More money for climate-smart agriculture practices will mean more opportunity for farmers and ranchers to qualify for U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that have had more interest than funding.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in February announced that the Inflation Reduction Act — signed by President Joe Biden on Aug. 16, 2022 — had provided $19.5 billion over five years for climate-smart agriculture through existing conservation programs.
Dana Ashford-Kornburger, national climate coordinator for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, explains that money will be put to use in programs that have been so popular that they haven’t been able to help all the farmers, ranchers and forest landowners who have been interested. Those same programs help fund practices that have been shown to mitigate climate change.
The NRCS funding includes $850 million in additional fiscal year 2023 funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program, Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and Regional Conservation Partnership Program, as well as an additional $8.45 billion for EQIP, $4.95 billion for RCPP, $3.25 billion for CSP, and $1.4 billion for ACEP for the next four years.
“We have unmet need in a lot of states, especially here in North Dakota,” Ashford-Kornburger said, speaking Feb. 21, 2023, in Jamestown, North Dakota, at the North Dakota Farmers Union Evolution Ag Summit .
Source: brainerddispatch.com
Categories: North Dakota, Business, Sustainable Agriculture