April 2020

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the latest edition of NACSAA News, a monthly compilation of CSA-related news. “NACSAA in Action” features the latest on the Alliance activities; “Featured News” offers some of the biggest CSA-related stories of the past month; “Other News We Are Reading” is a listing of news stories from other sources we think you will find of interest; and “Partner News and Events.” We hope this newsletter will serve to keep you, your members and other constituencies fully engaged in the growing development of climate-smart agriculture policy, programs and practices. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated. To subscribe, email info@SfLDialogue.net.

NACSAA in Action

NACSAA Submits Livestock, Food Security

Policy Recommendations to Global Negotiators

 

The North America Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (NACSAA), working in partnership with Solutions from the Land (SfL), filed today its latest Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) submissions to global climate negotiators.

 


Farmer-led work groups formulated 35 recommendations on “Improved livestock management systems” (Topic 2[e]) and 28 proposals addressing “Socioeconomic and food security dimensions of climate change” (Topic 2[f]).

 

Among the issues covered within these topic areas are emissions and climate mitigation solutions, climate smart agricultural production systems, high quality protein, animal health, production and conservation systems, clean energy, payments for ecosystem services, infrastructure and risk management strategies, among others.

 

The 63 NACSAA recommendations have been offered to advocate for important action pathways that the KJWA – the policy global negotiators adopted in 2017 to put agriculture representatives at the forefront of discussions impacting the sector – should embrace, including:

 

  • Knowledge generation; science and technology innovation development, access and affordability; incentives and investments that support all scales of sustainable intensification production systems; soil, water and resource conservation; and healthy ecosystems;
  • Multi-stakeholder collaborative governance models, inclusive of government, private sector, and civil society at appropriate landscape level (watershed, country, region etc.), that develop, implement, and monitor land use and management policies that enable priority economic, social and environmental outcomes;
  • Integrated, reflexive and holistic policy frameworks that support new markets for ecosystem services and create economic incentives for all scales of sustainable production of nutritious food, effective management of natural resources, and improvement of rural livelihoods; and
  • Effective and innovative solutions-policies, practices, programs, and investments- that enable all scales of agriculture, its value chains and rural people to prepare, cope, and recover from climate disruptions and shocks.

Since the crafting of the document began, the world has changed in a radical way due to the spread of COVID-19 into a global pandemic. The recommendations note that the outbreak is exposing the vital need for a resilient, safe and sufficient food supply. While much of the world’s population has long faced food insecurity as an existing threat – a threat exacerbated by climate change – the emergence of the novel coronavirus has brought this threat to the forefront in new and concerning ways.

 

The most important prerequisite for the battle against COVID-19, the recommendations assert, is to ensure the healthiest population possible, via stable food supplies in developing and developed countries alike. While the production, processing, transportation and availability of food has been recognized and supported as “essential” in many nations, these key elements of food access have been impeded by the effects of worker shortages, breakdowns in processing and transportation chains, human illness and hoarding sparked by the fear of shortages. Without thoughtful solutions, this problem will only worsen existing food and distribution issues worldwide.

 

NACSAA Chairman Fred Yoder offered his appreciation to the Work Group members for their diligent work in formulating the recommendations.

 

“Given the hardships this world is facing,” Yoder said, “our volunteer agriculture leaders have worked diligently to develop the kinds of ideas that can guarantee a strong and ample food supply chain in the face of threats to our health around the globe, all while addressing a changing climate that can only exacerbate the risks we face.

 

“We believe our recommendations optimize the ability of those who work the land to meet the environmental and health-related challenges ahead, he concluded.

 

GACSA Reactivates Knowledge

Action Group to Address COVID-19

 

On another front, the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSAA), of which SfL and NACSAA are active members, is reactivating the GACSA Knowledge Action Group (KAG), with the aim of advancing COVID-19 recovery recommendations.


The KAG was established in 2015 to promote the knowledge, research, and development needed for the advancement of technologies, practices, and policy approaches to:

  • Sustainably increase productivity
  • Enhance resilience (adaptation)
  • Reduce/remove GHGs (mitigation) where possible
  • Enhance achievement of national food security and development goals.

In accordance with the objectives laid out by GACSA leadership in 2015, the KAG – in consultation with more than 800 stakeholders from farmer organizations, civil society organizations, private sector, research organizations, country governments, and international organizations – identified the priority work areas as:

  • Technical interventions and practices in CSA
  • Evidence base of CSA
  • Support, services and extension for CSA
  • Inclusive knowledge systems for CSA
  • Integrated planning and monitoring for CSA

The KAG is facilitated by 12 organizations:

  • The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP)
  • Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA)
  • CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
  • Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD)
  • Colorado State University
  • Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation (CTA)
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
  • Government of Nigeria
  • Government of Spain
  • Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)
  • UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN)
  • Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID)
 

Featured News

   

ISA, Quantified Ventures, Cargill Partner

To Advance Agricultural Conservation in Iowa

 

The Iowa Soybean Association, Quantified Ventures and Cargill are announcing the launch of a collaborative, market-based program to accelerate soil health and water conservation across Iowa farmland and provide a critical new source of financial incentives to Iowa farmers.

 


The Soil and Water Outcomes Fund compensates farmers for implementing agricultural management best practices on their farms. The resulting environmental improvements, including enhanced water quality and carbon sequestration, are independently monitored, verified and purchased by municipal, corporate, and governmental entities who are seeking innovative ways to reduce their environmental impacts and costs.

 

“The Fund is a win-win for farmers implementing conservation practices and those benefiting from the outcomes of those practices,” says Adam Kiel, Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) Director of Conservation and External Programs. “Farmers are well positioned to play a lead role in improving water quality and sequestering carbon,” Kiel says. “It’s also an ideal way for farmers to scale beyond the acre and contract limits of traditional government funded cost share programs.”

 

Nearly 10,000 acres in Iowa are already enrolled in the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund. This year, the Fund will achieve an estimated 100,000 pounds of nitrogen reductions and 10,000 pounds of phosphorus reductions in water. Additionally, 7,500 tons of carbon dioxide will be sequestered in soils, an amount equivalent to removing 1,480 cars from the road. The intent is to scale the Fund into additional states and regions to realize even greater positive environmental impacts and farmer benefits.

 

The outcomes-based funding model aligns with Cargill’s strategic focus to develop scalable, public-private partnerships that enable farmers to improve soil health, carbon storage and water quality and access.

 

“Cargill is excited about the potential of this innovative approach to support and mitigate risk for farmers as they invest in soil health and other conservation best management practices,” said Ryan Sirolli, Director of Row Crop Sustainability at Cargill. “We’re incentivizing more participants to implement best management practices that provide positive benefits for their business and the environment.”

 

Outcomes generated by the Fund will have far-reaching benefits for multiple stakeholders.

For participating municipalities, benefits include flexibility with permit requirements, source water protection, flood risk reduction and cost savings over grey infrastructure.

 

Corporations and the industry see value in enhanced soil carbon sequestration to meet supply chain sustainability commitments. Farmers see improved on-farm agronomics and resiliency as they build healthier soils.

 

Mark Lambert, Director of Agriculture at Quantified Ventures, says the Fund represents an important evolution in the way agricultural conservation is incentivized.

 

“We believe that shifting from ‘pay for practice’ approaches to ‘pay for outcomes’ approaches will unlock the impact investment capital needed to mitigate climate change and improve water quality at scale,” he said. “By combining the multiple beneficiaries of conservation outcomes into a single transaction, the Fund can deliver cost effective and scalable impact.”

 

Development of the Fund was supported by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation. Amy Saltzman, Program Officer at the Walton Family Foundation, said solutions that work for both the environment and the economy are the ones that stand the test of time.

 

“This fund is poised for long-term success, which is good for clean water, healthy soil, and communities and jobs that depend on them,” Saltzman said. “The Walton Family Foundation is proud to support the creation of this fund, which will help leverage the power of markets for a more sustainable future.”

 

Sustainable Environmental Consultants, a third-party to the transaction, will quantify the outcomes of the program. Additional field verification will occur, including soil and water sampling. To ensure integrity of the environmental benefits generated, the Fund only supports practices and outcomes that are additive to a farmer’s current baseline of agricultural practices.

 

The Fund will be jointly administered by the Iowa Soybean Association and Quantified Ventures, with initial funding support provided by Cargill and the Walton Family Foundation. Opportunities for additional farmer enrollment will be announced later this year. Interested outcome purchasers are encouraged to contact the Fund for pricing and participation information.

 

Oil State Governors Wrong to Target RFS, Rural Jobs

 

The oil industry is seeking a reprieve from Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) obligations, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 


An April 15 letter to EPA Andrew Wheeler from the governors of five oil-producing states – Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah and Louisiana – asks the agency to waive renewable volume obligations (RVOs, required biofuel blending levels) called for under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), claiming the new coronavirus was disrupting the oil industry’s production and distribution, leading to economic setbacks.

 

However, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) issued a new analysis this week showing that as the coronavirus outbreak and crude oil glut continue to ravage world fuel markets, U.S. ethanol sales in 2020 could fall by more than $10 billion . Furthermore, the industry’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) could drop by nearly one-third.

 

RFA warned that the economic damages go far beyond the ethanol sector, noting that America’s farmers will also be negatively impacted. Ethanol typically provides a market for two out of every five rows of corn and more than one-third of the annual sorghum crop.

 

Ethanol industry leaders also expressed disappointment that a $19-billion aid package for U.S. farmers and food interests contain nothing for an industry that has seen half of its plants close down. The industry normally supports 350,000 jobs across all sectors of the economy, and contributes valuable co-products like distillers grains, corn distillers oil, and captured carbon dioxide to the food supply chain.

 

The Circuit Court of Appeals for the U.S. 10th District ruled Jan. 24 that the EPA “exceeded its statutory authority” and “abused its discretion” in granting exemptions from 2016 and 2017 RFS requirements to three small refineries. The White House chose not to appeal the ruling, while the court dismissed appeals sought by two of the three refineries. The ruling only impacted about a third of the nation’s small refineries, but it was expected to have a universal impact on the agency’s handling of small refinery exemptions (SREs).

 

However, the agency has done nothing to correct the imbalances in ethanol’s market availability resulting from the dozens of SREs granted during the Trump administration. For the 2016-2018 RFS compliance years, the EPA issued 85 SREs, more than four times the number granted over a similar period by other administrations.

 

The biofuel industry said the high number of SREs handed out by the EPA in recent years has eroded more than 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel blending requirements. In addition to defending its position before the Tenth Circuit appellate court, biofuel interests have said they will continue to consider other actions that can recapture the lost demand.

 

The COVID-19 outbreak has had a further debilitating effect on the both the ethanol and biodiesel industries. A study released April 13 by the Purdue University Center for Commercial Agriculture shows that the spread of COVID-19 in the United States is expected to reduce the demand for both corn and soybeans due to reductions in demand for ethanol and soy biodiesel.

 

Cooper said in a statement last week that the letter from the governors makes it clear “they know absolutely nothing about how the Renewable Fuel Standard actually works. They outrageously claim that a waiver is needed because of ‘depressed demand for transportation fuel.

 

Climate-Driven Megadrought Emerging in Western U.S., Says Study

 

With the western United States and northern Mexico suffering an ever-lengthening string of dry years starting in 2000, scientists have been warning for some time that climate change may be pushing the region toward an extreme long-term drought worse than any in recorded history.

 

Areas of southwestern North America affected by drought in the early 2000s; darker colors are more intense. Yellow box shows the study area. (Adapted from Williams et al., Science, 2020)

A new study says the time has arrived that a megadrought as bad or worse than anything even from known prehistory is very likely in progress, and warming climate is playing a key role. The study, based on modern weather observations, 1,200 years of tree-ring data and dozens of climate models, appeared April 17 in the leading journal Science.

 

“Earlier studies were largely model projections of the future,” said lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.  “We’re no longer looking at projections, but at where we are now,” Williams said. “We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we’re on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts.”

 

Reliable modern observations date only to about 1900, but tree rings have allowed scientists to infer yearly soil moisture for centuries before humans began influencing climate. Among other things, previous research has tied catastrophic, naturally driven droughts recorded in tree rings to upheavals among indigenous Medieval-era civilizations in the Southwest. The new study is the most up-to-date and comprehensive long-term analysis. It covers an area stretching across nine U.S. states from Oregon and Montana down through California and New Mexico, and part of northern Mexico.

 

Using rings from many thousands of trees, the researchers charted dozens of droughts across the region, starting in 800 AD. Four stand out as so-called megadroughts, with extreme aridity lasting decades: the late 800s, mid-1100s, the 1200s, and the late 1500s. After 1600, there were other droughts, but none on this scale.

 

The team then compared the ancient megadroughts to soil moisture records calculated from observed weather in the 19 years from 2000 to 2018. Their conclusion: as measured against the worst 19-year increments within the previous episodes, the current drought is already outdoing the three earliest ones. The fourth, which spanned 1575 to 1603, may have been the worst of all – but the difference is slight enough to be within the range of uncertainty. Furthermore, the current drought is affecting wider areas more consistently than any of the earlier ones – a fingerprint of global warming, say the researchers. All of the ancient droughts lasted longer than 19 years – the one that started in the 1200s ran nearly a century – but all began on a similar path to what is showing up now, they say.

 

Nature drove the ancient droughts, and still plays a strong role today. A study last year led by Lamont’s Nathan Steiger showed that among other things, unusually cool periodic conditions over the tropical Pacific Ocean (commonly called La Niña) during the previous megadroughts pushed storm tracks further north, and starved the region of precipitation. Such conditions, and possibly other natural factors, appear to have also cut precipitation in recent years. However, with global warming proceeding, the authors say that average temperatures since 2000 have been pushed 1.2 degrees C (2.2 F) above what they would have been otherwise. Because hotter air tends to hold more moisture, that moisture is being pulled from the ground. This has intensified drying of soils already starved of precipitation.

 

All told, the researchers say that rising temperatures are responsible for about half the pace and severity of the current drought. If this overall warming were subtracted from the equation, the current drought would rank as the 11th worst detected – bad, but nowhere near what it has developed into.

 

“It doesn’t matter if this is exactly the worst drought ever,” said coauthor Benjamin Cook, who is affiliated with Lamont and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “What matters is that it has been made much worse than it would have been because of climate change.”

 

Since temperatures are projected to keep rising, it is likely the drought will continue for the foreseeable future; or fade briefly only to return, say the researchers.

 

Researchers Study How Forests Are Adapting to Climate Change

 

As the climate is changing, so too are the world’s forests. From the misty redwoods in the west to the Blue Ridge forest of Appalachia, many sylvan ecosystems are adapting to drier conditions.

 

The warm sunshine streams through the canopies of two blue oaks in central California. Photo Credit: Leander Anderegg

Using the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis database, researchers at UC Santa Barbara, the University of Utah and the U.S. Forest Service have studied how the traits of tree communities are shifting across the contiguous United States.

 

The results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that communities, particularly in more arid regions, are becoming more drought tolerant, primarily through the death of less hardy trees.

 

To understand what might be driving changes in the ability of forests to cope with climate change, the scientists considered two main physiological traits: a species’ average tolerance to water stress and how close this was to its maximum tolerance (essentially how much wiggle room it had when dealing with water stress).

 

“We basically put a number on what species composition means in terms of their ability to deal with water stress,” said lead author Anna Trugman, an assistant professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Geography.

 

Fortunately for the team, the U.S. Department of Agriculture tracks tree species, size and abundance in more than 160,000 forest plots randomly distributed across the country. What’s more, the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis database includes over 200 different types of ecosystems ranging from dry pinyon pine forests to cypress swamps, and Atlantic hardwood forests to the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.

 

Trugman and her colleagues matched the traits they were interested in to the species abundance in these plots. Then they used this to calculate a weighted average value for the community of trees in each plot, which essentially corresponded to the community’s drought tolerance. Since these plots are surveyed every five to 10 years, the scientists could track shifts in community trait composition and relate these to tree mortality, recruitment and climate.

 

There are two ways a community can become more drought tolerant: Less hardy trees can die or more resilient trees can grow faster. Both result in a community that is hardier overall.

 

Trugman found that it was primarily the death of less robust trees that drove the shifts toward greater drought tolerance, though she notes that the effects of sapling recruitment have been less evident over such a short time span. She also noticed that the scope of traits in a given plot didn’t automatically correlate with the number of species present. “You don’t necessarily have a larger range in strategies if you have more species,” she said.

 

For instance, the eastern U.S. doesn’t experience as much routine drought stress as its western counterpart, but it has relatively high species diversity. As a result, most of the trees have similar strategies to cope with water stress. Compare that to the Southwest, where there are species living together that have a range of strategies for dealing with drought, despite many plots having relatively low species diversity overall.

 

Maps of plant traits are useful to scientists because they inform the models that forecast how climate change will affect the landscape, Trugman explained. The trait maps help researchers assess the mismatch between climate suitability and the community’s current trait composition.

 

Climate Change Could Cause Fast Biodiversity Losses Worldwide

 

A warming global climate could cause sudden, potentially catastrophic losses of biodiversity in regions across the globe throughout the 21st century, finds a new study led by researchers at University College London (UCL).

 

The findings, published April 8 in Nature, predict when and where there could be severe ecological disruption in the coming decades, and suggests that the first waves could already be happening.

 

“We found that climate change risks to biodiversity don’t increase gradually,” said the study’s lead author, Alex Pigot, with the UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research. “Instead, as the climate warms, within a certain area most species will be able to cope for a while, before crossing a temperature threshold, when a large proportion of the species will suddenly face conditions they’ve never experienced before.”It’s not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different areas at different times.”

 

Pigot and colleagues from the United States and South Africa were seeking to predict threats to biodiversity over the course of the 21st century, rather than a single-year snapshot. They used climate model data from 1850 to 2005, and cross-referenced it with the geographic ranges of 30,652 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and other animals and plants. The data was available for areas across the globe, divided up into 100 by 100 km square grid cells.

 

They used climate model projections for each year up to 2100 to predict when species in each grid cell will begin experiencing temperatures that are consistently higher than the organism has previously experienced across its geographic range, for a period of at least five years.

 

“The historic temperature models, combined with species ranges, showed us the range of conditions that each organism can survive under, as far as we know,” said the study’s first author, Christopher Trisos, with the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, and the National Socio-Environment Synthesis Center at the University of Maryland.

 

“Once temperatures in a given area rise to levels that the species have never experienced, we would expect there to be extinctions, but not necessarily – we simply have no evidence of the ability of these species to persist after this point,” he said.

 

The researchers found that in most ecological communities across the globe, a large proportion of the organisms will find themselves outside of their niche (comfort zone) within the same decade. Across all of the communities, on average 73 percent of the species facing unprecedented temperatures before 2100 will cross that threshold simultaneously.

 

The researchers predict that if global temperatures rise by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, under a “high emissions” scenario, which the researchers say is plausible, at least 15 percent of communities across the globe, and potentially many more, will undergo an abrupt exposure event where more than one in five of their constituent species crosses the threshold beyond their niche limit within the same decade. Such an event could cause irreversible damage to the functioning of the ecosystem.

 

If warming is kept to 2 degrees Celsius or less, potentially fewer than 2 percent of communities will face such exposure events, although the researchers caution that within that 2 percent includes some of the most biodiverse communities on the planet, such as coral reefs.

 

The researchers predict that such unprecedented temperature regimes will begin before 2030 in tropical oceans, and recent events such as mass bleaching of corals on the Great Barrier Reef suggest this is happening already. Higher latitudes and tropical forests are predicted to be at risk by 2050.

 

The study was funded by the Royal Society, the National Science Foundation (USA) and the African Academy of Sciences.

 

Study Evaluates and Quantifies Ecosystem Service Flows

 

What do chocolate, migratory birds, flood control and pandas have in common? Many countries benefit from ecosystem services provided outside their nations. This can happen through economic relationships, biological and geographical conditions, but how and where these ecosystem service flows occur is hardly known.

 

Cocoa plantation in West Africa  Photo: Janina Kleemann

Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) show in a recent study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, how interregional ecosystem service flows can be identified and quantified.

 

“Ecosystem services are not constrained by borders,” says Aletta Bonn, a researcher at the UFZ and iDiv. “For example, one country benefits from agricultural products originating from other continents or flood protection provided by floodplains in a neighboring country.”

 

The close links between distant regions arising from ecosystem services are known as telecoupling. Understanding these flows can help to recognize the value of intact nature, identify global drivers of biodiversity loss or soil erosion in distant regions, and develop measures for more sustainable management.

 

“It is important to understand the interlinkages and the environmental costs caused by domestic consumption of ecosystem services in other countries,” says Bonn. “This information can then be used in political decisions, such as fair trade standards, environmentally and socially acceptable certification, and financial compensation measures.”

 

But how can ecosystem service flows be identified, quantified and ultimately balanced between countries? The researchers investigated these issues, including an examination of the extent to which Germany uses ecosystem services that are provided in other countries.

“In previous work, we had already developed a conceptual framework for quantifying interregional ecosystem service flows,” says Bonn. “Here, we differentiated between four types of flows which were examined for Germany in more detail.”

 

The scientists assessed trade flows using cocoa imports as an example and their impact on biodiversity in the producing countries.

 

“It turns out that approximately 85 percent of imported cocoa comes from only five mainly West African countries – Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo. Significant impacts on biodiversity are considered for Cameroon and Ecuador due to cocoa trade with Germany,” says Janina Kleemann, former UFZ researcher and now at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

 

In the “migratory species” category, the scientists investigated the importance of migratory birds for German agriculture.

 

“Our results indicate that Africa’s tropical and subtropical climate zones provide a habitat for the majority of migratory bird species that make an important contribution to pest control in German agricultural landscapes,” explains Kleemann.

 

Ecosystem services associated with flood protection are assigned to the “passive biophysical flow” category. Here, the researchers concluded that Germany benefits by almost two-thirds from flood regulation provided in other countries’ floodplains, and in return also exports around 40 percent flood regulation to downstream neighboring countries such as the Netherlands. In the “information flows” category, the loan of a Chinese giant panda to Berlin Zoo served as a case study. The research team highlighted the political, economic, scientific and cultural aspects of this exchange for the relationship between Germany and China.

 

The UFZ study is one of the first studies to identify, systematically quantify and assess several interregional ecosystem service flows for a specific country using examples. Awareness of and understanding these flows represent the first step toward fairly balancing ecosystem services use and sustainable resource management.

 

“When we know how and to what extent we influence global biodiversity with our consumption patterns and international trade, we can make better decisions regarding individual and national consumption of resources and develop adequate measures for sustainable management,” says Bonn. “Our study clearly demonstrates that countries such as Germany bear a global responsibility to protect and conserve biological diversity worldwide.”

 

 

Other News We Are Reading…

 

Flooding Stunted 2019 Cropland Growing Season,

Resulting in More Atmospheric CO2

 (California Institute of Technology)

 

Severe flooding throughout the Midwest – which triggered a delayed growing season for crops in the region – led to a reduction of 100 million metric tons of net carbon uptake during June and July of 2019, according to a new study. For reference, the massive California wildfires of 2018 released an estimated 12.4 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. And although part of this deficit due to floods was compensated for later in the growing season, the combined effects are likely to have resulted in a 15 percent reduction in crop productivity relative to 2018, the study authors say. The study, published March 31, in the journal AGU Advances, describes how the carbon uptake was measured using satellite data. Researchers used a novel marker of photosynthesis known as solar-induced fluorescence to quantify the reduced carbon uptake due to the delay in the crops’ growth. Independent observations of atmospheric CO2 levels were then employed to confirm the reduction in carbon uptake. “We were able to show that it’s possible to monitor the impacts of floods on crop growth on a daily basis in near real time from space, which is critical to future ecological forecasting and mitigation,” says Yi Yin, research scientist at Caltech and lead author of the study. (Read more…)

 

Stanford Researchers Forecast Longer, More Extreme Wildfire Seasons

 

Stanford University researchers say changes to the climate have made California autumns feel more like summer, with hotter, drier weather that increases the risk of longer, more dangerous wildfire seasons. The study finds that autumn days with extreme fire weather have more than doubled in California since the early 1980s due to climate change. The results could contribute to more effective risk mitigation, land management and resource allocation. The paper, published in Environmental Research Letters, provides insights that could inform more effective risk mitigation, land management and resource allocation. “Many factors influence wildfire risk, but this study shows that long-term warming, coupled with decreasing autumn precipitation, is already increasing the odds of the kinds of extreme fire weather conditions that have proved so destructive in both northern and southern California in recent years,” said study senior author Noah Diffenbaugh, the Kara J Foundation professor at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. (Read more… )

 

Study Synthesizes What Climate Change Means for Northwest Wildfires

(University of Washington)

 

Recent years have brought unusually large and damaging wildfires to the Pacific Northwest – from the Carlton Complex Fire in 2014 that was the largest in Washington’s history, to the 2017 fire season in Oregon, to the 2018 Maple Fire, when normally sodden rainforests on the Olympic Peninsula were ablaze. Many people have wondered what this means for our region’s future. A University of Washington study, published this winter in Fire Ecology, takes a big-picture look at what climate change could mean for wildfires in the Northwest, considering Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana. “We can’t predict the exact location of wildfires, because we don’t know where ignitions will occur. But based on historical and contemporary fire records, we know some forests are much more likely to burn frequently, and models can help us determine where climate change will likely increase the frequency of fire,” said lead author Jessica Halofsky, a research scientist at the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and with the U.S. Forest Service. The review was done in response to a survey of stakeholder needs by the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, a UW-hosted federal-university partnership. State, federal and tribal resource managers wanted more information on the available science about fire and climate change. (Read more…)

 

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Increased in 2018…

(The Hill)

 

U..S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by about 3 percent in 2018, according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The increase follows declines in greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. For example, emissions fell by about half a percent in 2017 and by nearly 3 percent in 2016. The last time greenhouse gas emissions increased was 2014. Despite the increase, emissions are still down about 10 percent from a recent high in 2007.

(Read more…)

 

…But U.S. Power Sector GHGs Projected to Fall 7.5 Percent in 2020

(Utility Dive)

 

The economic halt caused by COVID-19 is expected to decrease global carbon emissions by 5% in 2020, the largest annual decline ever, according to an April 9 analysis from Carbon Brief. U.S. power sector emissions are expected to drop 7.5 percent this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook released April 7. (Read more…)

 

Don’t Look to Mature Forests to Soak Up Carbon Dioxide Emissions

(SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry)

 

Research published April 8 in Nature suggests mature forests are limited in their ability to absorb “extra” carbon as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase. These findings may have implications for New York state’s carbon neutrality goals. The experiment, conducted at Western Sydney University’s (WSU) EucFACE (Eucalyptus Free Air CO2 Enrichment) found new evidence of limitations in the capacity of mature forests to translate rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations into additional plant growth and carbon storage. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is sometimes described as “food for plants” as it is the key ingredient in plant photosynthesis. With CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increasing steadily due to human emissions, there is ample evidence that plant photosynthesis is going up. Experiments that have exposed single trees and young, rapidly growing forests to elevated CO2 concentrations have shown that plants use the extra carbon to grow faster. “Forests provide a wide array of environmental, economic and social benefits. Importantly, forests remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and store it, which slows down our climate crisis,” said John Drake, assistant professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Department of Sustainable Resources Management and a co-author of the paper in collaboration with researchers at WSU. (Read more…)

 

 

Partner News and CSA Events

 

Expansion of Global Work Program Underway

 

A special contingent of envoys and senior advisors have accepted invitations from Solutions from the Land (SfL), NACSAA’s sponsoring organization, to help shape the guiding principles, policy and program recommendations and other submissions to be introduced into the UN system.

 


Farmers, along with conservation, bioenergy, water, national security leaders; as well as academic, financial and technical experts, will be called upon to help to engage:

  • The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), including a High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on food security and nutrition, which is formulating scientific and evidence-based reports to shape the UN Committee on World Food Security’s (CFS) policy recommendations and guidance on a wide range of food security and nutrition, agroecology and innovation topics.
  • The first World Food Systems summit in 25 years to be held in 2021.
  • The UNFCCC’s Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA);

     

    • Two Intergovernmental Panels on Climate Change (IPCC) ancillary bodies, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), which are overseeing the development of the KJWA.
    • The process is being informed by inputs from UN constituted bodies, official observer organizations (which includes SfL/NACSAA) and technical experts from across the globe.
    • KJWA will be submitted to COP 26, to be held in 2021.

In addition, the new advisors and envoys will be engaging in the International Agri-Food Network (IAFN) and the global agricultural supply chain’s Private Sector Mechanism connection to FAO, in COVID-19 response work. The SfL/NACSAA representatives will be advocating for enabling polices and investment’s that will allow for the full range of goods and services from agricultural landscapes to be realized.

 

Of particular importance within other UN platforms is the Food Systems Summit that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, will convene as part of the Decade of Action to deliver the SDGs by 2030. The Decade of Action was called for by world leaders at the 2019 UN General Assembly to accelerate efforts towards the SDGs’ achievement. This will be the first World Food Summit in 25 years and represents a renewed commitment to tackle hunger and malnutrition for achievement of SDG2 (Zero Hunger). The summit is likely to call for bold and structural change to the global food system and focus on topics such as hunger/malnutrition (including obesity), agriculture and climate change as well as food loss and waste.

 

Along with SfL board members, our new farmer envoys will endeavor to educate member state representatives, FAO officials, and observer partners and non-state actors on how to best evaluate, recognize and encourage desirable SDG outcomes. These outcomes can be accessed by both developed and developing countries through the adoption of proven and pragmatic technologies, systems and practices used by U.S. farmers, ranchers and foresters.

 

A guiding principle in the formulation of our recommendations and action plans will be a focus on the three pillars of climate smart agriculture (CSA): 1) sustainably increasing productivity and livelihoods (i.e. sustainable intensification); 2) enhancing adaptive capacity and improving resilience; and 3) delivering ecosystem services, sequestering carbon, and reducing and/or avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.

 

USDA Seeks Public Input on the Agriculture Innovation Agenda

 

To further the USDA’s work on the Agriculture Innovation Agenda (AIA), the department is seeking public and private sector input through Aug. 1 on what officials say are the most important innovation opportunities to be addressed in the near and long term.

 


Using the input provided, the USDA will identify common themes across the agriculture customer base to inform research and innovation efforts in the department, the broader public sector, and the private sector.

 

“Even during this uncertain time, we recognize our work at USDA is twofold: to meet the immediate needs of our customers in this national health emergency and to support American agriculture in the face of future demands,” said Deputy Secretary Stephen Censky. “We know now, more than ever, it is important to double down on innovation in order to support farmers, ranchers, and producers as they work to increase productivity while conserving our natural resource base. Although current dynamics have shifted, our focus remains on positioning American agriculture to be a part of the solution to future demands.”

 

Deputy Under Secretary Scott Hutchins, who leads USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics mission area, said the department intends “to work collaboratively with both the agricultural community and the broad innovation community to align on the most important opportunities. By working together, we can transform our nation and leave our world in a much better state for generations to come.”

 

USDA will accept public comments and written stakeholder input through Aug. 1 via a Request for Information (RFI) published in the Federal Register April 1.

 

Respondents are asked to identify transformational innovation opportunities for the next era of agriculture productivity and environmental conservation and propose approaches to these opportunities with an eye to the public and private sector research needed to support them. Input from the agricultural and scientific community will help inform research goals with the intent of aligning applications and technologies to best address the goals of the Agriculture Innovation Agenda for the next 10 to 30 years.

 

Based on stakeholder input from the RFI, USDA will develop a comprehensive U.S. agriculture innovation strategy that it intends to release by the end of this year.

 

This effort, led by Hutchins, is a core part of the Agriculture Innovation Agenda, a department-wide initiative to align resources, programs and research to position American agriculture to better meet future global demands. Specifically, USDA will stimulate innovation so that American agriculture can achieve the goal of increasing production by 40 percent while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half by 2050.

 

The Agriculture Innovation Agenda is comprised of four main components:

  1. Develop a U.S. agriculture innovation strategy that aligns and synchronizes public and private sector research.
  2. Align the work of our customer-facing agencies and integrate innovative technologies and practices into USDA programs.
  3. Conduct a review of USDA productivity and conservation data. USDA already closely tracks data on yield, but on the environmental side, there’s some catching up to do.
  4. Set benchmarks that will hold the department accountable by measuring progress toward meeting the food, fiber, fuel, feed and climate demands of the future.

Some of the benchmarks include:

  • Agricultural Productivity: Increase agricultural production by 40 percent by 2050 to do our part to meet estimated future demand.
  • Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas: Enhance carbon sequestration through soil health and forestry, leverage the agricultural sector’s renewable energy benefits for the economy, and capitalize on innovative technologies and practices to achieve net reduction of the agricultural sector’s current carbon footprint by 2050 without regulatory overreach.
  • Water Quality: Reduce nutrient loss by 30 percent nationally by 2050.
  • Renewable Energy: We can increase the production of renewable energy feedstocks and set a goal to increase biofuel production efficiency and competitiveness to achieve market-driven blend rates of 15% of transportation fuels in 2030 and 30% of transportation fuels by 2050.
  • Forest Management: Build landscape resiliency by investing in active forest management and forest restoration through increased Shared Stewardship Agreements with States.
  • Food loss and waste: Advance our work toward the United States’ goal to reduce food loss and waste by 50 percent in the United States by the year 2030.

State-Level CSA Initiatives Press Through COVID-19 Disruptions

 

Despite the nationwide lockdown driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, state-level, climate smart agriculture work groups are marching ahead.

 


On April 9, Iowa Smart Agriculture alliance leaders hosted an hour-long listening session with a group of farmers across the state who shared their thoughts and recommendations. The call was led by the project Co-Chairs and facilitated by Lois Wright-Morton. Among some of the key takeaways were the following points:

  • Farmers and consumers are co-dependent and need each other;
  • Many of the participating farmers have diversified crop and livestock systems and discussed the complementarity of diversity;
  • Need flexible management to quickly pivot and change when weather, markets, labor shift.
  • This requires being willing to experiment and risk, trial and error because conditions are not always what you hope for;
  • Producers are production minded, need to foster longer term thinking, beyond the farm-gate;
  • Management is hard to do, takes time and not easy, some farmers opt out because of the complexity and don’t see the value in learning new ways to manage; adaptation is not simple;
  • Non-farm landowners have little/no experience with land management, interest in wildlife habitat, how to leverage that to encourage better soil and water management?
  • Cover crops and No Till combinations were successful in managing soil erosion and water runoff during 2019 high rain events; improve soil structure over time and increase management capacity under variable weather conditions;
  • Farmers need “feedback” tools, to know if what they are doing is working or not;
  • Farmers will change if we focus on economics and logistics of change;
  • Pay attention to return on profit per acre…might mean not planting corn or soybeans but diversifying crops (e.g. five or six different crops);
  • Plan toward the future: prepare a 7 years plan for the farm; where will the market be in the future?
  • Build community to learn about what other farmers are doing, so gain confidence in trying a new practice or technology;
  • Let farmers lead, like the NE Iowa watershed projects; University and agencies are needed to provide technical support, funding, and monitoring outcomes; but programs need to have flexibility to listen to farmer needs and respond rather than prescribe a uniform best practice!

Work group leaders now use to feedback to design a knowledge-sharing project, invite more farmers into the dialogue and construct a roadmap to achieve the IASA vision.

 

In Florida, many growers are approaching the peak of their fresh fruit and vegetable harvests, and have been especially hard hit by the COVID-19-driven loss of the food service market, and compromised harvesting and transport logistics.

 

The Florida CSA Design Team met by phone last week to assess conditions and explore ways they can respond and help the state’s agriculture sector transform and improve resiliency.

 

Not unlike the challenges the industry faces from changing climatic conditions, the losses they are experiencing due to the pandemic are heartbreaking. The disruption to the food system resulting from the outbreak is generating an improved public appreciation for the importance of productive farms to nutrition and public health – a development that will a major topic of FL CSA Work Group discussion going forward.

 

We encourage our NACSAA partners and other stakeholders to share with us any organization news or events highlighting your role in climate smart agriculture. We look forward to including your information in our monthly newsletter. Simply send your news or event notices to info@SfLDialogue.net.

April 2020

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the latest edition of NACSAA News, a monthly compilation of CSA-related news. “NACSAA in Action” features the latest on the Alliance activities; “Featured News” offers some of the biggest CSA-related stories of the past month; “Other News We Are Reading” is a listing of news stories from other sources we think you will find of interest; and “Partner News and Events.” We hope this newsletter will serve to keep you, your members and other constituencies fully engaged in the growing development of climate-smart agriculture policy, programs and practices. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated. To subscribe, email info@SfLDialogue.net.

NACSAA in Action

NACSAA Submits Livestock, Food Security

Policy Recommendations to Global Negotiators

 

The North America Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (NACSAA), working in partnership with Solutions from the Land (SfL), filed today its latest Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) submissions to global climate negotiators.

 

Farmer-led work groups formulated 35 recommendations on “Improved livestock management systems” (Topic 2[e]) and 28 proposals addressing “Socioeconomic and food security dimensions of climate change” (Topic 2[f]).

 

Among the issues covered within these topic areas are emissions and climate mitigation solutions, climate smart agricultural production systems, high quality protein, animal health, production and conservation systems, clean energy, payments for ecosystem services, infrastructure and risk management strategies, among others.

 

The 63 NACSAA recommendations have been offered to advocate for important action pathways that the KJWA – the policy global negotiators adopted in 2017 to put agriculture representatives at the forefront of discussions impacting the sector – should embrace, including:

 

  • Knowledge generation; science and technology innovation development, access and affordability; incentives and investments that support all scales of sustainable intensification production systems; soil, water and resource conservation; and healthy ecosystems;
  • Multi-stakeholder collaborative governance models, inclusive of government, private sector, and civil society at appropriate landscape level (watershed, country, region etc.), that develop, implement, and monitor land use and management policies that enable priority economic, social and environmental outcomes;
  • Integrated, reflexive and holistic policy frameworks that support new markets for ecosystem services and create economic incentives for all scales of sustainable production of nutritious food, effective management of natural resources, and improvement of rural livelihoods; and
  • Effective and innovative solutions-policies, practices, programs, and investments- that enable all scales of agriculture, its value chains and rural people to prepare, cope, and recover from climate disruptions and shocks.

Since the crafting of the document began, the world has changed in a radical way due to the spread of COVID-19 into a global pandemic. The recommendations note that the outbreak is exposing the vital need for a resilient, safe and sufficient food supply. While much of the world’s population has long faced food insecurity as an existing threat – a threat exacerbated by climate change – the emergence of the novel coronavirus has brought this threat to the forefront in new and concerning ways.

 

The most important prerequisite for the battle against COVID-19, the recommendations assert, is to ensure the healthiest population possible, via stable food supplies in developing and developed countries alike. While the production, processing, transportation and availability of food has been recognized and supported as “essential” in many nations, these key elements of food access have been impeded by the effects of worker shortages, breakdowns in processing and transportation chains, human illness and hoarding sparked by the fear of shortages. Without thoughtful solutions, this problem will only worsen existing food and distribution issues worldwide.

 

NACSAA Chairman Fred Yoder offered his appreciation to the Work Group members for their diligent work in formulating the recommendations.

 

“Given the hardships this world is facing,” Yoder said, “our volunteer agriculture leaders have worked diligently to develop the kinds of ideas that can guarantee a strong and ample food supply chain in the face of threats to our health around the globe, all while addressing a changing climate that can only exacerbate the risks we face.

 

“We believe our recommendations optimize the ability of those who work the land to meet the environmental and health-related challenges ahead, he concluded.

 

GACSA Reactivates Knowledge

Action Group to Address COVID-19

 

On another front, the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSAA), of which SfL and NACSAA are active members, is reactivating the GACSA Knowledge Action Group (KAG), with the aim of advancing COVID-19 recovery recommendations.

The KAG was established in 2015 to promote the knowledge, research, and development needed for the advancement of technologies, practices, and policy approaches to:

  • Sustainably increase productivity
  • Enhance resilience (adaptation)
  • Reduce/remove GHGs (mitigation) where possible
  • Enhance achievement of national food security and development goals.

In accordance with the objectives laid out by GACSA leadership in 2015, the KAG – in consultation with more than 800 stakeholders from farmer organizations, civil society organizations, private sector, research organizations, country governments, and international organizations – identified the priority work areas as:

  • Technical interventions and practices in CSA
  • Evidence base of CSA
  • Support, services and extension for CSA
  • Inclusive knowledge systems for CSA
  • Integrated planning and monitoring for CSA

The KAG is facilitated by 12 organizations:

  • The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP)
  • Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA)
  • CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
  • Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD)
  • Colorado State University
  • Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation (CTA)
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
  • Government of Nigeria
  • Government of Spain
  • Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)
  • UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN)
  • Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID)
 

Featured News

   

ISA, Quantified Ventures, Cargill Partner

To Advance Agricultural Conservation in Iowa

 

The Iowa Soybean Association, Quantified Ventures and Cargill are announcing the launch of a collaborative, market-based program to accelerate soil health and water conservation across Iowa farmland and provide a critical new source of financial incentives to Iowa farmers.

 

The Soil and Water Outcomes Fund compensates farmers for implementing agricultural management best practices on their farms. The resulting environmental improvements, including enhanced water quality and carbon sequestration, are independently monitored, verified and purchased by municipal, corporate, and governmental entities who are seeking innovative ways to reduce their environmental impacts and costs.

 

“The Fund is a win-win for farmers implementing conservation practices and those benefiting from the outcomes of those practices,” says Adam Kiel, Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) Director of Conservation and External Programs. “Farmers are well positioned to play a lead role in improving water quality and sequestering carbon,” Kiel says. “It’s also an ideal way for farmers to scale beyond the acre and contract limits of traditional government funded cost share programs.”

 

Nearly 10,000 acres in Iowa are already enrolled in the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund. This year, the Fund will achieve an estimated 100,000 pounds of nitrogen reductions and 10,000 pounds of phosphorus reductions in water. Additionally, 7,500 tons of carbon dioxide will be sequestered in soils, an amount equivalent to removing 1,480 cars from the road. The intent is to scale the Fund into additional states and regions to realize even greater positive environmental impacts and farmer benefits.

 

The outcomes-based funding model aligns with Cargill’s strategic focus to develop scalable, public-private partnerships that enable farmers to improve soil health, carbon storage and water quality and access.

 

“Cargill is excited about the potential of this innovative approach to support and mitigate risk for farmers as they invest in soil health and other conservation best management practices,” said Ryan Sirolli, Director of Row Crop Sustainability at Cargill. “We’re incentivizing more participants to implement best management practices that provide positive benefits for their business and the environment.”

 

Outcomes generated by the Fund will have far-reaching benefits for multiple stakeholders.

For participating municipalities, benefits include flexibility with permit requirements, source water protection, flood risk reduction and cost savings over grey infrastructure.

 

Corporations and the industry see value in enhanced soil carbon sequestration to meet supply chain sustainability commitments. Farmers see improved on-farm agronomics and resiliency as they build healthier soils.

 

Mark Lambert, Director of Agriculture at Quantified Ventures, says the Fund represents an important evolution in the way agricultural conservation is incentivized.

 

“We believe that shifting from ‘pay for practice’ approaches to ‘pay for outcomes’ approaches will unlock the impact investment capital needed to mitigate climate change and improve water quality at scale,” he said. “By combining the multiple beneficiaries of conservation outcomes into a single transaction, the Fund can deliver cost effective and scalable impact.”

 

Development of the Fund was supported by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation. Amy Saltzman, Program Officer at the Walton Family Foundation, said solutions that work for both the environment and the economy are the ones that stand the test of time.

 

“This fund is poised for long-term success, which is good for clean water, healthy soil, and communities and jobs that depend on them,” Saltzman said. “The Walton Family Foundation is proud to support the creation of this fund, which will help leverage the power of markets for a more sustainable future.”

 

Sustainable Environmental Consultants, a third-party to the transaction, will quantify the outcomes of the program. Additional field verification will occur, including soil and water sampling. To ensure integrity of the environmental benefits generated, the Fund only supports practices and outcomes that are additive to a farmer’s current baseline of agricultural practices.

 

The Fund will be jointly administered by the Iowa Soybean Association and Quantified Ventures, with initial funding support provided by Cargill and the Walton Family Foundation. Opportunities for additional farmer enrollment will be announced later this year. Interested outcome purchasers are encouraged to contact the Fund for pricing and participation information. 

 

Oil State Governors Wrong to Target RFS, Rural Jobs

 

The oil industry is seeking a reprieve from Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) obligations, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

An April 15 letter to EPA Andrew Wheeler from the governors of five oil-producing states – Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah and Louisiana – asks the agency to waive renewable volume obligations (RVOs, required biofuel blending levels) called for under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), claiming the new coronavirus was disrupting the oil industry’s production and distribution, leading to economic setbacks.

 

However, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) issued a new analysis this week showing that as the coronavirus outbreak and crude oil glut continue to ravage world fuel markets, U.S. ethanol sales in 2020 could fall by more than $10 billion . Furthermore, the industry’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) could drop by nearly one-third.

 

RFA warned that the economic damages go far beyond the ethanol sector, noting that America’s farmers will also be negatively impacted. Ethanol typically provides a market for two out of every five rows of corn and more than one-third of the annual sorghum crop.

 

Ethanol industry leaders also expressed disappointment that a $19-billion aid package for U.S. farmers and food interests contain nothing for an industry that has seen half of its plants close down. The industry normally supports 350,000 jobs across all sectors of the economy, and contributes valuable co-products like distillers grains, corn distillers oil, and captured carbon dioxide to the food supply chain.

 

The Circuit Court of Appeals for the U.S. 10th District ruled Jan. 24 that the EPA “exceeded its statutory authority” and “abused its discretion” in granting exemptions from 2016 and 2017 RFS requirements to three small refineries. The White House chose not to appeal the ruling, while the court dismissed appeals sought by two of the three refineries. The ruling only impacted about a third of the nation’s small refineries, but it was expected to have a universal impact on the agency’s handling of small refinery exemptions (SREs).

 

However, the agency has done nothing to correct the imbalances in ethanol’s market availability resulting from the dozens of SREs granted during the Trump administration. For the 2016-2018 RFS compliance years, the EPA issued 85 SREs, more than four times the number granted over a similar period by other administrations.

 

The biofuel industry said the high number of SREs handed out by the EPA in recent years has eroded more than 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel blending requirements. In addition to defending its position before the Tenth Circuit appellate court, biofuel interests have said they will continue to consider other actions that can recapture the lost demand.

 

The COVID-19 outbreak has had a further debilitating effect on the both the ethanol and biodiesel industries. A study released April 13 by the Purdue University Center for Commercial Agriculture shows that the spread of COVID-19 in the United States is expected to reduce the demand for both corn and soybeans due to reductions in demand for ethanol and soy biodiesel.

 

Cooper said in a statement last week that the letter from the governors makes it clear “they know absolutely nothing about how the Renewable Fuel Standard actually works. They outrageously claim that a waiver is needed because of ‘depressed demand for transportation fuel.

 

Climate-Driven Megadrought Emerging in Western U.S., Says Study

 

With the western United States and northern Mexico suffering an ever-lengthening string of dry years starting in 2000, scientists have been warning for some time that climate change may be pushing the region toward an extreme long-term drought worse than any in recorded history.

 

Areas of southwestern North America affected by drought in the early 2000s; darker colors are more intense. Yellow box shows the study area. (Adapted from Williams et al., Science, 2020)

A new study says the time has arrived that a megadrought as bad or worse than anything even from known prehistory is very likely in progress, and warming climate is playing a key role. The study, based on modern weather observations, 1,200 years of tree-ring data and dozens of climate models, appeared April 17 in the leading journal Science.

 

“Earlier studies were largely model projections of the future,” said lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.  “We’re no longer looking at projections, but at where we are now,” Williams said. “We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we’re on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts.”

 

Reliable modern observations date only to about 1900, but tree rings have allowed scientists to infer yearly soil moisture for centuries before humans began influencing climate. Among other things, previous research has tied catastrophic, naturally driven droughts recorded in tree rings to upheavals among indigenous Medieval-era civilizations in the Southwest. The new study is the most up-to-date and comprehensive long-term analysis. It covers an area stretching across nine U.S. states from Oregon and Montana down through California and New Mexico, and part of northern Mexico.

 

Using rings from many thousands of trees, the researchers charted dozens of droughts across the region, starting in 800 AD. Four stand out as so-called megadroughts, with extreme aridity lasting decades: the late 800s, mid-1100s, the 1200s, and the late 1500s. After 1600, there were other droughts, but none on this scale.

 

The team then compared the ancient megadroughts to soil moisture records calculated from observed weather in the 19 years from 2000 to 2018. Their conclusion: as measured against the worst 19-year increments within the previous episodes, the current drought is already outdoing the three earliest ones. The fourth, which spanned 1575 to 1603, may have been the worst of all – but the difference is slight enough to be within the range of uncertainty. Furthermore, the current drought is affecting wider areas more consistently than any of the earlier ones – a fingerprint of global warming, say the researchers. All of the ancient droughts lasted longer than 19 years – the one that started in the 1200s ran nearly a century – but all began on a similar path to what is showing up now, they say.

 

Nature drove the ancient droughts, and still plays a strong role today. A study last year led by Lamont’s Nathan Steiger showed that among other things, unusually cool periodic conditions over the tropical Pacific Ocean (commonly called La Niña) during the previous megadroughts pushed storm tracks further north, and starved the region of precipitation. Such conditions, and possibly other natural factors, appear to have also cut precipitation in recent years. However, with global warming proceeding, the authors say that average temperatures since 2000 have been pushed 1.2 degrees C (2.2 F) above what they would have been otherwise. Because hotter air tends to hold more moisture, that moisture is being pulled from the ground. This has intensified drying of soils already starved of precipitation.

 

All told, the researchers say that rising temperatures are responsible for about half the pace and severity of the current drought. If this overall warming were subtracted from the equation, the current drought would rank as the 11th worst detected – bad, but nowhere near what it has developed into.

 

“It doesn’t matter if this is exactly the worst drought ever,” said coauthor Benjamin Cook, who is affiliated with Lamont and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “What matters is that it has been made much worse than it would have been because of climate change.”

 

Since temperatures are projected to keep rising, it is likely the drought will continue for the foreseeable future; or fade briefly only to return, say the researchers.

 

Researchers Study How Forests Are Adapting to Climate Change

 

As the climate is changing, so too are the world’s forests. From the misty redwoods in the west to the Blue Ridge forest of Appalachia, many sylvan ecosystems are adapting to drier conditions.

 

The warm sunshine streams through the canopies of two blue oaks in central California. Photo Credit: Leander Anderegg

Using the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis database, researchers at UC Santa Barbara, the University of Utah and the U.S. Forest Service have studied how the traits of tree communities are shifting across the contiguous United States.

 

The results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that communities, particularly in more arid regions, are becoming more drought tolerant, primarily through the death of less hardy trees.

 

To understand what might be driving changes in the ability of forests to cope with climate change, the scientists considered two main physiological traits: a species’ average tolerance to water stress and how close this was to its maximum tolerance (essentially how much wiggle room it had when dealing with water stress).

 

“We basically put a number on what species composition means in terms of their ability to deal with water stress,” said lead author Anna Trugman, an assistant professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Geography.

 

Fortunately for the team, the U.S. Department of Agriculture tracks tree species, size and abundance in more than 160,000 forest plots randomly distributed across the country. What’s more, the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis database includes over 200 different types of ecosystems ranging from dry pinyon pine forests to cypress swamps, and Atlantic hardwood forests to the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.

 

Trugman and her colleagues matched the traits they were interested in to the species abundance in these plots. Then they used this to calculate a weighted average value for the community of trees in each plot, which essentially corresponded to the community’s drought tolerance. Since these plots are surveyed every five to 10 years, the scientists could track shifts in community trait composition and relate these to tree mortality, recruitment and climate.

 

There are two ways a community can become more drought tolerant: Less hardy trees can die or more resilient trees can grow faster. Both result in a community that is hardier overall.

 

Trugman found that it was primarily the death of less robust trees that drove the shifts toward greater drought tolerance, though she notes that the effects of sapling recruitment have been less evident over such a short time span. She also noticed that the scope of traits in a given plot didn’t automatically correlate with the number of species present. “You don’t necessarily have a larger range in strategies if you have more species,” she said.

 

For instance, the eastern U.S. doesn’t experience as much routine drought stress as its western counterpart, but it has relatively high species diversity. As a result, most of the trees have similar strategies to cope with water stress. Compare that to the Southwest, where there are species living together that have a range of strategies for dealing with drought, despite many plots having relatively low species diversity overall.

 

Maps of plant traits are useful to scientists because they inform the models that forecast how climate change will affect the landscape, Trugman explained. The trait maps help researchers assess the mismatch between climate suitability and the community’s current trait composition.

 

Climate Change Could Cause Fast Biodiversity Losses Worldwide

 

A warming global climate could cause sudden, potentially catastrophic losses of biodiversity in regions across the globe throughout the 21st century, finds a new study led by researchers at University College London (UCL).

 

The findings, published April 8 in Nature, predict when and where there could be severe ecological disruption in the coming decades, and suggests that the first waves could already be happening.

 

“We found that climate change risks to biodiversity don’t increase gradually,” said the study’s lead author, Alex Pigot, with the UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research. “Instead, as the climate warms, within a certain area most species will be able to cope for a while, before crossing a temperature threshold, when a large proportion of the species will suddenly face conditions they’ve never experienced before.”It’s not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different areas at different times.”

 

Pigot and colleagues from the United States and South Africa were seeking to predict threats to biodiversity over the course of the 21st century, rather than a single-year snapshot. They used climate model data from 1850 to 2005, and cross-referenced it with the geographic ranges of 30,652 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and other animals and plants. The data was available for areas across the globe, divided up into 100 by 100 km square grid cells.

 

They used climate model projections for each year up to 2100 to predict when species in each grid cell will begin experiencing temperatures that are consistently higher than the organism has previously experienced across its geographic range, for a period of at least five years.

 

“The historic temperature models, combined with species ranges, showed us the range of conditions that each organism can survive under, as far as we know,” said the study’s first author, Christopher Trisos, with the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, and the National Socio-Environment Synthesis Center at the University of Maryland.

 

“Once temperatures in a given area rise to levels that the species have never experienced, we would expect there to be extinctions, but not necessarily – we simply have no evidence of the ability of these species to persist after this point,” he said.

 

The researchers found that in most ecological communities across the globe, a large proportion of the organisms will find themselves outside of their niche (comfort zone) within the same decade. Across all of the communities, on average 73 percent of the species facing unprecedented temperatures before 2100 will cross that threshold simultaneously.

 

The researchers predict that if global temperatures rise by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, under a “high emissions” scenario, which the researchers say is plausible, at least 15 percent of communities across the globe, and potentially many more, will undergo an abrupt exposure event where more than one in five of their constituent species crosses the threshold beyond their niche limit within the same decade. Such an event could cause irreversible damage to the functioning of the ecosystem.

 

If warming is kept to 2 degrees Celsius or less, potentially fewer than 2 percent of communities will face such exposure events, although the researchers caution that within that 2 percent includes some of the most biodiverse communities on the planet, such as coral reefs.

 

The researchers predict that such unprecedented temperature regimes will begin before 2030 in tropical oceans, and recent events such as mass bleaching of corals on the Great Barrier Reef suggest this is happening already. Higher latitudes and tropical forests are predicted to be at risk by 2050.

 

The study was funded by the Royal Society, the National Science Foundation (USA) and the African Academy of Sciences.

 

Study Evaluates and Quantifies Ecosystem Service Flows

 

What do chocolate, migratory birds, flood control and pandas have in common? Many countries benefit from ecosystem services provided outside their nations. This can happen through economic relationships, biological and geographical conditions, but how and where these ecosystem service flows occur is hardly known.

 

Cocoa plantation in West Africa  Photo: Janina Kleemann

Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) show in a recent study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, how interregional ecosystem service flows can be identified and quantified.

 

“Ecosystem services are not constrained by borders,” says Aletta Bonn, a researcher at the UFZ and iDiv. “For example, one country benefits from agricultural products originating from other continents or flood protection provided by floodplains in a neighboring country.”

 

The close links between distant regions arising from ecosystem services are known as telecoupling. Understanding these flows can help to recognize the value of intact nature, identify global drivers of biodiversity loss or soil erosion in distant regions, and develop measures for more sustainable management.

 

“It is important to understand the interlinkages and the environmental costs caused by domestic consumption of ecosystem services in other countries,” says Bonn. “This information can then be used in political decisions, such as fair trade standards, environmentally and socially acceptable certification, and financial compensation measures.”

 

But how can ecosystem service flows be identified, quantified and ultimately balanced between countries? The researchers investigated these issues, including an examination of the extent to which Germany uses ecosystem services that are provided in other countries.

“In previous work, we had already developed a conceptual framework for quantifying interregional ecosystem service flows,” says Bonn. “Here, we differentiated between four types of flows which were examined for Germany in more detail.”

 

The scientists assessed trade flows using cocoa imports as an example and their impact on biodiversity in the producing countries.

 

“It turns out that approximately 85 percent of imported cocoa comes from only five mainly West African countries – Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo. Significant impacts on biodiversity are considered for Cameroon and Ecuador due to cocoa trade with Germany,” says Janina Kleemann, former UFZ researcher and now at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

 

In the “migratory species” category, the scientists investigated the importance of migratory birds for German agriculture.

 

“Our results indicate that Africa’s tropical and subtropical climate zones provide a habitat for the majority of migratory bird species that make an important contribution to pest control in German agricultural landscapes,” explains Kleemann.

 

Ecosystem services associated with flood protection are assigned to the “passive biophysical flow” category. Here, the researchers concluded that Germany benefits by almost two-thirds from flood regulation provided in other countries’ floodplains, and in return also exports around 40 percent flood regulation to downstream neighboring countries such as the Netherlands. In the “information flows” category, the loan of a Chinese giant panda to Berlin Zoo served as a case study. The research team highlighted the political, economic, scientific and cultural aspects of this exchange for the relationship between Germany and China.

 

The UFZ study is one of the first studies to identify, systematically quantify and assess several interregional ecosystem service flows for a specific country using examples. Awareness of and understanding these flows represent the first step toward fairly balancing ecosystem services use and sustainable resource management.

 

“When we know how and to what extent we influence global biodiversity with our consumption patterns and international trade, we can make better decisions regarding individual and national consumption of resources and develop adequate measures for sustainable management,” says Bonn. “Our study clearly demonstrates that countries such as Germany bear a global responsibility to protect and conserve biological diversity worldwide.”

 

Other News We Are Reading…

 

Flooding Stunted 2019 Cropland Growing Season, 

Resulting in More Atmospheric CO2 

 (California Institute of Technology)

 

Severe flooding throughout the Midwest – which triggered a delayed growing season for crops in the region – led to a reduction of 100 million metric tons of net carbon uptake during June and July of 2019, according to a new study. For reference, the massive California wildfires of 2018 released an estimated 12.4 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. And although part of this deficit due to floods was compensated for later in the growing season, the combined effects are likely to have resulted in a 15 percent reduction in crop productivity relative to 2018, the study authors say. The study, published March 31, in the journal AGU Advances, describes how the carbon uptake was measured using satellite data. Researchers used a novel marker of photosynthesis known as solar-induced fluorescence to quantify the reduced carbon uptake due to the delay in the crops’ growth. Independent observations of atmospheric CO2 levels were then employed to confirm the reduction in carbon uptake. “We were able to show that it’s possible to monitor the impacts of floods on crop growth on a daily basis in near real time from space, which is critical to future ecological forecasting and mitigation,” says Yi Yin, research scientist at Caltech and lead author of the study. (Read more…)

 

Stanford Researchers Forecast Longer, More Extreme Wildfire Seasons 

 

Stanford University researchers say changes to the climate have made California autumns feel more like summer, with hotter, drier weather that increases the risk of longer, more dangerous wildfire seasons. The study finds that autumn days with extreme fire weather have more than doubled in California since the early 1980s due to climate change. The results could contribute to more effective risk mitigation, land management and resource allocation. The paper, published in Environmental Research Letters, provides insights that could inform more effective risk mitigation, land management and resource allocation. “Many factors influence wildfire risk, but this study shows that long-term warming, coupled with decreasing autumn precipitation, is already increasing the odds of the kinds of extreme fire weather conditions that have proved so destructive in both northern and southern California in recent years,” said study senior author Noah Diffenbaugh, the Kara J Foundation professor at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. (Read more… )

 

Study Synthesizes What Climate Change Means for Northwest Wildfires 

(University of Washington)

 

Recent years have brought unusually large and damaging wildfires to the Pacific Northwest – from the Carlton Complex Fire in 2014 that was the largest in Washington’s history, to the 2017 fire season in Oregon, to the 2018 Maple Fire, when normally sodden rainforests on the Olympic Peninsula were ablaze. Many people have wondered what this means for our region’s future. A University of Washington study, published this winter in Fire Ecology, takes a big-picture look at what climate change could mean for wildfires in the Northwest, considering Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana. “We can’t predict the exact location of wildfires, because we don’t know where ignitions will occur. But based on historical and contemporary fire records, we know some forests are much more likely to burn frequently, and models can help us determine where climate change will likely increase the frequency of fire,” said lead author Jessica Halofsky, a research scientist at the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and with the U.S. Forest Service. The review was done in response to a survey of stakeholder needs by the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, a UW-hosted federal-university partnership. State, federal and tribal resource managers wanted more information on the available science about fire and climate change. (Read more…)

 

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Increased in 2018…

(The Hill)

 

U..S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by about 3 percent in 2018, according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The increase follows declines in greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. For example, emissions fell by about half a percent in 2017 and by nearly 3 percent in 2016. The last time greenhouse gas emissions increased was 2014. Despite the increase, emissions are still down about 10 percent from a recent high in 2007.

(Read more…)

 

…But U.S. Power Sector GHGs Projected to Fall 7.5 Percent in 2020

(Utility Dive)

 

The economic halt caused by COVID-19 is expected to decrease global carbon emissions by 5% in 2020, the largest annual decline ever, according to an April 9 analysis from Carbon Brief. U.S. power sector emissions are expected to drop 7.5 percent this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook released April 7. (Read more…)

 

Don’t Look to Mature Forests to Soak Up Carbon Dioxide Emissions 

(SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry)

 

Research published April 8 in Nature suggests mature forests are limited in their ability to absorb “extra” carbon as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase. These findings may have implications for New York state’s carbon neutrality goals. The experiment, conducted at Western Sydney University’s (WSU) EucFACE (Eucalyptus Free Air CO2 Enrichment) found new evidence of limitations in the capacity of mature forests to translate rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations into additional plant growth and carbon storage. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is sometimes described as “food for plants” as it is the key ingredient in plant photosynthesis. With CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increasing steadily due to human emissions, there is ample evidence that plant photosynthesis is going up. Experiments that have exposed single trees and young, rapidly growing forests to elevated CO2 concentrations have shown that plants use the extra carbon to grow faster. “Forests provide a wide array of environmental, economic and social benefits. Importantly, forests remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and store it, which slows down our climate crisis,” said John Drake, assistant professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Department of Sustainable Resources Management and a co-author of the paper in collaboration with researchers at WSU. (Read more…)

 

Partner News and CSA Events

 

Expansion of Global Work Program Underway

 

A special contingent of envoys and senior advisors have accepted invitations from Solutions from the Land (SfL), NACSAA’s sponsoring organization, to help shape the guiding principles, policy and program recommendations and other submissions to be introduced into the UN system.

 

Farmers, along with conservation, bioenergy, water, national security leaders; as well as academic, financial and technical experts, will be called upon to help to engage:

  • The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), including a High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on food security and nutrition, which is formulating scientific and evidence-based reports to shape the UN Committee on World Food Security’s (CFS) policy recommendations and guidance on a wide range of food security and nutrition, agroecology and innovation topics.
  • The first World Food Systems summit in 25 years to be held in 2021.
  • The UNFCCC’s Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA);
    • Two Intergovernmental Panels on Climate Change (IPCC) ancillary bodies, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), which are overseeing the development of the KJWA.
    • The process is being informed by inputs from UN constituted bodies, official observer organizations (which includes SfL/NACSAA) and technical experts from across the globe.
    • KJWA will be submitted to COP 26, to be held in 2021.

In addition, the new advisors and envoys will be engaging in the International Agri-Food Network (IAFN) and the global agricultural supply chain’s Private Sector Mechanism connection to FAO, in COVID-19 response work. The SfL/NACSAA representatives will be advocating for enabling polices and investment’s that will allow for the full range of goods and services from agricultural landscapes to be realized.

 

Of particular importance within other UN platforms is the Food Systems Summit that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, will convene as part of the Decade of Action to deliver the SDGs by 2030. The Decade of Action was called for by world leaders at the 2019 UN General Assembly to accelerate efforts towards the SDGs’ achievement. This will be the first World Food Summit in 25 years and represents a renewed commitment to tackle hunger and malnutrition for achievement of SDG2 (Zero Hunger). The summit is likely to call for bold and structural change to the global food system and focus on topics such as hunger/malnutrition (including obesity), agriculture and climate change as well as food loss and waste.

 

Along with SfL board members, our new farmer envoys will endeavor to educate member state representatives, FAO officials, and observer partners and non-state actors on how to best evaluate, recognize and encourage desirable SDG outcomes. These outcomes can be accessed by both developed and developing countries through the adoption of proven and pragmatic technologies, systems and practices used by U.S. farmers, ranchers and foresters.

 

A guiding principle in the formulation of our recommendations and action plans will be a focus on the three pillars of climate smart agriculture (CSA): 1) sustainably increasing productivity and livelihoods (i.e. sustainable intensification); 2) enhancing adaptive capacity and improving resilience; and 3) delivering ecosystem services, sequestering carbon, and reducing and/or avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.

 

USDA Seeks Public Input on the Agriculture Innovation Agenda

 

To further the USDA’s work on the Agriculture Innovation Agenda (AIA), the department is seeking public and private sector input through Aug. 1 on what officials say are the most important innovation opportunities to be addressed in the near and long term.

 

Using the input provided, the USDA will identify common themes across the agriculture customer base to inform research and innovation efforts in the department, the broader public sector, and the private sector.

 

“Even during this uncertain time, we recognize our work at USDA is twofold: to meet the immediate needs of our customers in this national health emergency and to support American agriculture in the face of future demands,” said Deputy Secretary Stephen Censky. “We know now, more than ever, it is important to double down on innovation in order to support farmers, ranchers, and producers as they work to increase productivity while conserving our natural resource base. Although current dynamics have shifted, our focus remains on positioning American agriculture to be a part of the solution to future demands.”

 

Deputy Under Secretary Scott Hutchins, who leads USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics mission area, said the department intends “to work collaboratively with both the agricultural community and the broad innovation community to align on the most important opportunities. By working together, we can transform our nation and leave our world in a much better state for generations to come.”

 

USDA will accept public comments and written stakeholder input through Aug. 1 via a Request for Information (RFI) published in the Federal Register April 1.

 

Respondents are asked to identify transformational innovation opportunities for the next era of agriculture productivity and environmental conservation and propose approaches to these opportunities with an eye to the public and private sector research needed to support them. Input from the agricultural and scientific community will help inform research goals with the intent of aligning applications and technologies to best address the goals of the Agriculture Innovation Agenda for the next 10 to 30 years.

 

Based on stakeholder input from the RFI, USDA will develop a comprehensive U.S. agriculture innovation strategy that it intends to release by the end of this year.

 

This effort, led by Hutchins, is a core part of the Agriculture Innovation Agenda, a department-wide initiative to align resources, programs and research to position American agriculture to better meet future global demands. Specifically, USDA will stimulate innovation so that American agriculture can achieve the goal of increasing production by 40 percent while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half by 2050.

 

The Agriculture Innovation Agenda is comprised of four main components:

  1. Develop a U.S. agriculture innovation strategy that aligns and synchronizes public and private sector research.
  2. Align the work of our customer-facing agencies and integrate innovative technologies and practices into USDA programs.
  3. Conduct a review of USDA productivity and conservation data. USDA already closely tracks data on yield, but on the environmental side, there’s some catching up to do.
  4. Set benchmarks that will hold the department accountable by measuring progress toward meeting the food, fiber, fuel, feed and climate demands of the future.

Some of the benchmarks include:

  • Agricultural Productivity: Increase agricultural production by 40 percent by 2050 to do our part to meet estimated future demand.
  • Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas: Enhance carbon sequestration through soil health and forestry, leverage the agricultural sector’s renewable energy benefits for the economy, and capitalize on innovative technologies and practices to achieve net reduction of the agricultural sector’s current carbon footprint by 2050 without regulatory overreach.
  • Water Quality: Reduce nutrient loss by 30 percent nationally by 2050.
  • Renewable Energy: We can increase the production of renewable energy feedstocks and set a goal to increase biofuel production efficiency and competitiveness to achieve market-driven blend rates of 15% of transportation fuels in 2030 and 30% of transportation fuels by 2050.
  • Forest Management: Build landscape resiliency by investing in active forest management and forest restoration through increased Shared Stewardship Agreements with States.
  • Food loss and waste: Advance our work toward the United States’ goal to reduce food loss and waste by 50 percent in the United States by the year 2030.

State-Level CSA Initiatives Press Through COVID-19 Disruptions

 

Despite the nationwide lockdown driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, state-level, climate smart agriculture work groups are marching ahead.

 

On April 9, Iowa Smart Agriculture alliance leaders hosted an hour-long listening session with a group of farmers across the state who shared their thoughts and recommendations. The call was led by the project Co-Chairs and facilitated by Lois Wright-Morton. Among some of the key takeaways were the following points:

  • Farmers and consumers are co-dependent and need each other;
  • Many of the participating farmers have diversified crop and livestock systems and discussed the complementarity of diversity;
  • Need flexible management to quickly pivot and change when weather, markets, labor shift.
  • This requires being willing to experiment and risk, trial and error because conditions are not always what you hope for;
  • Producers are production minded, need to foster longer term thinking, beyond the farm-gate;
  • Management is hard to do, takes time and not easy, some farmers opt out because of the complexity and don’t see the value in learning new ways to manage; adaptation is not simple;
  • Non-farm landowners have little/no experience with land management, interest in wildlife habitat, how to leverage that to encourage better soil and water management?
  • Cover crops and No Till combinations were successful in managing soil erosion and water runoff during 2019 high rain events; improve soil structure over time and increase management capacity under variable weather conditions;
  • Farmers need “feedback” tools, to know if what they are doing is working or not;
  • Farmers will change if we focus on economics and logistics of change;
  • Pay attention to return on profit per acre…might mean not planting corn or soybeans but diversifying crops (e.g. five or six different crops);
  • Plan toward the future: prepare a 7 years plan for the farm; where will the market be in the future?
  • Build community to learn about what other farmers are doing, so gain confidence in trying a new practice or technology;
  • Let farmers lead, like the NE Iowa watershed projects; University and agencies are needed to provide technical support, funding, and monitoring outcomes; but programs need to have flexibility to listen to farmer needs and respond rather than prescribe a uniform best practice!

Work group leaders now use to feedback to design a knowledge-sharing project, invite more farmers into the dialogue and construct a roadmap to achieve the IASA vision.

 

In Florida, many growers are approaching the peak of their fresh fruit and vegetable harvests, and have been especially hard hit by the COVID-19-driven loss of the food service market, and compromised harvesting and transport logistics.

 

The Florida CSA Design Team met by phone last week to assess conditions and explore ways they can respond and help the state’s agriculture sector transform and improve resiliency.

 

Not unlike the challenges the industry faces from changing climatic conditions, the losses they are experiencing due to the pandemic are heartbreaking. The disruption to the food system resulting from the outbreak is generating an improved public appreciation for the importance of productive farms to nutrition and public health – a development that will a major topic of FL CSA Work Group discussion going forward.

 

We encourage our NACSAA partners and other stakeholders to share with us any organization news or events highlighting your role in climate smart agriculture. We look forward to including your information in our monthly newsletter. Simply send your news or event notices to info@SfLDialogue.net.

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