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April 22, 2025 \u2013\u00a0<\/b>Today, Representative Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) re-introduced her Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA), an ambitious bill that she says could give farmers an economic boost while reducing agricultural emissions to net zero within 15 years.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s leading climate experts emphasized in their latest series of reports that the food system is already being pummeled<\/a> by climate change and that impacts on food security will get worse. They also found that changes to how the world produces food could contribute about one-third<\/a> of the emissions reductions needed to turn things around.<\/p>\n Pingree, an organic farmer, first introduced the bill in 2020<\/a>, and then again in 2023<\/a>. It includes provisions to increase research on climate change and agriculture, expand the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA) agroforestry<\/a> centers and create a new soil health grant program, fund small meat processors to serve pasture-based livestock farms, increase funding for renewable energy on farms<\/a>, and curb food waste.<\/p>\n Two years ago, many of the policies enjoyed significant support<\/a> in Congress. The Biden administration directed additional funding to similar efforts, in particular through the Inflation Reduction Act, and Biden\u2019s USDA made climate change a top priority. Now, the winds have shifted completely. President Trump\u2019s administration is aggressively rolling back<\/a> funding for climate initiatives and working to boost fossil fuel production. The USDA has removed pages<\/a> dealing with climate change from its website and canceled climate-focused grant programs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pingree told Civil Eats that farmers in her state are looking for help more than ever as the climate crisis gets worse. \u201cI think we have to stay consistent in our beliefs that these are important priorities for farmers, not only to help them weather some of the difficult climate changes which aren\u2019t going away, but also for economic viability in what\u2019s going to be an increasingly challenging time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n At a protest against USDA funding and staff cuts in Maine last week, she said, two blueberry growers said they lost grant funding<\/a> they had been using to apply mulch to their fields, which helped retain water and protect them against drought. \u201cDrought used to be a very rare thing in Maine, and now we have to worry about it,\u201d Pingree said. \u201cThese are investments that they didn\u2019t feel like they would have been able to make without this outside funding.\u201d Dozens of farm and environmental groups<\/a> have also already endorsed the bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n