Dive Brief:
- Congressional Democrats this week unveiled a bill that would pay farmers who raise livestock for large industrial operations to transition toward more climate-friendly practices.
- The bill aims to use funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and provide farmers with grants to transition Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations into specialty crop production or pasture-based livestock operations. Farmers participating in this program would need to permanently cease the operation of the CAFO within 180 days.
- The proposal comes as House Republicans look to move IRA funds earmarked for climate-smart agriculture to pay for other priorities in the farm bill.
Dive Insight:
The Inflation Reduction Act provided close to $20 billion for climate-smart agriculture, though that funding has been swept up in partisan politics over how the money should be spent and what types of environmentally-friendly practices it should support.
In the midst of a heated farm bill debate, Republicans have sought to remove guardrails on IRA funding that ensures the money is used for climate-smart agriculture. Democrats are fighting to maintain these restrictions in the farm bill, although some on the left have criticized the program for funding manure management and other practices that have been shown to have little impact on climate change.
"Corporate meatpackers use their market power to trap producers in the factory farm system with terrible profit margins and unsustainable debt,” said New York Sen. Cory Booker, who introduced the legislation along with two House Democrats. “This legislation leverages conservation funding to give farmers a completely voluntary new path forward by providing them with the resources they need to transition to a more climate-friendly and humane production system."
There are more than 21,000 CAFOs across the U.S., and the term is generally used to describe an operation with 1,000 or more animals. Environmental activists say these large production facilities are some of the biggest contributors to climate change, and that a lack of waste management has led to a large increase in emissions over the past three decades.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has made more funding available to livestock producers for manure management, though that has also come under fire from Democrats who say it entrenches a system of industrial agriculture.
Democrats' proposal for farms to transition away from CAFOS ensures that funding cannot be used for methane digesters or manure lagoons. The bill's sponsors and supporters have positioned the proposal as a way to help family farms thrive in a system of consolidation and mounting debt.
"“I know firsthand the difficulty both financially and socially in transitioning from a confinement animal system to a regenerative farming system, having transitioned our farm in 1996,” Ron Holter of Holterholm Farms said in a statement, noting there is a "lag time" before farms see the results of their climate-friendly practices. “Transitional funds would be a blessing to farmers attempting to move to more regenerative, livestock friendly systems.”
