By Frida Garza for Grist.
Broadcast version by Chrystal Blair for Michigan News Connection reporting for the Rural News Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Senator Debbie Stabenow, a longtime champion of programs that support farmers and increase access to nutritious foods, introduced a new version of the farm bill, a key piece of legislation typically renewed every five years that governs much of how the agricultural industry in the U.S. operates.

Stabenow, who is retiring next month after representing Michigan in the Senate for 24 years, has staked her career on her vision for a robust, progressive farm bill: one that, among other things, paves the way for farmers to endure the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

The text of her bill comes almost two months after the 2018 farm bill, which initially expired last year and was revived thanks to a one-year extension, expired for a second time on September 30. And it comes mere weeks before the end of the year, when funding for several programs included in the farm bill will run out.

But more importantly, the bill comes after many months of infighting between Democratic and Republican lawmakers over what matters most in the next farm bill - and just weeks before the current congressional term ends. In order to pass the bill, Stabenow would need to gain the support of Republicans in the Senate agriculture committee and the House of Representatives, where Democrats lack the votes necessary to pass their own version of the legislation.

It's likely, even expected, that that won't happen. Senator John Boozman, a Republican from Arkansas who is likely to chair the Senate agriculture committee after Stabenow's retirement, criticized her bill on X, calling it an "insulting 11th hour partisan proposal." Meanwhile, in the House, Republicans are reportedly hoping instead to pass another one-year extension of the farm bill, pushing negotiations over the new bill into next year, according to Politico. There's virtually no reason for Republicans not to prolong the process of hammering out the next farm bill, as starting in January they will have majority control over the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the federal government.

By proposing legislation that's all but doomed, Stabenow may be vying to secure her legacy as an environmental steward who understands how climate change is already impacting agricultural production, and why there should be more investment in climate initiatives that safeguard farmers now.

In a speech presenting the details of her bill to the Senate on Monday, Stabenow said, "For more than two years I've been working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass my sixth Farm Bill, the third one that I've either been chair or ranking member of ... the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry."

She emphasized that farming is a risky business given its dependence on the weather. "But it's getting even riskier now, because [of] what's happening with the climate crisis, and we know that," she said. "How many once-in-a-generation storms or droughts need to hit our farmers over the head before we take this crisis seriously?"

Certain advocacy groups have praised Stabenow's farm bill. Rebecca Riley, the managing director for food and agriculture at the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said the bill reflects Stabenow's "decades of leadership and dedication to strengthening America's farmers and rural communities." But other groups were slower to respond. In a statement, the American Farm Bureau Federation, an agricultural industry group, said simply: "We're reviewing Chairwoman Stabenow's newly released 1,300 pages of farm bill text," adding that it's "unfortunate that only a few legislative working days remain for Congress to act." (Stabenow's office did not reply to Grist's requests for comment.)

One of the key features of Stabenow's farm bill is funding for so-called "climate-smart" agriculture practices, an umbrella term that broadly refers to techniques that help farmers sequester carbon in the soil rather than emit more of it into the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, allocated nearly $20 billion in funding for these practices, such as crop rotation and no-till farming. And in the spring, Stabenow introduced a framework that rolled over the leftover money from the IRA for "climate-smart" practices into a new farm bill. (Shortly afterwards, Senate Republicans put forward another draft of the farm bill without this provision.)

Climate is hardly the only focus of the text Stabenow introduced earlier this week, which, like all farm bills, seeks to address a dizzying array of agricultural and nutritional priorities. Chief among the provisions in her bill, titled the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act, are policies that aim to increase access to crop insurance and make coverage more affordable by boosting premium subsidies. The bill also seeks to invest $4.3 billion in rural communities, seeking to improve their access to health care, childcare, education, and broadband internet.

But other provisions indicate that Stabenow has long been thinking of how to further protect farmers from climate impacts such as extreme weather - and also make the U.S. food system more diversified and resilient. She proposes creating a permanent disaster program that would establish a consistent process for providing farmers with assistance after floods, wildfires, and other calamities. Stabenow also seeks to strengthen support for specialty crops - better known as fruits, nuts, vegetables, and herbs - and reminds the Senate during her press briefing that these crops "are almost half of what we grow."

These details represent some of the divisions that run deep through congressional negotiations. Senator John Hoeven, the Republican congressman from North Dakota, was quick to dismiss Stabenow's vision, writing on X, "Unfortunately, the Senate bill released today does not meet the needs of farm country and fails to keep farm in the Farm Bill." Boozman has signaled he fully intends to ignore Stabenow's last-minute bill, telling reporters that Congress must push for another extension of the 2018 farm bill and meeting with agriculture industry groups to discuss their priorities.

Boozman's and other Republicans' concerns with the new farm bill text likely stem, at least in part, from lobbying groups representing large-scale, industrial farmers who wish to see fewer restrictions placed on how they do business. The National Pork Producers Council, or NPPC, for example, issued an instant rejection of Stabenow's farm bill text, calling it "simply not a viable bill" for "fail[ing] to provide a solution to California Prop. 12." That proposition prohibits the sale of veal, pork, and egg products by farm owners and operators who knowingly house animals "in a cruel manner." The NPPC has followed this issue closely, arguing that forcing pork producers to comply with "arbitrary" animal housing specifications would wildly increase their costs (and prices for consumers). The group successfully lobbied for a provision in the House farm bill that essentially takes away California's power to enforce such a law - by blocking state and local government from imposing conditions on the production of livestock sold in their jurisdiction (unless the livestock is actually produced within the state or local community).

Stabenow seems highly aware of the zero-sum framework with which many different actors view the farm bill. When addressing the Senate, she mentioned that the version of the Farm Bill released by the House in May would have put "immense" resources into a small number of commodity farmers in the South. "I'm not saying that these farmers don't need support. They do," she said. "But it can't be at the expense of millions of other farmers and ranchers in this country," including those who run smaller, diversified operations or who grow fruits and vegetables.

In her speech, Stabenow repeatedly framed the text of her bill as a bipartisan project, and projected an urgency to secure wider resources for more farmers now. Her vision, she says, "can pass and should pass." But whether that's true or not will depend an awful lot on her colleagues, who currently have no incentive to negotiate with her and other Democrats and could simply wait to push forward their own agenda. How long they wait remains to be seen.


This story was originally produced by Frida Garza of Grist as part of the Rural News Network, an initiative of the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), supporting more than 475 independent, nonprofit news organizations.


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New Mexico farmers finding it more difficult to grow historic crops are taking up conservation techniques to meet the challenge.

Drought, water scarcity, and extreme weather events combine to require growers to adopt new methods and modern tools.

John Idowu, extension agronomist specialist at New Mexico State University, shows farmers how to improve soil health and help control wind erosion. For long term success, he said they need to focus on sustainable, regenerative practices.

"How can I optimize my system and make it more resilient to climate change, to weather changes?" Idowu explained. "Once we have all those things worked out, farmers will tend to stay in business for longer."

Earlier this year, a NOAA satellite captured an image of winds lifting vast amounts of dust and dirt from New Mexico's dry farmlands. Some forecasters compared it to images last seen in the 1930s Dust Bowl.

Plowing agricultural fields annually was a common practice until the Dust Bowl period but in recent decades no-till or low-till farming operations have gained traction.

Bonnie Hopkins Byers, program director for the San Juan County Extension Service, encouraged New Mexico farmers to get a soil analysis and consider adopting the less aggressive approach. She said it could mean they do not need to till every year.

"One of the biggest problems is that people do something because that's the way they've always done it, or because it's the way their parents have done it, or their grandparents," Hopkins Byers acknowledged. "My philosophy has always been if you're going to till something over, till something in."

Intense dust storms known as "haboobs" were originally thought to be confined to Africa's Sudan but are becoming more common in other arid regions such as the Southwest.

Idowu stressed it makes the adoption of regenerative practices more urgent, as topsoil on New Mexico farmland disappears due to drought, land use changes and wind, which he noted has been particularly strong this year.

"The wind has been a major force, especially in the spring, so many days where you couldn't do anything outside because of the wind," Idowu observed. "You have a lot of dust and that means a lot of erosion and that is exactly what you don't like when it comes to crop production."

The New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group formed to help farmers improve their land and livelihoods.


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By Carolyn Beans for Lancaster Farming.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Keystone State News Connection reporting for the Lancaster Farming-MIT Climate Change Engagement Program-Public News Service Collaboration

At Mountain View Holsteins in Bethel, Pennsylvania, owner Jeremy Martin is always working to make his dairy more efficient.

Currently, he has his sights set on a manure solid-liquid separator. He’d like to use the solid portion of his manure as bedding for his 140 cows and the liquid as fertilizer.

But the project is pricey — he expects the equipment alone will run around $100,000. So Martin hopes to defray the cost through grant funding for dairy projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Removing much of the solids from manure reduces the feed for the methane-producing microbes that thrive in the anaerobic conditions of liquid manure.

The approach is just one of many dairy practices now considered “climate-smart” because they could cut production of climate-warming gases.

For Martin, a manure separator wouldn’t be possible without a grant.

“Once it's in place and going, I think some of these practices will pay for themselves, but the upfront cost is more than I can justify,” he says. “If there's money out there to pay that upfront cost to get started, it makes sense to me to do it.”

Across Pennsylvania, dairy farmers are learning more about climate-smart practices and funding opportunities, and weighing whether these changes are really sustainable for their businesses as well as the environment.

The Latest Buzzword

USDA has defined climate-smart agriculture as an approach that reduces or removes greenhouse gas emissions, builds resilience to the changing climate, and sustainably increases incomes and agricultural productivity.

“Before climate-smart was a thing, we called it conservation. We called it stewardship,” says Jackie Klippenstein, a senior vice president at Dairy Farmers of America.

Indeed, long before the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations coined the term “climate-smart agriculture” in 2010, Pennsylvania dairy farmers had adopted many of the practices that now fall under the label.

For dairy, climate-smart practices largely include strategies that reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, manure or fields. Tried and true conservation practices like cover cropping and reduced tillage count.

So do newer practices like using the feed additive Bovaer to reduce methane production in a cow’s rumen, or precision nitrogen management to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fields.

Paying for Climate-Smart

“Margins are very tight on the dairy farm,” says Jayne Sebright, the executive director of the Center for Dairy Excellence, a public-private partnership to strengthen Pennsylvania’s dairy industry. “Some of these (climate-smart practices) are good for the climate, but they don't make good economic sense until they're subsidized.”

In 2022, the center joined a Penn State-run program called "Climate-smart Agriculture that is profitable, Regenerative, Actionable and Trustworthy" to provide dairy farmers with funds for switching to climate-smart practices.

CARAT was launched with a $25 million USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant, but the future of the Pennsylvania project is in doubt. In April, USDA canceled the partnership program, suggesting that recipients reapply to a new USDA initiative called Advancing Markets for Producers.

Over 60 dairy farmers across Pennsylvania, including Martin, had already applied and been accepted into the first phase of CARAT. This initial phase was intended to help farmers identify the best climate-smart practices for their operations. In the second phase, farmers would have applied for funding to implement those practices. One farmer was already paid for his project before the USDA canceled the partnership program.

“There are fewer funding sources for climate-smart projects than in the last administration. However, private organizations and other entities are funding climate-smart projects,” Sebright says. “Depending on what the practice is, (climate-smart) could also be conservation projects. It could be water quality projects.”

Sebright suggests that dairy farmers also look for support through state-level funding, such as Pennsylvania’s Resource Enhancement and Protection program, which offers tax credits for implementing practices that benefit farms and protect water quality.

Pennsylvania dairy farmers can also contact their county conservation districts to ask about funding opportunities for climate-smart projects, says Amy Welker, a project manager and grant writer for Pennsylvania-based Jones Harvesting, which operates Maystone Dairy in Newville and Molly Pitcher Milk in Shippensburg.

In the next year, Jones Harvesting plans to install a methane digester and solid-liquid separator at a site near Maystone Dairy. The digester is funded with an Agricultural Innovation Grant from the state and an Environmental Quality Incentives Program grant from USDA, along with private funds.

There’s money out there for farmers who implement climate-smart practices, says Welker. But “you can't just look at one source.”

Long-Term Payoffs

Ultimately, for climate-smart projects to make economic sense, they must continue paying for themselves long after the initial investment. One major goal of the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program was to develop markets where farmers adopting these practices could earn a premium.

Some dairy farmers might see that return in the carbon market. National checkoff organization Dairy Management Inc. and its partners have pledged to shrink the industry's net greenhouse gas production to zero by 2050. There are growing opportunities for companies working toward that goal in the dairy supply chain to pay farmers for their contributions.

Early last year, Texas dairy farmer Jasper DeVos became the first to earn credits through the livestock carbon insetting marketplace. DeVos earned carbon credits by reducing methane emissions with a feed protocol that included the feed additive Rumensin. Dairy Farmers of America then purchased those credits through Athian, a carbon marketplace for the livestock industry.

Increased Efficiency

Even without direct monetary payoff, many farmers who adopt climate-smart practices reap rewards in improved efficiency and productivity.

“When you look at climate-smart, you also have to look at what's farm smart,” Sebright says. She suggests that farmers choose practices that benefit their farms, not just the climate.

A farmer might decide to put a cover and flare system on a manure pit, not only because it reduces methane emissions but also because it keeps rainwater out of the pit and reduces the number of times each year the pit must be emptied.

Andy Bollinger of Meadow Spring Farm in Lancaster County has been running a manure separator since 2009. The liquid fertilizes his fields, and a portion of the solids becomes bedding for his cows.

He estimates the system saves him at least $20,000 a year in bedding costs.

“We put a fresh coating of it onto the stalls that our cows lay in every day and scrape the old stuff out,” says Bollinger, who is also the vice president of the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania. “It seems to work quite well, and it saves us from buying other bedding products.”

No-till farming is also a cost saver because it reduces field passes with equipment, says James Thiele of Thiele Dairy Farm in Cabot, which has been 100% no-till for at least six years. The practice saves him money on fuel and herbicides.

“You're saving your environment, and you're also saving green,” he says.

But Thiele questions whether some other climate-smart practices like methane digesters would be practical for his farm, which has 75 to 80 cows.

“I don't know if it'd be worth it for somebody as small as I am,” he says.

“I think over the next few years, we'll rapidly see (climate-smart) tools become more available, and we'll see more organizations like DFA talking to our small to mid-sized farmers to make sure they understand they've got a place in this, they can benefit from it, and the practices and tools are affordable to them as well,” Klippenstein says.

Weighing Climate-Smart

Many dairy farmers wonder whether some of the practices championed as climate-smart will really support their businesses.

Donny Bartch of Merrimart Farms in Loysville has adopted environmental practices from cover cropping to a manure management plan.

“I want to protect the environment. I want to keep my nutrients here on the farm and be sustainable for another five generations,” Bartch says. “But we have to make sure that we're making the right decisions to keep the business going. And to do some of these (climate-smart) practices, the only way they pencil out is to have those subsidies.”

There is also frustration with a system that rewards climate-smart improvements made today without acknowledging the contributions of farmers who were climate-smart before anyone put a name on it.

“You come around and want to start rewarding people for doing these things. You really need to start with the ones that have been doing it for a long time, but that's really not what happens,” says Jim Harbach of Schrack Farms in Loganton, whose farm has been no-till for 50 years.

Climate-smart grant money and carbon credits are typically awarded for the implementation of new practices.

“It’s just the unfortunate way that all of the policies and regulations were written,” Sebright says. “What I would say is, if you do a climate-smart plan, maybe there are practices or things you can do to enhance or support or take what you're doing a step further.”

Scientific Measurements on Real Farms

Some dairy farmers also want to know more about how climate-smart practices will affect their farms before jumping in.

Steve Paxton remembers participating in a government program to improve timber over 50 years ago on his family dairy, Irishtown Acres in Grove City. His family members were paid to climb up into their white pines and saw off many of the bottom branches.

The goal was to create a cleaner log. Instead, more sunlight shown through, which caused grape vines to climb up and topple the trees.

“The bottom line is, there was research done, it looked good, but it hadn’t had enough time to follow through and see just really what the end results would be,” Paxton says.

When Paxton sees estimates of how some practices might reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, he wonders how much of that research has been tested on actual dairies.

“I think some of it now is just kind of a textbook estimate of what's happening,” he says.

More meaningful data is needed to show how climate-smart practices reduce greenhouse gases on individual dairies, Sebright says.

As part of the CARAT program, Penn State researchers planned to place greenhouse gas sensors on a dozen dairies and test how much greenhouse gas production falls as farmers experiment with different practices. The researchers intended to then use that data to build models that predict how those practices may affect emissions on other farms. They will still measure emissions this spring on one farm that is experimenting with a new approach for spreading manure in fields of feed crops.

“The real goal of (CARAT) is to have research that says, if you put a cover and flare (manure storage system) on a 500-cow dairy, this is how greenhouse gas emissions will change,” Sebright says. “Or if you use Bovaer on a 90-cow herd, here's how this will affect greenhouse gas emissions.”

Martin of Mountain View Holsteins has his own personal beliefs about where a dairy farmer’s responsibilities to the planet begin and end. But from a business perspective, he feels compelled to adopt climate-smart practices because he expects the industry will eventually require them.

“Climate concerns are coming whether I'd like it or not,” he says. “So my thought is, I might as well get started on it while there's funding to do it.”


Carolyn Beans wrote this article for Lancaster Farming.


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Oregon's new state budget cuts funding for programs intended to protect residents from extreme weather and make renewable energy more accessible.

Climate justice advocates said it is a major setback after years of progressive climate policies.

Ben Brint, senior climate program director for the Oregon Environmental Council, is disappointed to lose funding for the Community Renewable Energy Grant Program, which supports a variety of projects tailored to communities, including microgrids and solar storage.

"We felt legislators didn't fund climate resilience programs while fires are raging, people's houses are burning down and the state has already experienced record heat waves in June," Brint pointed out. "Legislators don't see we are in an actual climate emergency and chose inaction."

Brint said the grant program aimed to help low-income, rural and communities of color, those most impacted by climate disasters. Lawmakers attributed the cuts to budget shortfalls and uncertainty over federal funding.

Joel Iboa, executive director of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, said the Community Resilience Hub program, which creates networks as well as physical places to protect people from extreme cold, heat and smoke also lost funding this session. He argued the hubs are effective because communities design them to meet their unique needs.

"Whether it be a place to plug in your phone or a place to go get diapers or get an air conditioner or whatever your community may need," Iboa outlined. "Depending on what's going on."

A heat pump program for rental housing, aimed at making energy-efficient heating and cooling more affordable, was also cut this session.

Brint added he realizes legislators have to make tough decisions about how to fund health care and housing but emphasized climate change is connected to those issues.

"When we're talking about heat pumps or the C-REP program, we're talking about people's health and livelihoods and saving lives in the face of climate fueled disaster," Brint stressed.

Brint added since climate change is not going away, the movement to push for climate resilience will not either.


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