In a split Congress, is a climate farm bill really best?

The results of the 2022 midterm elections have many environmental groups bracing for an uphill battle when it comes to climate policy. Even with a razor-thin majority in only one chamber of Congress, House Republicans stand to wield significant influence over key pieces of legislation over the next two years. The changing of the guard in committee leadership brings Democrats to a fork in the road.

The farm bill — which authorizes farm and nutrition programs every five years and is set to expire in September of 2023 — will be a major test of whether climate advocates can chart an effective path forward in a split Congress. Given new Republican headwinds in the House, the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress will need to decide: Will they dig their heels in on making the 2023 Farm Bill a climate bill or pivot to more pragmatic tactics?

The case should be made for the latter.

Many climate activists and environmental groups have spent the last several months calling for Congress to double down on climate and regenerative agriculture — a set of agricultural techniques that promote soil health and sequester carbon — in the next farm bill. However, the new chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) has plainly stated that the “next farm bill should not be framed as a climate bill.” More explicitly, he vowed to “not prioritize climate over every other resource concern” or “overemphasize climate within the conservation or research titles” of the bill.

Thompson is not alone in his skepticism in making climate a top priority in the historically bipartisan must-pass legislation. He and other Republicans have been critical of new spending on conservation programs in the Inflation Reduction Act and have called for increased USDA oversight when it comes to its spending on climate-focused programs. Not to mention, House Republicans plan to discontinue the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis next year, further signaling a shift in priorities when it comes to climate policies for sectors even beyond agriculture.

The overarching Republican sentiment toward climate may seem to put the future of Biden’s agricultural greenhouse gas emission targets out of reach. But, luckily, the farm bill doesn’t have to solely be a “climate bill” to be a good thing for agriculture and for the climate.

This is because one of the most important climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in our arsenal — productivity growth — increases farm yields and the ability of U.S. farmers and ranchers to compete internationally, the very rural priorities Republicans are hesitant to give up in favor of prioritizing environmental outcomes. 

Crop and livestock breeding, more efficient use of inputs, and other technological innovations have proven to increase total factor productivity, raising yields and enabling farmers and ranchers to produce more with less land and resources. Over the last century, total factor productivity for U.S. agriculture more than quadrupled, while agricultural land-use declined by about one-fifth. Over time, productivity growth led to a decrease in the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of many major U.S. agricultural products.

Much of this progress is thanks to technological advances spurred by publicly funded agricultural research and development (R&D). By prioritizing investments in basic science, technology transfer and research grant programs in the 2023 Farm Bill, Congress could still catalyze dramatic emission reductions in the short and long term, all without a single mention of the climate “buzzwords”, like “regenerative,” that Thompson has warned against.

Avoiding a narrow focus on regenerative agriculture as agriculture’s greatest climate solution will not only be politically advantageous given House Republicans’ skepticism, it will also make room for policymakers to prioritize investments with greater mitigation potential. The climate benefits of regenerative practices that sequester carbon in agricultural soils — including cover cropping and no-till farming — remain uncertain. Centering agricultural climate policy around payments or incentives to prioritize these practices without addressing their limitations would do little to durably offset agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

In contrast, broad investments in agricultural R&D have significant mitigation potential. An all-of-the-above R&D strategy could advance development and adoption of practices, tools and technologies that enhance productivity, reduce emissions and improve the food system’s resilience to extreme weather and other threats. Estimates show that doubling public U.S. agricultural R&D spending would — by raising productivity — increase domestic agricultural production, lower food prices, and ultimately reduce global emissions by 213 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per year, corresponding to over one-third of current U.S. agricultural emissions.

Long-run technological breakthroughs are needed now more than ever to increase total factor productivity in order to meet growing global food demand, as well as address emerging threats facing the U.S. food and agriculture system like geopolitical strife and novel pests and diseases. Many emerging, early-stage technologies in need of substantial public research investments — such as breeding crops with enhanced roots designed to sequester more carbon in the soil, enhanced efficiency and microbial fertilizers, as well as improved precision agriculture technologies — hold promise for boosting crop yields and reducing input costs to improve producers’ profitability and sustainability simultaneously. Increasing funding for existing federal research organizations and agencies, such as the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), is critical to driving sustainable growth, without over-emphasizing climate when drafting policy in the 2023 Farm Bill.

At a recent congressional hearing on farm bill research programs, broad consensus on the value of agricultural research was evident among senators with Sen. John Boozman (R-Ariz.) emphasizing the importance of “well-funded, and flexible research programs” and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) pointing to the innovation potential for a “high-risk, high-reward” advanced research authority at USDA. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also warned against allowing the U.S. to fall behind China when it comes to public agricultural research spending.

Rather than fighting for a 2023 Farm Bill that focuses only on conservation programs and scaling adoption of a limited set of agricultural practices as climate solutions, Democrats should rally around a farm bill centered on driving innovation. This will require zooming out from a narrow view on climate and instead prioritizing broad scale investments in agriculture research.

Emily Bass is assistant federal policy manager of food and agriculture at The Breakthrough Institute.