 (2015). The most effective carbon-farming practices substantially reduce pesticide use. See supra Chapter IV.

7. Agricultural research includes basic, applied, and developmental research. See 7 U.S.C. §3101. The term “research” in this book thus encompasses the development of new technologies, practices, and products in addition to basic and applied research.

8. Id.

9. NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, FEDERAL R&D FUNDING, BY BUDGET FUNCTION: FISCAL YEARS 2018-20, tbl.1 (NSF 20-305) (2019), https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf20305.

10. Id.

11. USDA, FY 2020 BUDGET SUMMARY 67-69 (2019).

12. Id.

13. See id. at 67.

14. See Marcia DeLonge et al., Investing in the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture, 55 ENV’T SCI. & POL’Y 266, 269 (2016).

15. Freedom of Information Act Response No.

16. Id.

17. NIFA, USDA, FY 2017 PRESIDENT’S BUDGET PROPOSAL 8 (2016).

18. OFFICE OF BUDGET AND PROGRAM ANALYSIS (OBPA), USDA, FY 2020 USDA EXPLANATORY NOTES—NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE 19-53 (2019).

19. Id. at 19-51 to 19-52.

20. See, e.g., Marcia DeLonge, Soil Carbon Can’t Fix Climate Change by Itself—But It Needs to Be Part of the Solution, UNION CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, Sept. 26, 2016, http://blog.ucsusa.org/marcia-delonge/soil-carbon-cant-fix-climate-change-by-itself-but-it-needs-to-be-part-of-the-solution.

21. Id.

22. The public sector remains responsible for “much of the fundamental research that creates the building blocks for major agricultural innovations,” in large part because private research “[gravitates] toward technologies that are easy to patent or otherwise protect intellectual property rights.” Matthew Clancy et al., U.S. Agricultural R&D in an Era of Falling Public Funding, AMBER WAVES, Nov. 10, 2016, https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2016/november/us-agricultural-r-d-in-an-era-of-falling-public-funding/.

23. Id.

24. Peter Lehner & Nathan Rosenberg, Promoting Climate-Friendly Agriculture for the Benefit of Farmers, Rural Communities, and the Environment, 33 NAT. RESOURCES & ENV’T 7 (2018).

25. See supra Chapter IV fig.1; Cynthia Rosenzweig et al., Climate Change Responses Benefit From a Global Food Systems Approach, 1 NATURE FOOD 94-97 (2020); Cynthia Rosenzweig & Francesco Nicola Tubiello, Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies in Agriculture: An Analysis of Potential Synergies, 12 MITIGATION & ADAPTATION STRATEGIES FOR GLOBAL CHANGE 855, 866-67 (2007); Pete Smith & Jorgen E. Olesen, Synergies Between the Mitigation of, and Adaptation to, Climate Change in Agriculture, 148 J. AGRIC. SCI. 543, 550 (2010).

26. See Rosenzweig & Tubiello, supra note 25, at 866; see DANIEL TOBIN ET AL., USDA, NORTHEAST AND NORTHERN FORESTS REGIONAL CLIMATE HUB ASSESSMENT OF CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES 23 (Terry Anderson ed., 2015) (recommending the enhancement of cooling and ventilation systems as an adaptation strategy).

27. Paul W. Heisey et al., USDA, Economic Brief No. 17, Public Agricultural Research Spending and Future U.S. Agricultural Productivity Growth: Scenarios for 2010-2050 (2011).

28. Calculated by the authors using USDA, supra note 11, at 86.

29. The Role and Development of Public Agricultural Research, in AN ASSESSMENT OF THE U.S. FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SYSTEM 9 (Congress Office of Technology Assessment 1981) (providing historical data on USDA’s research expenditures); JIM MONKE, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH: BACKGROUND AND ISSUES (2016) (describing the role of publicly funded agricultural research in productivity gains).

30. Clancy et al., supra note 22.

31. Id.

32. Id.

33. Calculated by the authors using ERS, USDA, AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH FUNDING IN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS, 1970-2015, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/47755/agresearchfunding2015.xls?v=455.4 (last updated Feb. 14, 2019).

34. PAUL W. HEISEY & KEITH O. FUGLIE, USDA, AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INVESTMENT AND POLICY REFORM IN HIGH-INCOME COUNTRIES 14 tbl.3.2 (Economic Research Report No. 249, 2018).

35. Among the 31 advanced economies included in USDA’s survey of public agricultural research expenditures between 2009 and 2013, only Greece and Luxembourg devoted a smaller share of their public research budgets to agriculture. Id. at 23 fig.4.1.

36. Liz Carlisle & Albie Miles, Closing the Knowledge Gap: How the USDA Could Tap the Potential of Biologically Diversified Farming Systems, 4 J. AGRIC. FOOD SYSTEMS & COMMUNITY DEV. 219, 221 (2013) (arguing that a lack of research has limited organic agriculture’s development); see also URS NIGGLI ET AL., RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE, A GLOBAL VISION AND STRATEGY FOR ORGANIC FARMING RESEARCH 19 (2016) (same).

37. Calculated by the authors. Compare USDA, supra note 11, at 2 fig. 1 (giving USDA’s total outlays in FY 2018 as $137 billion), with USDA, FY 2018 BUDGET SUMMARY fig. REE-1 (2017) (listing USDA’s research and development budget at $2.5 billion in FY 2018).

38. See Julian M. Alston et al., The Economic Returns to U.S. Public Agricultural Research, 93 AM. J. AGRIC. ECON. 1257, 1270 tbl.6 (2011).

39. See USDA ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE, Net Cash Income, https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports. aspx?ID=17831 (last updated Dec. 2, 2020).

40. 7 U.S.C. §§5801-5832.

41. National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, https://sustainableagriculture.net/publications/grassrootsguide/sustainable-organic-research/sustainable-agriculture-research-and-education-program/ (last updated July 2019).

42. Id.

43. 16 U.S.C. §3839aa-8.

44. USDA NRCS, Conservation Innovation Grants, https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/programs/financial/cig/ (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

45. Grants.gov, Notice of Funding Opportunity for NRCS’s Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) On-Farm Conservation Innovation Trials (On-Farm Trials) for Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, https://www.grants. gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=325306 (last updated Apr. 20, 2020).

46. 7 U.S.C. §5939.

47. Id.

48. FFAR, What We Do, https://foundationfar.org/what-we-do/ (last visited Jan. 13, 2020).

49. News Release, FFAR, New National Research Initiative Aims to Improve Cover Crop (Mar. 22, 2017), https://foundationfar.org/news/national-cover-crop-initiative/.

50. Clancy et al., supra note 22.

51. JASON ROSS ET AL., AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO IMPROVE WHOLE HERD PIG SURVIVABILITY 3-4 (2019).

52. Press Release, Colorado State University, FFAR Awards $5 Million to Launch Public-Private Effort to Address Water Scarcity and Irrigation Innovation (Apr. 18, 2018) (on file with authors).

53. See Irrigation Innovation Consortium, Funded Research Projects, https://irrigationinnovation.org/funded-research-projects/ (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

54. See Frank Ward & Manuel Pulido-Velazquez, Water Conservation in Irrigation Can Increase Water Use, 105 PROC. NAT’L ACAD. SCI. U.S. AM. 18215 (2008); Lisa Pfeiffer & C.-Y. Cynthia Lin, Does Efficient Irrigation Technology Lead to Reduced Groundwater Extraction? Empirical Evidence, 67 J. ENV’T ECON. MGMT. 189 (2014).

55. Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, FFAR Funds the Future of Sustainable Perennial Crops, https://foundationfar.org/news/ffar-funds-the-future-of-sustainable-perennial-crops/ (last visited Jan. 23, 2021).

56. Daniel Cusick, Grain May Take a Big Bite Out of Cropland Emissions, E&E NEWS (May 7, 2019), https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060290955/#:~:text=Scientists%20say%20Kernza%2C%20a%20 trademarked,helping%20feed%20a%20hungry%20world.

57. See DeLonge et al., supra note 14, at 266-67 (discussing the capacity of agroecological systems to reduce environmental externalities, while providing ecosystem services and sufficient yields).

58. NIGGLI ET AL., supra note 36, at 55-56.

59. Soils 4 Climate, US Healthy Soils Legislation Map and Table (2020), https://policy.soil4climate.org/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2021).

60. California Department of Food and Agriculture, Healthy Soils Program, https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/healthysoils/ (last visited Sept. 4, 2021).

61. An Act to Promote Healthy Soils: Hearing on H.3713 Before the Joint Comm. on Environment, Natural Resources, and Agriculture, 2017 Leg., 190th Gen. Court (Mass. 2017) (statement of Peter Lehner, Director, Sustainable Food and Farming, Earthjustice) (identifying state legislative efforts to foster healthy soils).

62. Brianne Pfannenstiel & Jeff Charis-Carlson, Branstad Defends Defunding of Leopold Center, Des Moines Reg., May 15, 2017, https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/15/branstad-defends-defunding-leopold-center/323382001/.

63. IOWA CODE §266.39 (2017).

64. The retail price of anhydrous ammonia was $467 per ton in July 2017. Russ Quinn, DTN Retail Fertilizer Trends: Anhydrous Breaks 8% Lower, DTN/PROGRESSIVE FARMER, July 7, 2017, https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2017/07/12/anhydrous-breaks-8-lower.

65. 7 U.S.C. §8791(b).

66. See infra notes 83-92.

67. See NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS SERVICE, USDA, 2017 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE, U.S. NATIONAL LEVEL DATA (2019).

68. See NASS, USDA, Surveys: Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), https://www.nass.usda. gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Ag_Resource_Management/ (last updated Oct. 19, 2020).

69. USDA, FY 2021 BUDGET SUMMARY 80 (2020).

70. ERS received $48.8 million in 1977 or $216.1 million after adjusting for inflation. Douglas E. Bowers, The Economic Research Service, 1961-1977, 64 AGRIC. HIST. 231, 242 (1990).

71. See Liz Crampton & Ryan McCrimmon, Trump Administration to Move USDA Researchers to Kansas City Area, POLITICO, June 13, 2019, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/13/usda-kansas-cityarea-1529072; Phil McCausland, Gutting of Two USDA Research Agencies Is Warning to All Federal Agencies, Ex-Employees Say, NBC NEWS, Oct. 8, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gutting-two-usda-research-agencies-warning-all-federal-agencies-ex-n1062726.

72. Calculated by the authors using Freedom of Information Act Response No. 2020-REE-04381-F From USDA to Authors (June 3, 2020) (on file with authors).

73. See supra Chapter III.A. Farms lost more than $1 billion in 2011 due to high temperatures alone. Jerry Hatfield et al., Agriculture, in U.S. GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAM, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE THIRD NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT 150 (Jerry M. Melillo et al. eds., U.S. Government Printing Office 2014).

74. The chair of the of Agricultural Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.), known as the “permanent secretary of agriculture,” threatened to cut ERS’ funding when the agency was created if they produced any “hound dog studies” on rural Black residents. RICHARD A. LEVINS, WILLARD COCHRANE AND THE AMERICAN FAMILY FARM 52 (2000). The political scientist Don Hadwiger wrote in 1971 that Whitten and other southern legislators “have continued their role as research chiefs, overseeing … most of the available expertise on rural America,” and have blocked research regarding human nutrition, farmworkers, and Black people, leaving “vast areas of the rural landscape … either off-limits or … covered on tiptoe.” Don F. Hadwiger, The Freeman Administration and the Poor, 45 AGRIC. HIST. 21, 25-26 (1971). Whitten remained chair of agricultural appropriations until 1979 when he became chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, a position he retained until 1990. David Binder, Jamie Whitten Who Served 53 Years in House, Dies at 85, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 10, 1995, at 53. Congress renamed USDA’s headquarters in honor of Whitten in 1994. Pub. L. No. 103-404, §2, 108 Stat. 4206 (1994).

75. Calculated by the authors using Freedom of Information Act Response No. 2020-REE-04647-F From USDA to Authors (June 19, 2020) (on file with authors).

76. Calculated by the authors using id.

77. 7 U.S.C. §1502(c)(1).

78. As discussed below in Section B.1, the Federal Crop Insurance Program is a subsidy and a substantial one at that: it covers more than 60% of the cost of a crop insurance premium on average. Information about this generous subsidy will be critical to reducing agricultural emissions.

79. 16 U.S.C. §§3811-3812 & 3821. Wetlands drained or filled before December 23, 1985, are not protected. Id. §3822(b)(1)(A).

80. EMILY BROAD LEIB ET AL., FARM BILL LAW ENTERPRISE, PRODUCTIVITY AND RISK MANAGEMENT 15-16 (2018).

81. Id. at 15-17.

82. Id. at 16.

83. 7 U.S.C. §8791.

84. E.g., Zanoni v. USDA, 605 F. Supp. 2d 230 (D.D.C. 2009); Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. USDA, 626 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir. 2010); Cent. Platte Nat. Res. Dist. v. USDA, 643 F.3d 1142 (8th Cir. 2011).

85. Memorandum from Boyd K. Rutherford, Assistant Secretary, USDA, to Agency Freedom of Information Act Officers (July 30, 2008), available at https://www.sej.org/sites/default/files/USDA1619Memo073008.pdf.

86. 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(3). See Ann Havemann, The Center for Progressive Reform, Going Dark on the Farm: Farm Bill Could Cloak Big Ag in Even More Secrecy, Jan. 14, 2014, http://progressivereform.org/cpr-blog/going-dark-on-the-farm-farm-bill-could-cloak-big-ag-in-even-more-secrecy/ (“Congress has never extended FOIA’s privacy exemption to coporations [prior to Section 1619]”); RENA STEINZOR & YEE HUANG, GOING DARK DOWN ON THE FARM: HOW LEGALIZED SECRECY GIVES AGRIBUSINESS A FEDERALLY FUNDED FREE RIDE (2012).

87. Section 1619 “makes it impossible to assess the efficacy of the hundreds of millions of dollars that the U.S. taxpayer spends on conservation.” (former USDA employee). Adena R. Rissman et al., Public Access to Spatial Data on Private-Land Conservation, ECOLOGY & SOC’Y 24 (June 2017); U.S. GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, FARM BILL: ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION 14-18, GAO-12-338SP, at 16 (“almost half of USDA’s field offices did not implement farm-bill conservation compliance provisions as required, in part because the offices reported that they were uncomfortable with their enforcement role. Some field office staff said it was difficult to cite farmers for noncompliance in the small communities where the staff and farmers both live and work. Furthermore, their noncompliance decisions were waived about 61 percent of the time, and the waiver decisions were not always adequately justified, providing further disincentive for issuing noncompliance decisions.”). See also Laurie Ristino & Gabriela Steier, Losing Ground; A Clarion Call for Farm Bill Reform to Ensure a Food Secure Future, 42 COLUM. J. ENV’T L. 79-106 (2016).

88. Jess R. Phelps, Conservation, Regionality, and the Farm Bill, 71 ME. L. REV. 293, 339 (2019).

89. Adena R. Rissman et al., Public Access to Spatial Data on Private-Land Conservation, ECOLOGY & SOC’Y 24 (June 2017).

90. Jess R. Phelps, Conservation, Regionality, and the Farm Bill, 71 ME. L. REV. 293, 338-39 (2019).

91. RENA L. STEINZOR & LING-YEE HUANG, AGRICULTURAL SECRECY: GOING DARK DOWN ON THE FARM: HOW LEGALIZED SECRECY GIVES AGRIBUSINESS A FEDERALLY FUNDED FREE RIDE 7-9 (Briefing Paper No. 1213) Center for Progressive Reform, 2012). See CAFO Reporting Rule, 76 Fed. Reg. 65, 445 (proposed Oct. 21, 2011).

92. Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA, The Freedom of Information Act, The Privacy Act, Section 1619 of the Farm Bill (2011), available at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1166472.pptx.

93. Almost 60,000 family farms received more than $1 million in gross income in 2012; however, average production expenses for these large-scale farms exceeded $1 million as well. See id. at 1-2.

94. See, e.g., Irwin Feller, Technology Transfer, Public Policy, and the Cooperative Extension Service—OMB Imbroglio, 6 J. POL’Y ANALYSIS & MGMT. 307, 307 (1987) (“The Cooperative Extension Service has come to represent the best of both an articulated but decentralized political arrangement and of a technology transfer system.”); George McDowell, Engaged Universities: Lessons From the Land Grant Universities and Extension, 585 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 31, 35-36 (2003).

95. “We also struggle with the fact if a practice is not supported and sold by Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma State Extension, it’s slow to be adopted.” John Dobberstein, No-Till Movement in U.S. Continues to Grow, NO-TILL FARMER, Aug. 1, 2014, https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/articles/489-notill-movement-in-us-continues-to-grow?v=preview.

96. J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr., Corn Belt Farmers Are Concerned, Support Adaptation Action in the Ag Community, in RESILIENT AGRICULTURE 22 (Lynn Laws ed., Sustainable Corn Project 2014).

97. Additionally, only 52% believed that farmer organizations should help farmers to prepare. Id.

98. Compare Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-113, 129 Stat. 2250 (2015) (indicating that the federal government allocated $426 million to extension services in 2016), with NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE AT THE LAND GRANT UNIVERSITIES: A PROFILE 68 (1995) (showing that the federal government allocated $401 million to extension services in 1992).

99. See Linda S. Prokopy et al., Extension’s Role in Disseminating Information About Climate Change to Agricultural Stakeholders in the United States, 130 CLIMATIC CHANGE 261, 268 (2015); Mahdi M. Al-Kaisi et al., Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources in the U.S. Midwest: A Review and Analysis of Challenges and Future Opportunities, 44 NAT. SCI. EDUC. 26, 27-28 (2015); Wendy Wintersteen et al., Evaluation of Extension’s Importance to Agribusinesses: A Case Study of Iowa, 45 AM. ENTOMOLOGIST 6, 6 (1999).

100. Sun Ling Wang, Cooperative Extension System: Trends and Economic Impacts on U.S. Agriculture, 29 CHOICES 1, 2 (2014).

101. The number of extension specialists affiliated with the University of Illinois, for example, fell by 83% between 1986 and 2013. Al-Kaisi et al., supra note 99, at 29.

102. Id. at 28.

103. See, e.g., id.

104. A 2014 survey of 212 extension professionals found that 81% of respondents had partnered with private industry on extension activities and that almost 80% had received private funding for at least some of their research. Rayda K. Krell et al., A Proposal for Public and Private Partnership in Extension, 7 J. INTEGRATED PEST MGMT. 1, 4 (2016).

105. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-141, 132 Stat. 356.

106. See USDA, USDA REGIONAL HUBS FOR RISK ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE 1 (2015).

107. Federal funding currently accounts for about 10% of extension’s funding—a historical low. Marsha Mercer, Cooperative Extension Reinvents Itself for the 21st Century, PEW CHARITABLE TR., Sept. 9, 2014, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2014/09/09/cooperative-extension-reinvents-itself-for-the-21st-century.

108. Sarah Wiener, Ready, Willing, and Able? USDA Field Staff as Climate Advisors, 75 J. SOIL WATER CONSERVATION 62, 62 (2020).

109. Freedom of Information Act Response No. 2020-REE-04897-F From USDA to Authors (Aug. 5, 2020) (on file with authors) (including the number of NRCS conservationists employed each FY from 2013 to 2019). Id. at 63 (describing conservationists’ activities). See also OBPA, USDA, FY 2021 USDA EXPLANATORY NOTES—NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE 29-39 to 29-43 (2020) (describing NRCS’ Conservational Technical Assistance Program).

110. MEGAN STUBBS, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, FY2020 APPROPRIATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL CONSERVATION 3 tbl.1 (2020).

111. Id. at 4.

112. Calculated by the authors using USDA NRCS, NRCS Conservation Programs: Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) [hereinafter NRCS EQIP], https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/NRCS_ RCA/reports/fb08_cp_eqip.html (last visited Nov. 12, 2020); USDA NRCS, NRCS Conservation Programs: Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) [hereinafter NRCS CSP], https://www.nrcs.usda. gov/Internet/NRCS_RCA/reports/fb08_cp_cstp.html (last visited Nov. 12, 2020); USDA NRCS, NRCS Conservation Programs: Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) [hereinafter NRCS CRP], https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/NRCS_RCA/reports/fb08_cp_crp.html (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

113. Compare NRCS EQIP, supra note 112, with CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, USDA’s MANDATORY FARM PROGRAMS—CBO’s BASELINE AS OF MARCH 6, 2020, at 26 (2020).

114. Compare NRCS CSP & NRCS CRP, supra note 112, with CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, supra note 113.

115. Calculated by the authors using NRCS EQIP & NRCS CSP, supra note 112; CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION ACCOUNT PLUS OTHER ACCOUNTS COMPARABLE TO THE USDA BASELINE, JANUARY 2010 CBO BASELINE 18 (2010).

116. STUBBS, supra note 110, at 2-3 tbl.1.

117. Id. at 6 fig.3.

118. Id. at 3 tbl.1.

119. Id. at 6 fig.3.

120. OBPA, supra note 109, at 29-58.

121. See Wiener, supra note 108, at 63.

122. Id. at 68.

123. Id.

124. USDA’s support for agricultural commodities, for example, often undermines its dietary recommendations.

125. USDA, supra note 106.

126. Helena Bottemiller Evich, “I’m Standing Right Here in the Middle of Climate Change”: How USDA Is Failing Farmers, POLITICO, Oct. 15, 2019, https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/15/im-standinghere-in-the-middle-of-climate-change-how-usda-fails-farmers-043615 (noting that the Climate Hubs do not have their own line item).

127. See id. (explaining how USDA agencies have withdrawn resources from the Climate Hubs).

128. See USDA, USDA BUILDING BLOCKS FOR CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY: IMPLEMENTATION PLAN AND PROGRESS REPORT 2 (2016).

129. The plan calls for only 4-18 MMT CO₂ eq. of soil carbon to be sequestered each year through climate-friendly agricultural practices by 2025. Id. at 4.

130. Building Blocks prioritizes the synthetic fertilizer industry’s best management practices, conventional no-till agriculture, and manure management systems for AFOs. See id. The climate benefits of these practices are much lower than other feasible options available to farm managers.

131. As discussed infra Section B.4, any increased carbon sequesteration accomplished through voluntary programs such as CRP should be considered temporary. Conserving sensitive lands through CRP is one of the main elements of Building Blocks. See USDA, supra note 128, at 8.

132. Approximately 70% of the greenhouse gas reductions are in nonagricultural sectors. See id.

133. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, THE 2018 FARM BILL (P.L. 115-334): SUMMARY AND SIDE-BYSIDE 5 fig.1 (2010). The 2014 Farm Bill allocated a similar amount to the farm safety net between 2014-2018. Letter From Douglas Elmendorf, Director, Congressional Budget Office, to Frank Lucas, Chairman, House Committee on Agriculture (Jan. 28, 2014) (on file with Congressional Budget Office). Funding for these programs was set to expire with the 2014 Farm Bill at the end of FY 2018.

134. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, FARM POLICY: COMPARISON OF 2018 AND 2019 MFP PROGRAMS 1 (2019).

135. Press Release, USDA, USDA Issues Third Tranche of 2019 MFP Payments (Feb. 3, 2020) (on file with author).

136. Calculated by the authors. According to the Congressional Research Service, FSA provided 2.6% of all farm loans by volume in FY 2017 and FCS provided 41%. Since FSA direct loans totaled $2,328,150,069 in FY 2017, we can infer that FCS provided farmers with approximately $36.5 billion in loans that year. See JIM MONKE, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, AGRICULTURAL CREDIT: INSTITUTIONS AND ISSUES 1 (2018) (noting that FSA provides 2.6% of all farm credit through farm loans and FCS 41%); USDA, FSA, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF FARM LOAN PROGRAMS: FY 2017 AS OF SEPT. 30, 2017 4 (2017).

137. See, e.g., FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, Pub. L. No. 111-353, §418(l)(1)-(2), 124 Stat. 3885, 3892 (2011).

138. Farms with gross earnings above $500,000 often have multiple employees, relationships with consultants, advisers, and extension staff, and are more likely to be able to afford accountants, attorneys, and other professionals to respond to new regulations and optimize their earnings. They also produce the majority of agricultural products in the United States and receive a disproportionate share of farm subsidies.

139. See CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, supra note 133, at 6 tbl.3 (showing projected mandatory outlays by program area through FY 2023).

140. RALPH CHITE ET AL., CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, THE 2014 FARM BILL (P.L. 113-79): SUMMARY AND SIDE-BY-SIDE 6, 17 (2014).

141. NATHAN A. ROSENBERG, THE FARM BILL: A NEGATIVE HISTORY 16 (2019).

142. See NORTH STAR OPINION RESEARCH, NATIONAL SURVEY OF REGISTERED VOTERS REGARDING CROP INSURANCE (2016) (showing that voters support government-subsidized crop insurance by a four-toone margin when told that claims are paid “only in the event of bad weather or low prices”).

143. See, e.g., Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey on crop insurance: “Farmers rely on crop insurance as an important safety net and protection from devastating losses from natural disasters.” Memorandum From Bill Northey, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, to Iowa Reporters and Editors (Oct. 28, 2015) (on file with authors).

144. STEPHANIE ROSCH, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE: A PRIMARY 17 (R46686) (2021).

145. Id. at 2.

146. Have Access Improvements to the Federal Crop Insurance Program Gone Far Enough?, NSAC, July 28, 2016, http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/crop-insurance-access-data/.

147. Id.

148. DANIEL SUMNER & CARL ZULAUF, COUNCIL ON FOOD, AGRICULTURAL, AND RESOURCE ECONOMICS, ECONOMIC & ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE PROGRAMS 10-12 (2012).

149. See Chad G. Marzen & J. Grant Ballard, Climate Change and Federal Crop Insurance, 43 ENV’T AFF. 387, 398 (2016).

150. The most recent version of the RMA’s Good Farming Practices Handbook, released in December 2015, includedsomeimportantchanges. Forthefirst time, the RMAstatesthatpracticespromotedby USDA’s NRCS will generally be recognized by agricultural experts as “good farming practices.” RMA, USDA, GOOD FARMING PRACTICE DETERMINATION STANDARDS HANDBOOK 33 (2016) [hereinafter GOOD FARMING PRACTICE DETERMINATION STANDARDS HANDBOOK]. This could make it much easier for farmers with crop insurance to adopt climate-friendly NRCS practices, since they are often deterred from doing so by the good farming practices requirement. However, the handbook considerably weakens the new provision by giving insurance companies the power to prohibit certain practices through the terms and conditions of their policies, and by indicating that both the RMA and insurance companies may prohibit practices that do not maximize yields. Unified Support for Conservation as Good Farming Practice Needed at USDA, NSAC, Dec. 16, 2016, http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/gfp-updated-at-rma.

151. GAO, CLIMATE CHANGE: BETTER MANAGEMENT OF EXPOSURE TO POTENTIAL FUTURE LOSSES IS NEEDED FOR FEDERAL FLOOD AND CROP INSURANCE 24 (2014) (GAO-15-28).

152. 7 C.F.R. §457.8 (2015); GOOD FARMING PRACTICE DETERMINATION STANDARDS HANDBOOK, supra note 150, at 32.

153. Calculated by the authors using USDA data. Compare RMA, USDA, FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE SUMMARY OF BUSINESS FOR ORGANIC PRODUCTION 2 (2015) (showing 777,966 organic acres enrolled in federal crop insurance in 2014), with RMA, USDA, FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE SUMMARY OF BUSINESS FOR ORGANIC PRODUCTION 2 (2016) (showing 1,043,403 organic acres enrolled in federal crop insurance in 2015).

154. 7 U.S.C. §1508(a)(3)(iii).

155. S. 3042, 115th Cong. §11107 (2018).

156. Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-334, §11107, 132 Stat. 4490, 4921.

157. See, e.g., Todd Neeley, Grassley Asks Vilsack to Fix Crop Insurance, Cover Crops Glitches, DTN/PROGRESSIVE FARMER, June 28, 2016, https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/blogs/ag-policy-blog/blog-post/2016/06/28/grassley-asks-vilsack-fix-crop-cover. A 2015 survey found that the most commonly cited reason among farmers for not adopting cover cropping was the concern that doing so would interfere with crop insurance. John Dobberstein, Crop Insurance Rules Still Hinder Cover Crop Adoption, No-TILL FARMER, Oct. 14, 2015.

158. See supra note 153.

159. USDA also established an interagency working group with NRCS, the RMA, and the Farm Security Administration to “develop consistent, simple, and flexible policy” on cover crop practices, making it easier for operators to plant cover crops in accordance with federal rules. See RMA, USDA, NRCS COVER CROP TERMINATION GUIDELINES I (2014).

160. See Jessica McKenzie, Regenerative Agriculture Could Save Soil, Water, and the Climate. Here’s How the U.S. Government Actively Discourages It, COUNTER, Mar. 14, 2019, https://newfoodeconomy.org/regenerative-agriculture-cover-crops-no-till-usda/ (describing how the RMA continues to discourage cover cropping).

161. See CLAIRE O’CONNOR, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, SOIL MATTERS: HOW THE FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE PROGRAM SHOULD BE REFORMED TO ENCOURAGE LOW-RISK FARMING METHODS WITH HIGH-REWARD ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES 10 (2013).

162. 7 U.S.C. §1508(i)(1).

163. See Noah Diffenbaugh et al., Historical Warming Has Increased U.S. Crop Insurance Losses, 16 ENV’T RES. LETTERS 084025 (2021).

164. GAO, supra note 151, at 14.

165. 7 C.F.R. §400.706(b)(4) (2016).

166. Id. §400.706(h)(5).

167. The agency’s comprehensive expression of its policy goals, its 2014-2018 Strategic Plan, lists as a strategic goal: “Ensure our national forests and private working lands are conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water resources.” It also states the agency’s objective to “lead efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.” USDA, STRATEGIC PLAN: FY 2014-2018, at 3, 15 (2014).

168. S. 3042, 115th Cong. §11109 (2018).

169. See generally Agricultural Act of 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-79, 128 Stat. 649.

170. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, supra note 136, figs.1 & 2 and tbl.3, at 5-6.

171. See id. at 14-15 & CRS-34.

172. See id. at CRS-33.

173. 7 U.S.C. §9018(a)(1).

174. Id. §9018(a)(2). The agency has not yet used this authority.

175. Romany Webb & Steven Weissman, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Addressing Climate Change Without Legislation, 3 USDA 43 (2014).

176. 15 U.S.C. §714c.

177. See id.

178. Press Release, USDA, USDA Announces Details of Assistance for Farmers Impacted by Unjustified Retaliation (Aug. 27, 2018) (on file with authors).

179. 15 U.S.C. §714c.

180. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, supra note 134.

181. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stability Act, Pub. L. No. 116-136, §11002, 134 Stat. 281 (2020); Press Release, USDA, USDA Announces Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (Apr. 17, 2020) (on file with authors).

182. USDA, CFAP 1.0 Dashboard: Program Payments by Category and Commodity, https://www.farmers.gov/cfap1/data (last visited May 27, 2020); USDA, CFAP 2.0 Dashboard: Program Payments by Category and Commodity, https://www.farmers.gov/cfap2/data (last visited May 27, 2020); e.g., H. Claire Brown, Congress Is Negotiating the Next Round of Covid-19 Aid. Here’s What That Means for the Food Industry, COUNTER, July 21, 2020, https://thecounter.org/congress-negotiatingcovid-19-aid-food-industry-businesses-ppp/.

183. USDA, MARKET FACILITATION PROGRAM DATA, https://www.farmers.gov/sites/default/files/documents/MFP%20Data%20-%20Feb%203%202020.pdf, (last updated Feb. 3, 2020) (showing that less than 2% of MFP payments by value went to specialty crops); USDA, CFAP Dashboard: Program Payments by Category and Commodity, https://www.farmers.gov/cfap/data (last visited Jan. 14, 2020) (showing that less than 17% of CFAP payments went to “sales commodities,” a broad category of agricultural products that includes specialty crops, aquaculture, floriculture, and specialty livestock).

184. Robert Bonnie et al., CLIMATE 21 PROJECT, TRANSITION MEMO 9 (2020).

185. Id.

186. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, supra note 133, fig.2 and tbl.3, at 5-6.

187. Id.

188. FARM SERVICE AGENCY, USDA, CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM: MONTHLY SUMMARY MAY 2020, at 6 (2020).

189. USDA, FARM SERVICE AGENCY STRATEGIC PLAN: FISCAL YEAR 2016-2018 UPDATE 25, 28 (2016).

190. In contrast, a 2009 literature review of carbon sequestration rates on CRP acres estimated that they sequester slightly less than one metric ton CO₂ eq. per acre annually. Gervasio Piñeiro et al., Set-Asides Can Be Better Climate Investment Than Corn Ethanol, 19 ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS 277, 279 (2009).

191. SOREN RUNDQUIST & CRAIG COX, ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP, FOOLING OURSELVES: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (2016) (finding that CRP water quality benefits were counteracted by losses from farmers exiting the program); Tyler Lark et al., Cropland Expansion Outpaces Agricultural and Biofuel Policies in the United States, 10 ENV’T RES. LETTERS 1, 9 (2015) (finding that up to 42% of all land converted to cropland came from land exiting CRP). Wetland acreage protected by CRP still have climate benefits, however, since their annual methane emissions while in the program are not lost if the land is converted back into production.

192. CRAIG COX ET AL., ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP, PARADISE LOST: CONSERVATION PROGRAMS FALTER AS AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY BOOMS 4 (2013).

193. See id. at 4-5; USDA Freezes New Enrollments in Continuous Conservation Reserve Program, NSAC, May 4, 2017, http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/usda-freezes-ccrp-enrollment/.

194. See, e.g., Press Release, Office of Sen. John Thune, Thune Farm Bill Proposals Would Improve Conservation Program Management (Apr. 10, 2017) (on file with authors).

195. Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-334, §2207, 132 Stat. 4490, 4547.

196. E.g., FSA, USDA, CRP CONTINUOUS SIGNUP FACT SHEET (2019).

197. 7 C.F.R. §1410.42(b).

198. Press Release, USDA, USDA Announces New Conservation Opportunities to Improve Water Quality and Restore Wildlife Habitat (Dec. 7, 2016) (on file with authors).

199. Press Release, USDA, USDA’s New CRP Pilot Program Offers Longer-Term Conservation Benefits (Apr. 29, 2020) (on file with authors).

200. Id.

201. Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-334, §2207, 132 Stat. 4490, 4549.

202. 7 C.F.R. §1410.4.

203. See Digging Deeper Into Continuous CRP Enrollments, NSAC, Mar. 24, 2015, http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/ccrp-enrollment-2015/; COX ET AL., supra note 192.

204. States provide additional funding for CREP, bringing the average yearly CREP payments to $140 per acre. In contrast, general sign-up payments are $51 per acre. Digging Deeper Into Continuous CRP Enrollments, supra note 203.

205. COX ET AL., supra note 192.

206. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, supra note 133, at 17-18.

207. 16 U.S.C. §590a. The agency was originally called the Soil Conservation Service but was renamed in 1994.

208. Id. §3839aa-2(d)(2).

209. Id. §3839aa-2(f)(1).

210. Id. §3839aa-2(d)(3).

211. For example, a 2008 report on EQIP in Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri found that state-level priorities favored the worst polluting operations and disadvantaged applications from producers using sustainable management methods, such as crop rotation. ELANOR STARMER, CAMPAIGN FOR FAMILY FARMS AND THE ENVIRONMENT, INDUSTRIAL LIVESTOCK AT THE TAXPAYER TROUGH: HOW LARGE HOG AND DAIRY OPERATIONS ARE SUBSIDIZED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY INCENTIVES PROGRAM 14 (2008).

212. EWG, The EQIP Improvement Act (2018).

213. The EQIP Improvement Act, introduced in 2018, would prioritize funding at the state and county levels for the most effective conservation practices, while also reducing the maximum cost-sharing from 75% to 40% for less beneficial practices. EQIP Improvement Act, S. 2624, 115th Cong. (2018).

214. Andrew Martin, In the Farm Bill, a Creature From the Black Lagoon?, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 13, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13feed.html (suggesting that the program’s name should be changed to the “Factory Farm Incentive Program”); Tom Laskaway, Stop the Environmental Subsidy for Factory Farms, GRIST, Apr. 17, 2009, http://grist.org/article/stop-the-environmental-subsidy-forfactory-farms/; CAFOs and Cover Crops: A Closer Look at 2015 EQIP Dollars, NSAC, Nov. 20, 2015, http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/fy15-general-eqip-update/.

215. EWG, Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Practice Suite Payments in the United States, 1997-2015, https://conservation.ewg.org/eqip_practice_suite.php (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

216. Ward & Pulido-Velazquez, supra note 54; Pfeiffer & Lin, supra note 54.

217. Melissa Bailey & Kathleen Merrigan, Rating Sustainability: An Opinion Survey of National Conservation Practices Funded Through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, 65 J. SOIL & WATER CONSERVATION 21A, 23A (2010).

218. CAFOs and Cover Crops: A Closer Look at 2015 EQIP Dollars, supra note 214.

219. Id.

220. See Jessica McKenzie, The Misbegotten Promise of Anaerobic Digesters, COUNTER, Dec. 3, 2019, https://thecounter.org/misbegotten-promise-anaerobic-digesters-cafo/.

221. EPA, AgSTAR—Is Anaerobic Digestion Right for Your Farm?, https://www.epa.gov/agstar/anaerobicdigestion-right-your-farm (last updated Aug. 17, 2020).

222. NASS, USDA, 2012 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE, U.S. NATIONAL LEVEL DATA 21 tbl.17 (2014).

223. As discussed in Chapter VI, in 2021, a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to impose methane emissions limits under the Clean Air Act on industrial dairy and hog operations—those with at least 500 cows or 1,000 hogs. The petitioners note that these facilities are “major sources of methane … and [account] for 33 percent of agricultural methane emissions, 13 percent of total U.S. methane emissions, and 1.3 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.” Petition to List Industrial Dairy and Hog Operations as Source Categories Under Section 111(b)(1)(A) of the Clean Air Act (Apr. 6, 2021), https://food.publicjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/04/2021.04.06-Industrial-Dairy-and-Hog-CAA-111-Petition-FINAL.pdf; Press Release, Public Justice, Climate, Environmental Justice Groups Call for Biden EPA to Hold Industrial Dairy and Hog Operations Accountable and to Reject Big Ag Technology, Apr. 6, 2021, https://food. publicjustice.net/methane-petition-press-release/.

224. The EQIP Improvement Act would lower the payment cap to $150,000. EQIP Improvement Act, S. 2624, 115th Cong. (2018). In 2007, for example, a coalition of 26 organizations called on Congress to prohibit funding for AFOs with more than 1,000 animals. Letter From the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment et al., to the Senate (May 8, 2007). Congress initially set the payment cap at $50,000, but then raised it ninefold in the 2002 Farm Bill to $450,000. Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-171, §1240G, 116 Stat. 134, 257. The cap was lowered to $300,000 in the 2008 Farm Bill after Barack Obama promised to reduce it in his presidential campaign. Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-234, §2508, 122 Stat. 923, 1063; see also OBAMA/BIDEN CAMPAIGN, REAL LEADERSHIP FOR RURAL AMERICA 2. However, it was ultimately raised back to $450,000 in the 2014 Farm Bill. Agricultural Act of 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-79, §2206, 128 Stat. 649, 730 (amending §1240G).

225. Each of the program’s statutorily mandated objectives can be promoted through carbon sequestration and carbon farming.

226. 16 U.S.C. §3839aa-2(i).

227. Id.

228. NRCS EQIP, supra note 112.

229. CAFOs and Cover Crops: A Closer Look at 2015 EQIP Dollars, supra note 214.

230. See Peter Lehner & Nathan Rosenberg, A Farm Bill to Help Farmers Weather Climate Change, 14 J. Food L. & Pol’y 8, 19-22 (2018).

231. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, supra note 133, at 17 & fig.2.

232. NRCS CSP, supra note 112.

233. UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, FARMERS AND TAXPAYERS STAND TO LOSE BILLIONS WITH ELIMINATION OF THE CONSERVATION STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM: APPENDIX 2 (2018).

234. Id.

235. 7 C.F.R. §1470.26 (2016).

236. Press Release, USDA NRCS, USDA Announces Changes for Largest Conservation Program (Sept. 1, 2016); Marc Heller, Revamps to Conservation Program Boost Options for Farmers, GREENWIRE, Sept. 2, 2016.

237. 16 U.S.C. §3838g.

238. Lehner & Rosenberg, supra note 230, at 21-22.

239. See NSAC, Conservation Stewardship Program, https://sustainableagriculture.net/publications/grassrootsguide/conservation-environment/conservation-stewardship-program/ (last updated Apr. 2019) (discussing the benefits of coordinating between EQIP and CSP).

240. Healthy Fields and Farm Economies Act, H.R. 4751, 115th Cong. (2018).

241. NASS, supra note 67, at 58 tbl.47.

242. California Energy Commission Climate Change Center, University of California, Davis, Adaptation Strategies for Agricultural Sustainability in Yolo County, California 106 (2012).

243. EMILY CASSIDY, EWG, ETHANOL’S BROKEN PROMISE: USING LESS CORN ETHANOL REDUCES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS 4 (Nils Bruzelius ed., 2014).

244. Calculated by the authors using EPA estimates for passenger vehicle emissions. See U.S. EPA, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM A TYPICAL PASSSENGER VEHICLE (2018) (a typical passenger vehicle emits

4.6 metric tons of CO₂ annually).

245. Lark et al., supra note 191, at 5.

246. NSAC, Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, http://sustainableagriculture.net/publications/grassrootsguide/conservation-environment/agricultural-conservation-easement-program/ (last updated July 2019).

247. 16 U.S.C. §3865.

248. Id. §3865(b).

249. Id. §3865c(b)(6)(a)(i).

250. Id.

251. Id. §3865c(b)(6)(a)(ii).

252. Id. §3865b(2).

253. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, AGRICULTURAL CONSERVATION IN THE 2018 FARM BILL 9 (2019).

254. Calculated by the authors using CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, BUDGET ISSUES THAT SHAPED THE 2018 FARM BILL CRS-6 (2019).

255. Richard Plevin et al., Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Biofuels’ Indirect Land Use Change Are Uncertain but May Be Much Greater Than Previously Estimated, 44 ENV’T SCI. & TECH. 8018 (2010). The EWG estimated that 25 to 74 MMT CO₂ eq. were emitted each year between 2008 and 2012 due to the conversion of wetlands to farmland. CASSIDY, supra note 243.

256. See Todd Neeley, Conservation Controversy, PROGRESSIVE FARMER, Winter 2014, available at http://dtnpf-digital.com/article/Conservation_Controversy/1888630/239474/article.html.

257. USDA NRCS, Healthy Forests Reserve Program, https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/programs/easements/forests/ (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

258. 16 U.S.C. §§3811-3812.

259. Id. §3821. Wetlands drained or filled before December 23, 1985, are not protected. Id. §3822(b)(1) (A).

260. See Laurie Ristino & Gabriela Steier, Losing Ground: A Clarion Call for Food System Reform to Ensure a Food Secure Future, 42 COLUM. J. ENV’T L. 59, 96-102 (2016) (providing an in-depth discussion of compliance oversight).

261. Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-234, §12020, 122 Stat. 923, 1381.

262. Agricultural Act of 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-79, §11014, 128 Stat. 649, 961.

263. As mentioned above, wetlands are estimated to emit between 405 and 1,215 metric tons of CO₂ eq. per acre when converted to agricultural land. Plevin et al., supra note 255.

264. Ristino & Steier, supra note 260.

265. OIG, USDA, AUDIT REPORT No. 50601-0005-31, USDA MONITORING OF HIGHLY ERODIBLE LAND AND WETLAND CONSERVATION VIOLATIONS—INTERIM REPORT 3 (2016); see Ristino & Steier, supra note 260, at 97.

266. In addition to failing to hold operators accountable, the agency has also failed to sufficiently monitor operators subject to the requirement. It must do both. See Joshua Ulan Galperin, Trust Me I’m a Pragmatist: A Partially Pragmatic Critique of Pragmatic Activism, 42 COLUM. J. ENV’T L. 426, 487-89 (2017).

267. See, e.g., Letter from Dan Ash, Director, Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, to Jason Weller, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA (Feb. 20, 2015) (on file with authors) (detailing numerous problems with USDA’s wetland determination process, including that “wetland acreages could be substantially reduced” because FSA’s imagery is captured during the “natural dry-down during the summer months.”).

268. See, e.g., Regrow Agriculture, https://www.regrow.ag/ (last visited Aug. 7, 2021), one of several companies providing agronomic and environmental analysis through analysis of satellite imagery.

269. Most federal environmental statutes empower citizens to enforce compliance through citizen suit provisions, which have proven to be among the most effective methods available for holding regulatory subjects and government agencies accountable. Galperin, supra note 266, at 487.

270. Meagan Schipanski et al., A Framework for Evaluating Ecosystem Services Provided by Cover Crops in Agroecosystems, 125 AGRIC. Sys. 12, 13 (2014).

271. EWG, LESS FARM POLLUTION, MORE CLEAN WATER: AN AGENDA FOR CONSERVATION IN THE 2018 FARM BILL 3-4 (2017).

272. Id.

273. Jan Bengtsson et al., Grasslands—More Important for Ecosystem Services Than You Might Think, 10 ECOSPHERE 1 (2019).

274. Id. at 10.

275. Seth A. Spawn, Carbon Emissions From Grassland Expansion in the United States, 14 ENV’T RES. LETTERS 5 (2019).

276. Letter From Organizations in Support of the American Prairie Conservation Act, to Chairman Pat Roberts and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and Chairman K. Michael Conaway and Ranking Member Collin Peterson, House Committee on Agriculture (Jan. 18, 2018) (on file with authors).

277. See supra note 136.

278. See Farm Credit Act of 1933, Pub. L. No. 73-75, 48 Stat. 257.

279. JIM MONKE, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, AGRICULTURAL CREDIT: INSTITUTIONS AND ISSUES 1 (2018).

280. Total farm debt was approximately $374 billion at the end of 2016. Id.

281. Id.

282. See Nathan Rosenberg & Bryce Wilson Stucki, How USDA Distorted Data to Conceal Decades of Discrimination Against Black Farmers, COUNTER (June 26, 2019), https://thecounter.org/usda-blackfarmers-discrimination-tom-vilsack-reparations-civil-rights/ (showing racial disparities in USDA lending).

283. See generally Agricultural Credit Improvement Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-554, 106 Stat. 4142. FSA must dedicate 75% of its funding for direct farm ownership loans and 50% of its funding for direct operating loans to beginning farmers and ranchers during the first 11 months of the FY. 7 U.S.C. §1994(b)(2)(A). FSA is also required to reserve 40% of its funding for guaranteed ownership and operating loans to beginning farmers during the first half of the FY. Id. “Low-income, limited resource” farmers must receive at least 25% of FSA’s guaranteed ownership and operating loans. Id. §1994(d).

284. A USDA task force in 1997 found low participation rates in FSA programs among minorities as well as evidence of long-running discrimination. CIVIL RIGHTS ACTION TEAM, CIVIL RIGHTS AT THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 21-27 (1997); see also Stephen Carpenter, The USDA Discrimination Cases: Pigford, In re Black Farmers, Keepseagle, Garcia, and Love, 17 DRAKE J. AGRIC. L. 1 (2012) (discussing credit discrimination claims against USDA).

285. Expanded USDA Microloans Program Increases Opportunity for Small and Beginning Farmers, NSAC, Jan. 25, 2016, http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/expanded_usda_microloans/.

286. USDA FSA, Microloan Programs, https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/farm-loan-programs/microloans/index (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

287. Id.

288. 12 U.S.C. §2207; 7 U.S.C. §1994(b)(2)(A). See generally FARM CREDIT ADMINISTRATION, 2015 ANNUAL REPORT ON THE FARM CREDIT SYSTEM 26-32 (2016) (describing the Farm Credit System’s efforts to serve young, beginning, and small farmers).

289. USDA ERS, Exports Expand the Market for U.S. Agricultural Products, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58396 (last updated Apr. 11, 2016).

290. See, e.g., Exporting Obesity: U.S. Farm and Trade Policy and the Transformation of the Mexican Consumer Food Environment, 18 INT’L J. OCCUPATIONAL & ENV’T HEALTH 53 (2012).

291. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, 2018 FARM BILL PRIMER: AGRICULTURAL TRADE AND FOOD ASSISTANCE (2019).

292. Id.

293. 7 U.S.C. §6935.

294. Press Release, USDA, Secretary Perdue Announces Creation of Undersecretary of Trade and USDA Reorganization (May 11, 2014) (on file with authors).

295. By 1935, USDA’s budget had expanded twelvefold from pre-Depression levels, making it the single largest agency in the United States. ERNEST C. PASOUR JR., AGRICULTURE AND THE STATE: MARKET PROCESSES AND BUREAUCRACY 235 (1990). In contrast, a Congressional Research Service report from 2006 found that only 3.4% of federal outlays went to USDA between 2001 and 2005, making it the fifth largest federal agency in terms of spending. The majority of USDA funding went to SNAP, however, rather than to agricultural programs. When spending was analyzed by budget function, agriculture was found to be 12th, immediately following international affairs. PHILLIP D. WINTERS, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, FEDERAL SPENDING BY AGENCY AND BUDGET FUNCTION, FY2001-FY2005, at 10 (2006).

296. Nathan A. Rosenberg & Bryce Wilson Stucki, The Butz Stops Here: Why the Food Movement Needs to Rethink Agricultural History, 13 J. FOOD L. & POL’Y 12, 13-14 (2017).

297. The benefits of technological changes and mechanization were disproportionately distributed to large-scale landowners as the result of highly favorable federal programs. Id. at 20-21.

298. As historian Paul K. Conkin writes, the details of agricultural policy changed over the years, but “aspects of every policy option undertaken in the 1930s have endured until the present.” PAUL K. CONKIN, A REVOLUTION DOWN ON THE FARM: THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE SINCE 1929, at 51 (2008).

299. CAROLYN DIMITRI ET AL., USDA, THE 20TH CENTURY TRANSFORMATION OF U.S. AGRICULTURE AND FARM POLICY (2005) (EIB-3).

300. Calculated by the authors using USDA data. See NASS, supra note 67, at 9 tbl.1. See generally Chapter II.

301. Nina Domingo et al., Air Quality-Related Health Damages of Food, 118 PROC. NAT’L ACAD. SCI. 20 (May 2021), https://www.pnas.org/content/118/20/e2013637118. Industrial livestock facilities, often called CAFOs, produce the majority of ammonia emissions in the United States, in addition to large amounts of hydrogen sulfide, silica dust, and noxious odors. See D. BRUCE HARRIS ET AL., EPA, AMMONIA EMISSION FACTORS FROM SWINE FINISHING OPERATIONS 1 (2001) (noting that livestock facilities are responsible for 73% of ammonia emissions). See generally Dick Heederik et al., Health Effects of Airborne Exposures From Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, 115 ENV’T HEALTH PERSP. 298 (2007) (summarizing research on toxic gases, vapors, and particles emitted from CAFOs).

302. Tamar Haspel, Farm Bill: Why Don’t Taxpayers Subsidize the Foods That Are Better for Us?, WASH. POST, Feb. 18, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/farm-bill-why-dont-taxpayers-subsidizethe-foods-that-are-better-for-us/2014/02/14/d7642a3c-9434-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html.

303. Diet-related diseases are responsible for more than a million deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in medical costs in the United States each year. INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE, A FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESSING EFFECTS OF THE FOOD SYSTEM 3-6 (2015); see also Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Leading Causes of Death, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm (last reviewed Oct. 30, 2020).

304. See Alison Power, Ecosystem Services and Agriculture: Tradeoffs and Synergies, 365 PHIL. TRANSACTIONS ROYAL SOC’Y B 2959, 2966-67 (2010) (noting that farm management can considerably enhance the ecosystem services provided by agriculture).

305. J.B. Ruhl, Agriculture and Payments for Ecosystem Services in the Era of Climate Change, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND AGRICULTURAL LAW 315-16 (Mary Jane Angelo & Anel Du Plessis eds., Edward Elgar 2017).

306. Rattan Lal, Societal Value of Carbon, 69 J. SOIL & WATER CONSERVATION 186A, 190A (2014).

307. See Peter Lehner, Feed More With Less, 34 ENV’T F. 42 (2017).

308. H.R. 5861, 116th Cong. (2020). The bill achieved broad support among environmental and progressive rural advocacy organizations. See Office of Rep. Chellie Pingree, Statements of Support for the Agriculture Resilience Act, https://pingree.house.gov/netzeroagriculture/ara-statements-of-support.htm (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

309. H.R. 5861 §101 (research), §308 (agroforestry), §301 (crop insurance), & tit. V (pasture-based livestock systems).

310. SUZANNE METTLER, THE SUBMERGED STATE: HOW INDIVISIBLE GOVERNMENT POLICIES UNDERMINE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 4 (2011).

311. See David Dayen, The Farm Bill Still Gives Wads of Cash to Agribusiness. It’s Just Sneakier About It., NEW REPUBLIC, Feb. 4, 2014, https://newrepublic.com/article/116470/farm-bill-2014-its-even-worseold-farm-bill.

312. METTLER, supra note 310.

313. Richard T. Conant & Keith Paustian, Potential Soil Carbon Sequestration in Overgrazed Grassland Ecosystems, 16 GLOBAL BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES 90-1, 90-1 (2002).

314. See USDA USFS, About Rangeland Management, https://www.fs.fed.us/rangeland-management/aboutus/index.shtml (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

315. Id.

316. See Taylor Grazing Act, 43 U.S.C. §315; Federal Lands Policy and Management Act, id. §1751. See also Public Rangelands Improvement Act, id. §1901; National Forest Management Act, 16 U.S.C. §1600; Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act, id. §538.

317. In 2013, federal grazing fees were less than 7% of the fees charged for equivalent grazing lands on private property. CHRISTINE GLASER ET AL., CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES: THE REAL PRICE OF LIVESTOCK GRAZING ON AMERICA’S PUBLIC LANDS 1 (2015).

318. 43 C.F.R. §4180.2 (2016).

319. About the BLM Grazing Data, PUB. EMPLOYEES FOR ENV’T RESP., Sept. 22, 2014, http://www.peer.org/campaigns/public-lands/public-lands-grazing-reform/blm-grazing-data.html.

320. 43 U.S.C. §1701(a)(8).

321. NRCS, USDA, ESTIMATING INITIAL STOCKING RATES 7-8 (2009).

322. Bryan McMurry, Cow Size Is Growing, BEEF MAG., Feb. 1, 2009, http://www.beefmagazine.com/genetics/0201-increased-beef-cows.

323. Daniel W. McCollum et al., Climate Change Effects on Rangelands and Rangeland Management: Affirming the Need for Monitoring, 3 ECOSYSTEM HEALTH & SUSTAINABILITY 1, 7 (2017).

324. M. Rebecca Shaw et al., The Impact of Climate Change on California’s Ecosystem Services, 109 CLIMATIC CHANGE 465, 478 (2011).

325. 43 C.F.R. §4170.1-2 (2016).

326. Steven C. Forrest, Creating New Opportunities for Ecosystem Restoration on Public Lands: An Analysis of the Potential for Bureau of Land Management Lands, 23 PUB. LAND & RESOURCES L. REV. 21, 39 (2002).

327. USFS, USDA, RANGE MANAGEMENT ch. 2230, at 18 (2005).

328. Taylor Grazing Act, 43 U.S.C. §315.

329. Public Lands Council v. Babbitt, 529 U.S. 728 (2000).

330. See supra Chapter IV, for more on the climate and ecological benefits of perennial systems.

331. Id.

332. Lingxi Chenyang et al., Farming With Trees: Reforming U.S. Farm Policy to Expand Agroforestry and Mitigate Climate Change, 48 ECOLOGY L.Q. (forthcoming 2021).

333. Id.

334. See, e.g., FOOD & WATER WATCH, PUBLIC RESEARCH, PRIVATE GAIN: CORPORATE INFLUENCE OVER UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH (2012).

335. Chenyang et al., supra note 332.

336. Id.

337. A 2011 survey of extension professionals found that about half did not have programs focused on agroforestry—the most common perennial system in the United States outside of perennial forages—in their state extension system. Michael Jacobson & Shiba Kar, Extent of Agroforestry Extension Programs in the United States, 51 J. EXTENSION (2013). Of the extension professionals with at least one agroforestry program in their state, only one-quarter said that their state’s program(s) were very or fairly successful. Id.

338. DeLonge et al., supra note 14, at 266.

339. NRCS EQIP, supra note 112.

340. Calculated by the authors using id. Approximately $667,000 went to support silvopasture and $19,000 to alley cropping. Id.

341. PLC has been more advantageous for Missouri wheat producers in recent years. See David Widmar, ARC-CO vs. PLC: Which Won in the 2014 Farm Bill?, AGRIC. ECON. INSIGHTS, Sept. 16, 2019, https://aei.ag/2019/09/16/arc-co-vs-plc-which-won-in-the-2014-farm-bill/.

342. USDA, MARKET FACILITATION PROGRAM: 2019 COUNTY PER ACRE PAYMENT RATE 1, 12 (2019).

343. FCIC, COMMODITY YEAR STATISTICS FOR 2018, at 20 (2020).

344. USDA National Agroforestry Center, Agroforestry Working Groups, https://www.fs.usda.gov/nac/resources/working-groups.shtml (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

345. Land Institute, Kernza® Grain, https://landinstitute.org/our-work/perennial-crops/kernza/ (last visited Nov. 12, 2020).

346. DANIEL BIGELOW ET AL., USDA, U.S. FARMLAND OWNERSHIP, TENURE, AND TRANSFER 25 (2014) (EIB-161).

347. Chenyang et al., supra note 331.

348. See id.

349. Kevin Wolz et al., Frontiers in Alley Cropping: Transformative Solutions for Temperate Agriculture, 24 GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 6 (2018).

350. Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, Pub. L No. 101-624, §1243, 104 Stat. 3359, 3546.

351. USDA, AGROFORESTRY STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK: FISCAL YEARS 2019-2024, at 20 (2019).

352. Chenyang et al., supra note 332.

353. Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, Pub. L No.. 101–624, §1243, 104 Stat. 3359, 3546; 16 U.S.C. §1642 note.

354. Freedom of Information Act Response No. 2021-FS-WO-01912-F from USDA to Authors (Feb. 26, 2021) (on file with authors).

355. See Chenyang et al., supra note 332.

356. Id.

357. A USDA analysis found that businesses receiving VAPG funds were more likely to survive and increase employment. Anil Rupasingha et al., USDA, USDA’s VALUE-ADDED PRODUCER GRANT PROGRAM AND ITS EFFECT ON BUSINESS SURVIVAL AND GROWTH 19 (Economic Research Report No. 248, 2018).

358. Supra Chapter V.B.3.

359. Adam Belz, More Than a Third of U.S. Farm Income in 2019 Will Come From the Government, MINN. STAR TRIB., Nov. 5, 2019, http://www.startribune.com/more-than-a-third-of-u-s-farm-income-in2019-will-come-from-the-government/564525932/.

360. See Mary Beth Miller & D. Lee Miller, Insuring a Future for Small Farms, 14 J. FOOD L. & POL’Y 56, 68-69 (2018).

361. Supra Chapter IV.A.1

362. We are grateful to Lingxi Chenyang for bringing Aldo Leopold’s observations regarding the Great Plains Forestry Project to our attention and for emphasizing its relevance to contemporary policy discussions. We summarize her analysis here for our readers but it can be found in full in Chenyang et al. supra note 332.

363. Aldo Leopold, The Land Ethic, in A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC AND SKETCHES HERE AND THERE (Oxford Univ. Press, 1949).

364. Carson Vaughan, Uprooting FDR’s “Great Wall of Trees” (2017), https://features.weather.com/us-climate-change/nebraska/.

365. USDA, CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT (May 2021), https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/climate-smart-ag-forestry-strategy-90-dayprogress-report.pdf.

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