SELLING THE FARM — President Joe Biden’s plan to address agriculture’s emissions has the powerful, conservative Beltway farm lobby smiling ear-to-ear. Next stop: Wall Street. This spring, a $3 billion initiative dubbed Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities started doling out funds, testing farming methods that are lighter on carbon emissions. The projects will be scrubbed for data to find out what works best, akin to a large-scale science experiment, and the Agriculture Department estimates the results will produce emissions benefits equal to taking around 12 million cars off the road. The USDA used its internal bank to bankroll the efforts. The Biden administration hopes the influx of cash will produce an impressive feat: turning some farmers, generally a conservative group, around on Biden. When he assumed office, Biden had a long way to go with farmers and their backers on the Hill. Only a month into his presidency, a Farm Journal Foundation poll found 75 percent of farmers disapproved of his presidency. Another poll found 72 percent opposed his plan to slash emissions in half, fearing that new regulations — which farmers hate — would follow. But the deluge of climate-cop regulations farmers feared hasn’t happened under Biden. Instead, in addition to the $3 billion carrot that his administration has dangled to create new climate-smart markets and revenue streams, he’s also signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which will grow the incentive-driven climate-ag space by nearly $20 billion. That’s enough investment to turn the agricultural lobby around on Biden, for now. But the administration acknowledges it still has a long way to go in proving to climate advocates that its plan will reduce the effects of global warming in a meaningful way. Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities has plans to invest in projects that will reach over 60,000 farms and span 25 million acres. Government officials estimate that this could sequester 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. But they have even broader hopes for the new $3 billion initiative: that Wall Street will see the financial possibilities of turning farms green and make their own investments in similar projects. “This can’t just be government money, we have to attract private investment,†said Robert Bonnie, the USDA’s undersecretary of farm production and conservation who helped devise the plan. “Part of the real interest in the Partnerships program is a way to provide seed money to entice more folks in the private sector to come in … the government’s not going to do it alone.†In the past, Wall Street has been nervous about investing in green supply chains — and in particular in purchasing carbon credits under government programs designed to quickly offset pollution from farms. Last year, a Bloomberg article exposed that scores of companies claiming to be eco-friendly actually purchased carbon credits that turned out to be bogus. “A lot of folks are still staying on the sidelines because there’s headline risk that you’re going to make a pledge, purchase credits, and then end up in a POLITICO or Bloomberg article about carbon credits that didn’t work,†said Kris Covey, a co-founder and President of USDA grant-recipient The Soil Inventory Project. But after USDA provides significant monetary incentives to farms around the country to go green, Wall Street will have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t — and which carbon credits and sustainable farming tools are worth the money. TSIP, which counts former Vice President Al Gore as a senior adviser, has farmers bag up soil and send it to their labs for testing on carbon content. The data it produces, USDA hopes, will help corporate titans feel comfortable to pay vast amounts of money to farmers for their emissions reductions in the form of credits. They also hope the results will encourage companies to invest private money in farms that are climate smart. If the Biden administration can secure significant private investment in farms and programs that are going green, it might just be able to thread the needle of keeping farmers happy and hitting emission goals. With Biden hitting the campaign trail for the 2024 election, he and his administration are now eager to draw comparisons to the leading Republican candidate — former President Donald Trump. Trump has already raised hackles within his own caucus for threatening to slap new tariffs on exports to China, with one Republican calling it “suicide†for rural communities. His last batch of tariffs in 2018 drove farm income to record lows and resulted in a record bailout. Biden will likely highlight how in addition to his massive and potentially lucrative incentives for green agriculture, he’s also largely avoided imposing the regulations that scare farmers away and has taken a much lighter touch on trade. Biden’s message of stability will target farmers in swing states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania. According to Bonnie, a regulatory approach won’t happen under a second Biden administration, either. “If we’re going to maintain agriculture and forestry support for this, it’s got to stay voluntary,†Bonnie said. “And if we can prove that this approach works, we have a high probability of doing that.†Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on Twitter at @_garrettdowns.
| 
