NOC Cheers Introduction of Climate Stewardship Act

Today, Senator Booker is expected to reintroduce the Climate Stewardship Act with a House companion introduced by Representative Abigail Spanberger. The legislation is an ambitious climate change bill focused on on-farm conservation practices, massive reforestation, and wetlands restoration. The National Organic Coalition (NOC) is among dozens of farmer, environmental, and forestry organizations endorsing the legislation.

“NOC is a strong advocate for this important bill, which invests in meaningful conservation programs and research to help farmers adapt to changing conditions and mitigate climate change,” said Abby Youngblood, Executive Director at the National Organic Coalition. “The bill recognizes the unique opportunity we have to reward and incentivize organic farming and other agricultural practices that reduce emissions, sequester carbon, and build resiliency on farms that have already been hard hit by droughts, floods, wildfires and other weather extremes. NOC thanks Senator Booker and Representative Spanberger for introducing this forward-thinking bill and their work to tackle this urgent challenge.”

Farmers and ranchers have already experienced serious harm due to climate change, and the increased severity and intensity of the future impacts on farms resulting from rising temperatures and weather extremes are detailed in the 2018 National Climate Assessment.  

The Climate Stewardship Act will incentivize climate friendly farming practices and expand climate change research related to agriculture, including organic research. The bill is expected to offset agricultural emissions by one-third by 2025 by providing tens of billions of dollars for USDA working lands conservation programs and on-farm practices, such as conservation crop rotations, compost applications, and cover cropping, which are practices that have been championed by organic farmers. The program would also increase funding for the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative to $100 million annually and double funding for agricultural research programs overall.

In addition, the bill invests in planting over 16 billion trees by 2050 and restores or protects over 2 million acres of coastal wetlands by 2030 to sequester carbon emissions and reduce coastal flooding.

A section-by-section summary of the bill is available here.