Commentary: Healthy soils essential for healthy climate, healthy agricultural economy
L.D. 437 will be vital to ensuring that Maine farmers and ecosystems thrive despite a changing climate.
By Ellen Griswold, Heather Spalding and Andrew BluntSpecial to the Press Herald
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Maine’s Legislature will consider numerous bills seeking to implement Gov. Mills’ four-year plan for climate action. One of these bills centers on the role that healthy soil plays in helping farmers become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, while increasing agricultural production and farm profitability and reducing greenhouse gases. Soil is the backbone of our state’s agricultural sector, and keeping it healthy is key to ensuring that our farmers and ecosystems thrive despite a changing climate.
Bonnie: Carbon is a commodity, justifies CCC use
Appearing at an AGree webinar on climate-smart agriculture, clockwise, from top left: Lynn Tjeerdsma, former adviser to Sen, John Thune, R-S.D., and South Dakota farmer; Anne Simmons, Democratic staff director, House Agriculture Committee; Robert Bonnie, USDA deputy chief of staff for policy and senior adviser for climate; and Deborah Atwood, AGree executive director. Photo from AGree video
-The Hagstrom Report
Robert Bonnie, the Agriculture Department deputy chief of staff for incoming Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, declared Thursday that “carbon is a commodity” and therefore using the Commodity Credit Corporation, USDA’s line of credit at the Treasury Department to help farmers, can be justified in developing programs to address climate change.