Our Goals
American farmers have a pivotal role to play in tackling climate change, but they shouldn’t sacrifice their own prosperity in the process. RIPE (Rural Investment to Protect our Environment) advocates for national policy that invests simultaneously in comprehensive climate mitigation and the people and businesses of rural America to garner bipartisan support. Our plan is uniquely designed to ensure that climate policy will not hamper farmer profitability, offering a path to involve farmers as true champions of climate policy as part of a broader bipartisan climate coalition to improve American farmers’ financial and environmental sustainability.
The Challenge
While farmers have long supported the opportunity to be compensated for carbon farming with voluntary programs and markets, most do not support comprehensive climate policy because the policies proposed thus far will negatively impact farmers’ economic viability.
Climate policy increases farmers’ input costs – such as fertilizer and fuel – by around $10-$30 per acre. Many farmers are already operating at a net loss, so expecting them to endorse policies that will harm them further is not fair nor realistic.
The Biden administration and Congress have made it clear they plan to introduce sweeping climate policies across the U.S. economy, including the agriculture sector. A core proposal circulating in Washington, D.C. is to offer producers carbon farming payments valued at $20/ton of avoided greenhouse gas emissions, which translates to around $10/acre for most stewardship practices.
A $10/acre payment level does not cover the cost of adopting most emissions-cutting practices (e.g. $38/acre for cover crops) nor the raised input costs caused by climate policy (e.g. $10-$30/acre), leaving most farmers further in debt.
Carbon farming payments alone rarely cover the cost of adopting the practice, so it will lead to low levels of practice adoption and continued lack of support from the farming sector for climate policy.
Citations for the figures can be found in our White Paper on RIPE100.
The chart above illustrates that a price of $20/ton of GHG offers most farmers an average payment potential of around $10/acre. This average value is based on a review of most of the practical ‘carbon farming’ practices such as cover crops or no till. Despite the variability based on regional differences and farm size, typical carbon sequestration potential is approximately 0.5 tons/acre for working land practices, which translates into $10/acre.
This chart further illustrates that a carbon sequestration payment of only about $10 per acre would not even cover the cost of adopting the detailed practices, let alone compensate farmers for broader climate policy costs such as higher input costs, yield losses, climate and adaptation costs, and practice verification costs.
The Solution
RIPE supports private carbon markets in addition to a government program investing in farmers’ voluntary stewardship practices at rates that fairly reflect their environmental benefits to water, soil health, pollination and other environmental services. In order to facilitate participation by U.S. farmers and ranchers to address climate and other environmental challenges, stronger incentives must be provided than the carbon payments alone can deliver. Aligning public payments with the value that farmers’ deliver to the wider set of environmental benefits offers a win-win solution for farmers and the public.
RIPE100 is a proposal to directly pay farmers a minimum of $100 per acre or animal unit for voluntary land stewardship that can provide a greater benefit to the public through carbon sequestration, improved soil health, cleaner water, water conservation, flood mitigation, pollination, biodiversity and other environmental services. This approach is supported by many program precedents, volumes of peer-reviewed research, and offers producers adequate incentive to adopt key conservation measures.
By aligning payment terms with the combined environmental benefits that farmers deliver to the public, RIPE100 ensures farmers are fully protected by climate policy costs and transforms climate policy into a profit opportunity that benefits farmers and the environment.
Our Principles
The Principles of the RIPE100 plan are:
- A price floor of $100/acre, reflecting the public value of conservation practices and covering all policy costs. The RIPE100 program will have a price floor which reflects the public value and offers farmers a fair profit opportunity that supasses the full cost of adopting the practice, the input cost increases from climate policy on other sectors of the economy, and yield-losses from adopting the stewardship practice.
- Plans tailored to each farmer’s unique needs and practical options for all farm types. Participants will attend an educational workshop and receive technical assistance to develop and implement a farm stewardship plan tailored to their unique operation; qualifying measures will include practices that are practical for all farm types and sizes.
- All farmers and ranchers are eligible and diversity, equity, and inclusion are prioritized in program design. Farmers do not have to meet pre-existing conditions, so all farmers can enroll. To be equitable to all farmers and take steps towards reconciling USDA’s historic discrimination against socially disadvantaged farmers, funds will be allocated to categories of farms by size and to socially disadvantaged farmers.
- No penalty for early actors & payments can be stacked with private environmental market payments. Since RIPE100 is not an environmental offset program and will not claim ownership of farmers’ environmental assets, farmers will remain able to sell their environmental assets to private environmental markets.
- A Farm Advisory Council to inform future adjustments. This Council, comprised of farmers and ranchers, will inform the RIPE100 program design, including the selection of practical practices, the consideration of a full array of stacked benefits, the costs of ecosystem service practices and climate policy on farming, and other issues.
- Reasonable Farmer Flexibility & Assurance. Farmers will self-certify their efforts by submitting simple reports and receipts, similar to current conservation programs. If farmers do not execute on their intended stewardship practice due to unexpected circumstances – including weather impacts on the growing cycle – farmers can use said funds the following year or opt out with no penalty other than repayment.
- Ensuring Program Efficiency. While RIPE100 is designed to evolve without payment limitation, it does recognize there will be budgetary restraints. Therefore, future program expansion will be streamlined with existing USDA conservation and commodity programs to ensure efficient government spending.
While only 43% of rural citizens support government spending on climate, that support jumps to 93% for public investments in farmer incentives to improve water and soil health.
(Source: Nicholas Institute, 2020).
We therefore can expect rural citizens and policymakers to be more likely to support comprehensive climate policy that is framed around farmer incentives for adopting stewardship practices.
A climate policy that expands beyond the narrow lens of greenhouse gas reduction and includes the conservation of water, soil, and other shared natural resources that tangibly impact citizens will garner wider public support and will have greater environmental benefits.