Meet the Joe Manchin of the Farm Bill
Climate denial is alive and well in the House Agriculture Committee
My introduction to Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, the Republican representing Pennsylvania’s 15th district, came during a House Agriculture Committee hearing on climate change held just over a year ago. Sure, climate change is real, I listened to Thompson say over the live feed, but that doesn’t mean we need to do anything about it. It’s just these pesky “so-called experts” and “climate grifters” getting us all worked up about nothing.
Last week, the committee held another climate change hearing — this one a preview of USDA programs for the 2023 Farm Bill — and here Thompson zeroed in on a more specific target, the New York Times.
After a scorching critique of the newspaper’s recent op-ed video series — the one that chronicled the industry’s outsized influence on US lawmakers — he went on to repeat a classic animal agriculture industry talking point, verbatim. Remember, Thompson said, emissions from food production make up just 10 percent of the US’s emissions, much less than transportation or industry.
Thompson’s donor list includes National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Crop Insurance Professionals Association, among other agriculture industry groups, as you might have guessed.
If you’re at all familiar with industry talking points, then you already know this flavor of climate denial. Farmers could never pollute. Farmers know best. And food system emissions are just a teeny tiny fraction of climate pollution, not worthy of slowing down the mighty engine of American food production.
This framing is so common on AgTwitter, you can practically set your watch to it.
Here’s a brief review of the facts. Food system climate emissions are increasing, and they have been since the 1990s, primarily from beef production (specifically, cattle burps) but also methane and nitrous oxide emissions from dairy and hog manure. What Thompson describes as “only less than 10 percent” just seems small because emissions from other sectors in the US are so high, as compared to the rest of the world. And again, agriculture emissions are still going up.
Doing nothing to address food sector climate pollutants is a wasted opportunity for climate action. As Amy Westervelt noted in the most recent Hot Take issue, “reducing methane emissions just 30 percent in the near term would reduce warming in the short term and buy us more time to figure out the right mix on the grid.”
So, what are the chances for a climate-smart farm bill?
The farm bill is a package of legislation that funds food system programs and sets policy, which Congress votes on every five years or so. For the past two bills, negotiations have been especially fraught, derailing votes for months on end. But this year, things could get especially contentious. After failing to pass more sweeping climate legislation, Democrats are looking to shoehorn in climate policy wherever they can, and that includes the 2023 farm bill.
Here’s what Thompson and his colleagues had to say about the prospects for climate action:
We need “pro-growth solutions” not “burdensome regulation.” One of GT’s favorite lines, it suggests the usual subsidies and insurance for commodity growers are fine but any move to actually put limits on farm pollution will meet fierce opposition. Not that the Democrats are actually proposing any sort of increased accountability from the farm sector anyway, of course.
My farmers back home aren’t talking about climate change! That bit was repeated several times by a number of Republicans throughout the four-hour long hearing. But even if that were true, it’s not actually true. Because the farmers who don’t like the words “climate change” are still absolutely concerned with what crops they’ll lose after a derecho or whether their livestock will survive the next flood. No matter what you call it, climate change impacts their bottom line. Perhaps we can just rebrand climate action as “weather-smart agriculture policy.”
We don’t want to create winners and losers in the food system. A breathtaking comment from the Republican side given that our food system already does this by subsidizing ethanol and livestock production, not to mention the long history of racism at USDA, with reports of officials reserving funding for White farmers and discriminating against Black and indigenous growers and ranchers. Shakera Raygoza, a member of the National Young Farmers Coalition, spoke about USDA efforts to improve funding access for BIPOC farmers, though this was largely ignored by Republicans.
I can’t believe you’re blaming our farmers for climate change! Not that we couldn’t use a little bit more accountability from Democrat lawmakers, but in actuality, no one at the hearing was blaming farmers for climate change. Just one representative in fact — Democrat Alma Adams — dared to mention the consequences for failing to tackle food system emissions, pointing out that we won’t be meeting our Paris climate goals because of this inaction.
What climate action might make its way into the bill?
Witness and former Senator Heidi Heitkamp suggested boosting programs that tie crop insurance to conservation practices, which does have some promise since it essentially builds on existing programs. Tying subsidies to these practices would be a step towards environmental accountability in the agriculture sector, albeit a very small one. If we’re going to be paying farmers, let’s require them to implement practices that mitigate runoff, at least to some degree.
As one model, the state of Maryland requires crop farmers to regularly test phosphorous levels in their soils before they fertilize, while most other states do not. Maryland also pays some farmers to plant cover crops, and at least one study has shown an improvement in nutrient loads on fields that practiced cover cropping there over those that did not. Of course, these efforts would do little to address the larger problems such as pollution from concentrated livestock farms, manure mismanagement, growing too much corn for ethanol and livestock feed, and our country’s outsized beef consumption.
Several witnesses brought up the urgent need for staffing, calling for more agricultural scientists to help farmers implement climate-smart agricultural practices. But that might be easier said than done. The agency essentially froze hiring during the Trump administration and lost many researchers who quit after the agency announced plans to move them from Beltsville, Maryland to the Kansas City area. So the USDA is starting at a hiring deficit. Hiring a lot of researchers may require more funding and more time, time that the Democrats and Biden administration may not have given the upcoming midterms.
So, the prospects for meaningful climate action in the 2023 Farm Bill don’t look great right now. Republican opposition coupled with weak leadership from Democrats don’t bode well for funding programs that truly mitigate emissions. But we are, at least, just getting started, and hopefully coverage of farm bill discussions will pick up in the next several months, bringing more public scrutiny to lawmaker action, or inaction, as the case may be.
Hits and Misses: What I cooked for my non-vegan family this week
Hits: So, I was very nervous to make vegan crab cakes. My Maryland-raised husband is a huge crab cake fan (I think Maryland runs on Old Bay fumes and it’s totally weird, by the way. There, I said it!). But everyone was won over by this new-to-me jackfruit crab cake recipe. Pretty sure the clincher was the homemade tartar sauce with capers (also on the site in the previous link). I also made a Thai-inspired “beef” noodle salad with Impossible beef and lots of fresh vegetables that also went over well. Spring is here, ready or not. Time to stop roasting my vegetables to hell and back. It’s salad weather! Kind of. Almost. Maybe.
Misses: No specific misses that I can remember, but I’m generally struggling to muster my usual enthusiasm for cooking. I’ve got one kid graduating high school this year and another moving on from elementary. That plus the general shitty state of the world…it’s all just wiping me out. Usually cooking is my happy place but it’s tough to get inspired when you’re feeling drained. So send vegan inspiration my way! I need it.