Promoting Climate-Resilient Agricultural and Rural Credit Getty/Joe Raedle
Essential farm workers continue work as the Florida agriculture industry struggles amid the coronavirus pandemic, April 2020.
Julia Cusick
Introduction and summary
The agricultural sector is heading toward a climate reckoning. Policy experts are beginning to uncover the true scale of climate risk to the financial sector, and agricultural lenders are not immune. Extreme weather events such as the August 2020 derecho whose 700-mile trail of destruction cut through Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois, with winds reaching 100 mph have increasingly battered America’s farmland, costing the U.S. agriculture sector billions of dollars each year.
RELEASE: New CAP Report Examines the Implications of Climate Change to the Agricultural Lending Sector
Date: January 14, 2021
Contact: Julia Cusick
Washington, D.C. A new report from the Center for American Progress examines the mounting threat of climate change for the agricultural finance sector.
From emerging pests and diseases to changing weather patterns, the climate crisis poses extreme risks to farmers and ranchers. If left unchecked, climate change will likely devastate the agricultural economy, with dire implications for the agricultural and rural credit market. The report explores the agricultural lending sector’s exposure to climate change-related risk. It finds that a climate-related agricultural downturn would ripple throughout the financial system but would most acutely harm firms that specialize in agricultural lending, especially smaller community banks potentially leaving some rural communities without access to credit. Moreover, if the magnitude of the cl
Improving the Lives and Rights of LGBTQ People in America
A Road Map for the Biden Administration Getty/Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle
LGBTQ rights supporters gather during a candlelight vigil in West Reading, Pennsylvania, on September 14, 2020.
Adam Peck
Introduction and summary
The Trump administration spent the majority of its four years in office launching a barrage of attacks infringing on the rights of LGBTQ people, promoting discriminatory policies, and creating barriers to access critical government services. These actions reflect the Trump administration’s blatant disregard for the rights, dignity, and well-being of LGBTQ people, their families, and communities. In particular, the damages promulgated by the administration exacerbated existing inequalities and disparities between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people in the realms of health, employment, the justice system and law enforcement interactions, education, housing, and immigration. The real-world consequen
OBEDIENT pups will be put through their paces at a new dog training school in Colchester. Best Behaviour Dog Training has opened the new facility at the Dog’s Play Centre, in Severalls Lane, Colchester. The new Covid-secure 35-acre training centre, which is about the size of 24 football pitches, features large, enclosed paddocks, outdoor lighting and an indoor area ready for when dog-training sessions can take place inside again. Zoe Willingham, 42, runs Behaviour Dog Training, which has expanded to Colchester following several successful years operating in Suffolk. She said: “As our reputation has grown we have been getting people come from all over north and mid Essex.
A CRA To Meet the Challenge of Climate Change
Advancing the Fight Against Environmental Racism Getty/Thomas B. Shea/AFP
A car gets towed while men walk in floodwaters on a road in Houston, August 2017, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
Julia Cusick
Introduction and summary
A federal law passed more than 40 years ago to address the discriminatory practice of redlining in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color can and should be modernized to address other systemic racism-fueled inequities. These inequities, including the disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards and climate-related challenges, have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was enacted in 1977 to combat redlining the practice of systematically denying mortgages and other financial services to communities based on their racial makeup and other forms of racial discrimination in lending. The CRA should be updated to spur lending, investment, and other se