The organization will spend close to $3 billion to cut agriculture and forestry emissions.
According to Reuters, which cited the US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday, the agency would spend close to $3 billion in initiatives to cut climate-harming emissions from farming and forestry, more than doubling the funds it had originally planned for the program.
The investment is a part of a larger initiative by the Joe Biden administration to make the US a world leader in the battle against climate change and decarbonize the US economy within decades.
According to Environmental Protection Agency statistics, agriculture is responsible for around 10% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters in a Tuesday conference call that “this would empower the US agriculture and forest sector to take a leadership role worldwide.” For American agriculture, it is a very significant day.
The program will provide funding for 70 initiatives that encourage farms to reduce emissions in a variety of methods, spread throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico. This would include establishing cover crops to improve soil health and absorb carbon, enhancing manure management to reduce methane emissions, and gathering information on ethical methods of grazing bison and cattle.
The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program, which the USDA called its $1 billion investment initiative, was initially unveiled by the agency in February.
However, the government went to the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) for more funds after receiving 1,050 applications that requested more than $20 billion in loans, significantly more than it had expected, according to Vilsack.
The CCC is a pot of money made available by the US Treasury to help the agricultural sector.
The projects, which vary in size from $5 million to $100 million, that were unveiled on Wednesday will get a total of $2.8 billion. According to Vilsack, an extra $1.4 billion in pledges from the private sector will fund the projects.
The organization said that a second round of financing for more climate-related initiatives would be made public later this year.
Source: Reuters
