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United States legislators seek to pay livestock farmers to utilize climate-friendlier practices

Farmers in the United States who raise animals in large commercial operations could get funding from President Joe Biden's signature climate law to transition to more eco-friendly practices under bills introduced in the House and Senate on Wednesday.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Farming accounts for about 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from livestock production and fertilizer application.

The Inflation Decrease Act (IRA), passed in 2022, consisted of nearly $20 billion for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions of the farm sector.

CONTEXT

About 1.7 billion animals are raised on U.S. commercial animals farms, and they produce two times as much waste as the country's human population, according to the environmental group Food & & Water Watch. The centers can produce significant air and water pollution.

The costs introduced Wednesday by Alma Adams in your house and Cory Booker in the Senate, initially reported , would utilize IRA funds to assist industrial livestock farmers decrease their environmental impact by moving animals to pasture or transforming to organic crop production.

The effort could face resistance from Republicans who desire the individual retirement account funds made available for other programs in the long-delayed farm spending costs being prepared by Congress.

In February, Adams, Booker, and a dozen congressional coworkers sent a letter to USDA arguing that the individual retirement account money ought to be utilized for just the most efficient climate-smart farming practices.

Environmental groups have said the benefits of some USDA-defined climate-smart practices, like recording animal methane to be converted to energy, are overstated.

KEY QUOTE

Farmers wish to produce food in ways that are good for people and the world however aren't always empowered to do so in a. consolidated food system like ours, stated Adams in a statement. The bill unlocks climate-forward conservation dollars to assist. manufacturers who wish to shift out of the factory farm design..

(source: Reuters)