NEWS

Local agriculture should drive the transition to a clean-energy economy

08/11/2009

The mission of the National Farmers Union is to protect and enhance the economic well being and quality of life for family farmers, ranchers and their rural communities.

Although production methods have changed since NFU was founded in 1902, our nation’s oldest industry continues to provide a good life for millions of American families. Paying homage to that history now means investing in the necessary steps to preserve our way of life for future generations.

Simply put, the cost of inaction must become a central part of the climate change debate.

Science tells us that unmitigated climate change will cause shifts in growing seasons, crop yield reductions, increasingly stressed and unreliable water supplies and decreased livestock growth rates, reproduction and milk productivity. Failing to act on climate change will have a drastic impact on our agriculture industry, the families that depend on farming and consumers’ access to affordable food. This issue cannot be ignored.

While multiple academics and government officials have conducted economic analyses on climate change, more needs to be done. Climate change is real, and we already have begun to experience the consequences of a warming planet: temperatures are climbing and storms, droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity. The growing severity of weather patterns is taking a toll on American agriculture.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released an economic analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act cited by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack during his testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee on July 22.

“In the short term, the economic benefits to agriculture from cap-and-trade legislation will likely outweigh the costs. In the long term, the economic benefits from offsets markets easily trump increased input costs from cap-and-trade legislation,” Vilsack said, summarizing the conclusions of the USDA analysis.

The Waxman-Markey bill, also called ACES, is a step in the right direction by investing in homegrown renewable energy and addressing climate change, which threatens the vitality of our crops and fields. NFU members were early to acknowledge the negative effects of climate change, which is why our policy supports a national, mandatory cap-and-trade program. Our members know that with such a program input costs would increase. However, the flexible agricultural offset program within ACES would allow producers who adopt environmentally friendly practices to mitigate some of these increased costs.

It is important to note that even if Congress fails to pass clean energy and climate legislation, the Environmental Protection Agency is poised to act.

In July 2007, NFU released a report on the economic benefits that rural America would see if 20 percent of electricity consumed in the United States came from renewable sources by 2020. Electricity production from wind would result in rural landowners receiving between $475 million and $562 million in payments from wind farm leases. Electricity production from renewable biomass would result in payments of at least $25 billion to farmers of these new crops by 2020. And $43.4 billion to $66.7 billion in capital would be invested in new clean-energy facilities, mostly in rural areas.

Project types also play a critical role in how they benefit rural America. A National Renewable Energy Laboratory study compared the benefits of local ownership versus outside ownership and found that locally owned wind projects can generate as many as three times more jobs per megawatt than those with outside ownership. Echoing this point, a 2006 study by Oregon State University concluded that local ownership of wind turbines would result in five times the annual projected income versus entering into a land lease agreement. NFU believes that federal policies should foster the development of locally owned projects.

Because America’s history is strongly rooted in agriculture, it’s only natural that the agriculture sector be a driving force behind the transition to a clean-energy economy. America’s farmers and ranchers can be and want to be part of the solution to gain energy independence and address global climate change.

- St. Louis Post-Dispatch -