More farmers are transitioning to climate-smart practices and the U.S. is recognizing the critical role agriculture plays in driving climate solutions and strengthening the U.S. and global food systems. As a result, there will be significant opportunities to invest and help drive a climate-smart transition.
Recently, the Biden administration announced initial commitments to pilot new revenue streams for climate-smart farmers, ranchers and forest landowners. All in, the United States Department of Agriculture anticipates investing more than $3 billion over five years in pilots that will create market opportunities for American farmers using climate-smart production practices. According to a news release announcing the program, “These initial projects will expand markets for climate-smart commodities, leverage the greenhouse gas benefits of climate-smart commodity production and provide direct, meaningful benefits to production agriculture, including for small and underserved producers.”
Our report on transformative investment in agriculture outlined both the need and the opportunity for investing from the private sector. The good news is that this is a sector that has a technology pipeline, and it has willing and capable farmers and ranchers ready to deploy climate-smart technology. They just need greater partnership from the finance sector.
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The farmers who produce our food care about sustainability; it is their livelihood. In fact, farmers are the eco workforce who can have an impact on getting us closer to solutions for a net zero economy every day. They just need greater investment to employ the technologies that can catapult the transition.
