When Congress renegotiates the farm bill every five years, it doesn’t exactly grab headlines. But this year, as the sweeping trillion-dollar legislative package that deals with everything from manure lagoons to food stamps comes up for renewal, climate advocates say it could be momentous.
Typically passed with bipartisan support, the legislation, projected to cost $1.4 trillion over 10 years, encompasses relatively mundane things like crop insurance and money for rural broadband. Nutrition programs alone usually claim three-quarters of the bill’s funding. But environmental groups and some farmer advocacy organizations are lobbying Congress to turn this year’s bill — due for an update by October — into the next historic climate law. They say it could curb warming caused by agriculture, a key emitter of greenhouse gasses, in large part by converting the country’s vast farmlands into fields that suck carbon out of the air.
