WASHINGTON – Today leaders from the House and Senate Agriculture committees issued competing frameworks for renewing the farm bill, which sets farm and food policy.
The following is a statement from Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group senior vice president for government affairs:
The contrast between the House and Senate farm bill proposals could not be clearer. The Senate framework would ensure that farmers are rewarded when they take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the House framework would not.
At a time when farmer demand for climate-smart funding is growing, Congress should ensure that support for farmers offering to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer, and methane emissions from animals and their waste, is the Department of Agriculture’s top priority.
Unless farmers are provided the tools to reduce nitrous oxide and methane emissions from agriculture, farming will soon be the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
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