USDA’s voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs enable producers to adopt practices that build soil health, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while also improving surface and ground water quality, increasing water efficiency, building resilience to drought and flood, creating habitat for fish and wildlife, and protecting agricultural lands for future generations. Farm Bill conservation programs have been critically oversubscribed and meet only a fraction of the need for voluntary conservation on the landscape. The increased funding for USDA’s popular and effective Farm Bill conservation programs will help to energize rural economies, improve climate resilience, and ensure that our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and foresters are part of the solution to climate change.
The increased funding for Farm Bill conservation programs, climate-smart agriculture, and associated conservation technical assistance, along with existing Farm Bill conservation title funding, represents the best opportunity in decades to meet producer demand for conservation programs. Robust agriculture conservation funding benefits all parts of the country. The undersigned groups urge you to ensure that the 2023 Farm Bill protects these generational investments in climate-smart agriculture and USDA agriculture conservation programs.
Sincerely,
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