Livestock is a front in the effort to reduce agriculture’s carbon emissions — cattle, in particular, burp up huge amounts of the climate-warming gas methane. | Mario Tama/Getty Images
By Garrett Downs, Politico, August 7, 2023
President Joe Biden’s Agriculture Department is pulling off a feat unimaginable a mere decade ago: gaining wide support within the conservative farming industry for a program to fight climate change.
The winning formula involves paying farmers to test out green practices, rather than forcing them to pay for excessive carbon emissions.
Biden officials are hoping their $3 billion initiative — which began doling out money this spring — will lay the groundwork for long-term buy-in for green farming from rural voters and American agribusiness, not to mention future investment from Congress and Wall Street. But they still need to prove it actually has an environmental impact and isn’t just a giveaway to Big Ag, as some climate activists fear.
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