3. State Research and Demonstration Programs
While federally funded research will be critical for the development of carbon farming, states and land-grant institutions can also play an important role in stimulating research into adaptation and mitigation strategies.
State governments and land-grant institutions played a critical role in the growth of sustainable and organic agriculture before the federal government began providing consistent, if relatively meager, research funding in the 1990s.58 The University of California, Iowa State University, the University of Maine, and others developed sustainable agriculture research and extension programs122
to help improve and spread sustainable practices. States are beginning to do the same for climate-friendly practices. As of mid-2021, 18 states have enacted laws to support “healthy soils,” which largely align with climate-friendly practices, and many, such as California and Washington, encourage research as well as technical assistance. Similar bills are pending in 17 states.59 Similarly, many states direct some of their clean water nonpoint source pollution abatement funds toward support for practices such as cover cropping, manure management, and riparian buffers that offer both water quality and climate benefits, while some states are also supporting practices to make farming more resilient to climate change. California has provided over $40 million in funding since 2016 for its Healthy Soils Program, an incentive and demonstration program for farmers and ranchers designed to increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.60 Other state legislatures, agencies, and land-grant institutions should expand on these efforts, giving programs designed to spread climate-friendly practices sufficient funding to develop robust research, education, and technical assistance arms.61
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University provides an attractive example for future state efforts. While the Iowa Legislature eliminated the center’s funding in 2017, substantially reducing its effectiveness,62 the center’s enabling legislation provides a compelling funding model for states with more favorable political environments.
Established by the 1987 Iowa Groundwater Protection Act to conduct research designed to reduce the environmental harms of agriculture and to help promulgate sustainable practices,63 the center received approximately $1.5 million annually until 2017 from a fund consisting of revenue from a small fee on nitrogen fertilizer sales and pesticide registrations. The fee on nitrogen fertilizer sales was set at 75 cents per ton of anhydrous ammonia—less than 0.2% of the average price paid by individual farmers.64 While the center’s $2 million annual123
budget represented only a tiny portion of the amount spent nationally on agricultural research, it has an impressive record in fostering sustainable practices and has developed a national reputation for its groundbreaking research.
More on the topic 3. State Research and Demonstration Programs:
- 1. Federal Research Programs
- 2. Public-Private Research Programs
- 7. Improving Coordination Among Research, Extension, and Technical Assistance Programs
- A. Research, Extension, and Technical Assistance Programs
- 2. Commodity Programs
- A. Research
- 2. Research, Development, and Extension
- Future Research
- 7. Lending Programs
- 4.4 The time in Tübingen: research and teaching
- The so-called ‘new institutionalism’ is a relatively recent addition to the pantheon of theories of the state and, like some of the other perspectives considered in this volume, it is by no means only a theory of the state
- B. Public Subsidy and Conservation Programs
- § 41 The legal system of the people of a given state is usually taken to coincide with the period of the independent political existence of that state.
- C. Small Business Administration Lending Programs
- Like Henry Higgins who, through his work changed the object of his studies into something other than what it was, the purpose of the Marxist theory of the state is not just to understand the capitalist state but to aid in its destruction. (Wolfe 1974: 131)