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Dec. 12, 2022 POLITICO reports: Ag Sec'y Vilsack's Monday announcement will likely boost the total price tag for the program north of $3 billion. It comes as Republicans in the House are vowing to audit and investigate the spending, which is being paid out of the Commodity Credit Corporation. Refresh: The climate-smart commodities program is designed to finance and develop climate-smart production; pilot greenhouse gas monitoring, reporting and quantification methods; and expand markets for climate-smart goods. The first round was focused on "large-scale pilot projects that emphasize the greenhouse gas benefits of climate-smart commodity production," and ran up a tab of $2.8 billion. Many climate and agriculture groups celebrated the first round of investments when they were released. Some climate watchdogs were critical of the first round for some payments going to large-scale agriculture companies like Tyson Foods, JBS and Cargill. Tyson was the only one of the three chosen as a lead partner for a project for climate-smart beef. Others like Mike Lavender, the interim policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, expressed concern over "the inability - due to lack of data and information - to assess how effective a climate strategy the round 1 proposals are," in an email to MA. Remind me, what's climate-smart?: That's a loaded question and depends on who you ask. But USDA defines a climate-smart commodity as "an agricultural commodity that is produced using farming, ranching or forestry practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon." Those practices can range from cover cropping and no-till farming to high-tech solutions like enhanced efficiency fertilizers and nutrient management. The second round will focus on "the enrollment of small farming and ranching operations, including, but not limited to, underserved producers, as well as measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification activities developed at minority-serving institutions," according to USDA. They'll be smaller grants, ranging between $250,000 to nearly $5 million, and total $300 million according to USDA. Slow your roll: Republicans set to take the reins in the House next month have vowed oversight on the climate-smart commodities program. House Ag Chair-apparent G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) told MA he plans to ask for a full audit of the program. Thompson expressed concern that the money was pulled from the Commodity Credit Corporation without an "immediate crisis" at hand. Tweet |
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