7. Improving Coordination Among Research, Extension, and Technical Assistance Programs

In addition to expanding funding for research, extension, and technical assistance, USDA must improve its coordination of these services. USDA is a massive bureaucracy, with 35 agencies and offices, which often work at cross-purposes.¹²⁴ Yet in order to achieve climate neutrality in agriculture, USDA must address emissions in a systematic fashion, organizing its research, extension, and technical assistance arms around common goals and priorities.

To accomplish these goals, USDA can build on its existing Climate Hubs, which translate new climate-related research into tools, materials, and methods for outreach and education, support applied research, and coordinate USDA’s climate-related activities in each region.¹²⁵ Unfortunately, Climate Hubs do not have their own source of funding, but rather have received funding from other USDA agencies.¹²⁶ The Trump Administration also diverted resources away from the Climate Hubs, leaving them understaffed and underutilized.¹²⁷ The current administration and Congress should provide dedicated funding for Climate Hubs and make explicit their role in coordinating among research, extension, and technical assistance programs for the benefit of farmers and rural communities.

The department can also build upon its “Building Blocks” plan, released in 2015, to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions through agriculture and

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forestry by 120 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMT CO₂ eq.) per year by 2025, by creating a department-wide agenda, drawing on a range of technologies and practices, and leveraging efforts by other government agencies and the private sector.¹²⁸ Though a promising idea, the plan has several weaknesses that USDA should work to remedy: its soil carbon sequestration goals are modest,¹²⁹ it favors practices preferred by agribusiness companies rather than those with demonstrated long-term climate benefits,¹³⁰ and it relies on voluntary incentives, which are often impermanent and ineffective at storing soil carbon.¹³¹ And even if the planned emissions reductions materialized, the plan would not come close to achieving climate neutrality in agriculture due to its overwhelming reliance on nonagricultural sectors, such as forestry and housing energy, for greenhouse gas reductions.¹³² USDA should release a new plan that lays out more ambitious goals and focuses on agricultural practices with the greatest potential to reduce net emissions.