Betting the farm
By HELENA BOTTEMILLER EVICH and CATHERINE BOUDREAU
This week, we take up a serious climate bill in the Senate — and how America's farmers and food companies are responding differently this time. Plus, our LG Forum weighs in on "carbon offsets."
A NEW KIND OF FARMERS MARKET — Something unusual happened in Washington this summer: Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle unveiled a serious climate bill in the middle of a pandemic. The decidedly wonkish legislation, which aims to make it easier to pay farmers to capture carbon, didn’t make much of a splash as coronavirus continues to suck up all the oxygen inside the Beltway, and rightfully so. But the fact that it was unveiled at all is the latest sign of growing momentum behind the idea that agriculture can help battle climate change.
The notion that policymakers should encourage farmers to suck more carbon out of the atmosphere and sink it into their soil barely registered on the national radar a few years ago. Today, it’s in vogue, attracting press coverage and boatloads of venture capital, pushing a once-radical idea into the mainstream.
To get a sense of the unlikely supporting cast, consider who’s endorsed the so-called Growing Climate Solutions Act. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, introduced it and a co-sponsor is Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top critic-turned-confidant of President Donald Trump. His office didn’t provide further comment, but when the bill became public Graham said it would create business opportunities for farmers while protecting the environment.
There’s also your traditional farm groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation that historically has lobbied against any major climate legislation, and environmental organizations like The Nature Conservancy.
“This is something we can do now,” Stabenow said in an interview with The Long Game, noting that she’s already seeing interest among both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. “It’s broadly supported. We should get going.”
Private sector buzz: Fortune 500 companies are on board, as well, from the more obvious food industry players like Danone — which is aiming for net zero carbon emissions by midcentury and needs help from the farmers in its supply chain to reach that goal — to Microsoft.
Corporations interested in the concept tend to fall into a few categories: They want to help set up carbon markets in agriculture, or buy credits from farmers to offset their own emissions, or remove carbon from the food and fiber they source within their own supply chains.
Microsoft is deep into the carbon offsets game: It is collecting vast amounts of data from farmers via sensors, drones, satellites and tractors that’s needed to verify what practices yield environmental benefits. The tech giant also purchases offsets to be carbon neutral. Microsoft earlier this year said it will become carbon negative by 2030, removing more from the atmosphere than it emits.
“Since our announcement in January, companies’ commitments have widely outstripped supply in the carbon removal space,” Lucas Joppa, Microsoft's chief environmental officer, told The Long Game. “But it doesn’t outstrip the potential for nature-based solutions. That’s what makes me really excited. Demand is greater than supply. Both demand and supply are less than the potential. Ready, set, go.”
THE GAMBLE IS REAL — The growing hype over carbon farming, or regenerative agriculture as some call it, has sparked intense debate over whether any of this is even achievable at scale. Proponents believe that paying farmers to draw down and store carbon in their soil will trigger a sea change in the way they work the land, improving the environment along the way. But by and large, this is not how American farmers do things today.
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Here’s where things get even trickier: If farmers are paid for sequestering carbon, you need to be able to measure it to some degree. This is foundational to carbon credit markets, which are in active development by several startups including Indigo Ag, which aims to pay farmers $15 per metric ton of carbon they store beginning later this year. The Boston-based company closed a $360 million financing round this week.
Measuring soil carbon across the country is difficult (that’s a lot of soil samples folks!). Even if this is ironed out, there are many other questions: If a farmer sequesters carbon one year, and gets paid for it, what’s to stop them from churning up their soil down the road, thereby releasing much of that carbon back into the atmosphere? And how much carbon can an acre of farmland absorb, anyway? How do you account for regional variability? There’s no shortage of squabbling in the policy and scientific community about these thorny what-ifs.
Reality check: More than a decade ago, a voluntary market that had enrolled millions of acres of American farmland collapsed due to lack of demand right as Congress scuttled any hope for cap and trade.
Climate change also remains a supersensitive topic at the Agriculture Department during the Trump administration. USDA would likely have to be involved for carbon markets to take off at the national level. Stabenow’s bipartisan climate bill, for example, would put the department in charge of certifying third parties to measure carbon.
THE COST OF DILLY DALLYING — There’s certainly a healthy dose of skepticism about the extent to which farmers and ranchers can help tackle climate change, but a significant camp of scientists say we should forge ahead even if the carbon sequestration potential turns out to be overblown, or the markets fail (again).
They argue that regardless, transitioning to regenerative agriculture can lead to less erosion and more drought resistant soil, helping farmers be more resilient to the extreme weather ahead.
“We don’t need to wait another 50 years for more research,” said Paige Stanley, a doctoral researcher focused on soil science and carbon sequestration at the University of California, Berkeley. There are still scientific questions to answer, but there’s a lot of evidence that certain farming practices can boost carbon in the soil and benefit the environment, she said.
Joppa echoed that sentiment. “We spend so much time saying, ‘That’s not a perfect solution.’ But we’re at a time when perfect cannot be the enemy of the good.”
THE POLITICS OF CARBON FARMING — Setting up a market-based system instead of mandatory regulations is far more popular among farmers, the majority of whom lean Republican, as well as the lawmakers who represent them in Congress. While there’s zero chance climate initiatives are going anywhere this year, if Biden wins in November, the odds could soon change.
The presumptive Democratic nominee in July made agriculture a central part of his updated $2 trillion climate platform, promising to establish a voluntary market that pays farmers for slashing greenhouse gas emissions, including methane. Winning the support of rural Americans will be key to passing major climate legislation, and ensuring it benefits farmers is a good strategy, according to recent research by Duke University. Rural voters’ support for taking action on climate change jumped by 20 percent when it was specifically tied to helping farmers.
Carbon offsets either avoid emissions in the first place by opting for renewable energy and energy efficiency, or remove carbon from the atmosphere by financing projects that sequester it in cropland soils or forests. Some environmentalists and lawmakers are concerned that carbon offsets can lead to corporate greenwashing, allowing mega emitters to continue polluting without taking a hard look at their own operations and supply chains, while proponents argue they are a way to compensate for certain emissions that can’t be eliminated with today’s technology.
We asked our group of sustainability experts what role carbon offsets play in their own organization’s climate goals, and the pros and cons of this strategy. Here some of their answers, edited for length and clarity:
“Decarbonization will only work if corporations prioritize reduction of emissions over offsetting,” said Matthias Berninger, Bayer’s senior vice president of public affairs and sustainability. The company aims to slash emissions from its own operations by 42 percent through a mix of energy efficiency and green electricity by 2030. The biotech giant is also asking its suppliers to reduce emissions by 12 percent during the same time frame. In June, Bayer started a pilot with more than 1,000 farmers in the U.S. and Brazil to test paying farmers for capturing carbon in their soils.
“Carbon offsets presume a time frame that we simply do not have. Offsets do not adequately allow for an overall reduction in emissions and won’t adequately hold polluting industries, like the fossil fuel industry, accountable for their role in exacerbating the climate crisis,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, North America director of 350.org.
“The fastest way for us to reduce carbon emissions is to invest our available capital in the transition to battery-electric vehicles. That said, I think carbon offsets can play a role in helping bridge the transition,” said Dane Parker, General Motors’ chief sustainability officer. (The automaker buys credits, including from Tesla.) “Any offsets used to address carbon mitigation goals … must meet the following criteria: They must be real, verified, enforceable, permanent and additional.”
“We do not expect to rely upon carbon offsets,” said Alison Taylor, chief sustainability officer of Archer Daniels Midland, which in March said it plans to reduce emissions from its own operations by 25 percent in the next 15 years. ADM will focus on increasing its use of natural gas, buying more renewable energy and using more efficient vehicles and sustainable fuels.
“Carbon offsets are an important but temporary tool for addressing climate change. Offsets are a good interim solution to neutralize ... emissions that are difficult to decarbonize in the short term,” said Jennifer Jenkins, Enviva's vice president and chief sustainability officer.
"Carbon offsets ... are a necessary short-term solution and must go hand-in-hand with some proven emissions reductions and a strong road map to reduce or remove the remaining ones," said David Tulauskas, vice president and chief sustainability officer of Nestlé Waters North America. The company recently purchased carbon offsets in the areas where its operations are located to make its direct-to-consumer beverage delivery service carbon neutral.
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