As federal policymakers craft a plan to grow the U.S. economy and address the climate crisis by rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, the United States Congress has a unique opportunity to invest in some of the most important natural infrastructure there is: trees.
Restoring trees to the landscape is the largest, near-term opportunity to remove carbon dioxide from the air at the scale needed to help meet the country’s ambitious climate goals. WRI’s research has found that at its upper-bound potential, tree restoration in the U.S. which includes reforestation, restocking degraded forests, and agroforestry could remove up to 540 million tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year through 2050. The average cost of carbon removal through tree restoration is less than $10 per ton of CO
CRP participation has declined, despite rising program cap
Michael Nepveux and Shelby Myers
First incorporated into a farm bill in 1985, the conservation title is what some would consider the original Green New Deal. Its voluntary conservation initiatives give farmers and ranchers flexibility to adopt practices in a market-based approach.
Farmers and ranchers are already good stewards of water and land, but the 2018 farm bill, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, provided expanded conservation programs that could increase conservation initiatives. The goal is to improve water quality and wildlife habitats and populations, protecting natural resources and providing many other benefits. The conservation title of the 2018 farm bill spends $60 billion of the $867 billion of mandatory funding required for conservation programs over 10 years, equal to 7% of the bill’s total projected mandatory spending in that timeframe.
iStock Getty Images Congress urged to double investment in farm bill conservation programs in effort to reward climate smart actions.
Suggested Event
Jun 15, 2021 to Jun 17, 2021
Every five years, the discussion over the farm bill baseline determines the level of resources for not only traditional farm programs under Title 1, but also the conservation title. Depending on the fiscal outlook, those levels sometimes require Congress to maintain the same baseline or find “savings” by spending less over the 10-year baseline if the farm bill was implemented for 10 years.
Action this year on the climate and infrastructure bill represents the best opportunity in decades to meet farmer demand for conservation programs.
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