Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - NRCS
Dr. Michael Wilson, National Leader for Climate Change, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service
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06/08/2016
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Seminar on Climate Change for the Climate Change Seminar for Elected Officials of the Nebraska Legislature - NRCS
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- [00:00:00.822]Dr. Wilson.
- [00:00:03.364]Good morning, or good afternoon now,
- [00:00:05.534]and my name is Michael Wilson.
- [00:00:07.369]I function as the national leader for climate change
- [00:00:10.515]for USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.
- [00:00:16.238]I've been in Lincoln for about 25 years,
- [00:00:18.387]I've been a research soil scientist, which is connected
- [00:00:22.137]to the national soil survey center downtown
- [00:00:24.656]in the federal building, and then over the last
- [00:00:28.128]about three or four years, I've functioned
- [00:00:32.210]as this national leader for climate change.
- [00:00:35.789]And basically what my job is to do is pull
- [00:00:40.150]all the moving parts of our agency in, and connecting
- [00:00:43.296]them with the public, the climate hubs, and the rest
- [00:00:46.106]of the USDA agencies and such, so...
- [00:00:51.736]Anyway, I thought I'd just give you
- [00:00:52.955]an overview of what our activities are.
- [00:00:57.367]This is just a couple of introductory comments
- [00:01:00.577]that I've seen recently.
- [00:01:02.343]One that there was a new study in the journal Climate Change
- [00:01:06.058]that found that members of the public, even those
- [00:01:08.206]that were alarmed, showed really low levels of activity,
- [00:01:13.837]and this article actually appeared
- [00:01:15.869]in the Lincoln Journal Star, which is a great source
- [00:01:19.642]of information because they seem to be a big supporter
- [00:01:22.184]of the concept of climate change.
- [00:01:24.913]So, the public on their own, don't do a whole lot.
- [00:01:29.058]And then the other thing I've noticed,
- [00:01:30.370]that there was a recent article
- [00:01:31.588]that there is a communication gap
- [00:01:34.630]between the scientists and then the farmers
- [00:01:37.219]in terms of planning for climate change.
- [00:01:40.017]So, in amongst all this, is it really does play a role--
- [00:01:44.754]and this has been brought out by a couple people already
- [00:01:46.937]today that our societal leaders, both public and private,
- [00:01:50.458]have an obligation to create this path to prepare citizens
- [00:01:55.331]to understand and address issues like climate change.
- [00:01:59.627]I was at a meeting about a year ago with John Hanson,
- [00:02:02.915]who's the president of the National Farmers' Union,
- [00:02:05.655]gave a very nice talk, and just dead-on with what he saw,
- [00:02:10.021]or his organization sees, in terms of climate change,
- [00:02:13.144]and agriculture, and how we need
- [00:02:15.768]to address some of these issues.
- [00:02:17.544]So, the culmination of the university,
- [00:02:20.435]and the state leadership, and the legislature now,
- [00:02:23.256]really has-- they are present, and they've created
- [00:02:26.716]a good culmination of all this energy,
- [00:02:30.071]and so this pathway's occurring, and I'm really excited
- [00:02:33.960]that I can be part of this today.
- [00:02:37.560]Now I won't go down through any of these issues,
- [00:02:39.347]but I just kinda sat down this weekend and started thinking,
- [00:02:43.190]"Well, what are all the things
- [00:02:44.177]"going on in terms of agriculture?"
- [00:02:47.672]And some of this is connected to regional climate change
- [00:02:50.865]and extreme weather, there's issues of pests,
- [00:02:54.278]loss or degradation of agricultural soils, and water assets,
- [00:03:00.176]ecosystems services, yields and profitability,
- [00:03:03.194]food security, farmland preservation.
- [00:03:05.760]Well, you know, these are issues related to climate change,
- [00:03:09.243]but they've been ongoing issues
- [00:03:10.532]for many years in agriculture.
- [00:03:12.633]Probably for over 100 years, and I think part of the point
- [00:03:16.267]I'm trying to make today is what we're doing
- [00:03:19.030]in terms of addressing many of these things in agriculture
- [00:03:22.316]are not new concepts, they're not new directions,
- [00:03:25.300]but taking some of our existing programs and giving them
- [00:03:28.771]more emphasis, and try to provide greater education
- [00:03:32.498]to the public, and our agricultural producers
- [00:03:35.667]to really step it up a notch and make contributions,
- [00:03:40.695]and protect their soil and water assets.
- [00:03:45.466]NRCS, Natural Resources Conservation Service, once known
- [00:03:48.984]as the Soil Conservation Service, has been in business
- [00:03:52.676]for over 80 years working with land owners
- [00:03:55.799]and state and local governments
- [00:03:57.169]and other agencies protecting landscapes.
- [00:04:01.070]So, this is a long-term goal of our agency,
- [00:04:06.724]and you can say that we've been in the business
- [00:04:09.139]of mitigating and adapting to climate change
- [00:04:11.635]for years and years.
- [00:04:14.735]But even though we've been in business a long time,
- [00:04:17.310]and we use a lot of the same programs,
- [00:04:19.834]there are a lot of actions within NRCS
- [00:04:22.905]that are directly related to climate change.
- [00:04:25.471]Some of these are within USDA, some of these encompass
- [00:04:28.002]other agencies, state and federal governments,
- [00:04:31.044]and the public as well.
- [00:04:32.600]And so, I won't go into any of these in detail this morning,
- [00:04:36.916]but basically we are putting a large part of our emphasis
- [00:04:40.974]into some of the activities that address climate change.
- [00:04:46.588]Now probably the main thing that we have,
- [00:04:49.839]in terms of outreach to producers, is our mainstay
- [00:04:53.972]USDA Conservation Programs, and NRCS is one of the main
- [00:04:59.452]agencies to deliver these programs,
- [00:05:01.507]along with Farm Services Agency, probably Rural Development,
- [00:05:05.548]might be a few others, but the whole concept
- [00:05:08.322]between the farm programs, when we're working
- [00:05:10.656]with the public, is that these are voluntary programs.
- [00:05:13.918]We don't force them on anybody, and they come, and they seek
- [00:05:17.692]help, either financial or technical assistance.
- [00:05:21.500]But the goals are conservation,
- [00:05:23.682]resilience, and productivity.
- [00:05:25.911]The same things we're trying to talk about
- [00:05:27.479]in terms of climate change.
- [00:05:29.631]One of the things that has taken a greater emphasis
- [00:05:33.192]over time is that many of these are partnership-driven.
- [00:05:36.989]That, like the Regional Conservation Partnership Program.
- [00:05:41.203]NRCS is willing to put up some funds for a project,
- [00:05:44.338]or a regional project, but it's like seed money for--
- [00:05:48.703]we're looking at these people that accept these funds,
- [00:05:51.547]these organizations, to come up with other sources of funds
- [00:05:54.914]that culminate into a larger project
- [00:05:57.271]that maybe has a greater impact.
- [00:06:00.209]And the one thing about our conservation programs,
- [00:06:02.461]they're all really regionally-based, so we have
- [00:06:05.688]state conservation priorities that look at individual
- [00:06:08.498]states, the soils that are most vulnerable,
- [00:06:12.273]wildlife conservation areas, endangered lands.
- [00:06:15.940]So, our conservation programs, and how these things
- [00:06:18.808]are decided, aren't based in Washington D.C.,
- [00:06:22.279]the money's allocated to the states, and then as people
- [00:06:25.797]like Neil Dominy over here, who's our state soil scientist
- [00:06:28.665]within RCS, that helps guide state and local committees
- [00:06:34.191]to come up with decisions on what's the most important
- [00:06:36.803]impact that these funds can have on a state or local basis.
- [00:06:41.308]So I think that's one of the more interesting
- [00:06:43.073]things about the programs.
- [00:06:45.789]Now these are four of what really could be regarded as some
- [00:06:50.306]of the mainstay programs that have really,
- [00:06:52.186]some pretty good impact on climate change.
- [00:06:56.111]Our Environmental Quality Incentives Program,
- [00:06:58.583]the EQIP program is probably, to me, one of the most famous
- [00:07:01.382]ones, it's a very large program, it's basically
- [00:07:05.306]over a billion dollars is invested in this per year,
- [00:07:09.903]and basically it goes to help farmers,
- [00:07:13.084]and ranchers, and other landowners.
- [00:07:15.546]We do a variety of other ones, I might mention
- [00:07:18.738]the Conservation Reserve Program, that's by FSA,
- [00:07:22.523]that's who administers that, that's a very common program
- [00:07:25.461]for taking land, working lands, out of production,
- [00:07:28.700]putting permanent grassland on them, and then the farmer
- [00:07:31.974]receives an allotment, or a cash payment
- [00:07:35.526]each year for between 15 to 25 years.
- [00:07:38.766]So mostly it's been targeted on highly-erodible lands,
- [00:07:42.028]we're trying to change some of that emphasis to wetlands.
- [00:07:45.000]One reason on wetlands, we're trying to take these
- [00:07:48.750]out of production, or add more vegetation and preserve
- [00:07:52.233]these to a greater degree, because they do emit
- [00:07:55.008]a lot of greenhouse gasses when the carbon oxidizes,
- [00:07:58.433]so part of our greenhouse gas mitigation goals
- [00:08:01.196]are to basically look at taking
- [00:08:04.609]some of these out of production.
- [00:08:07.222]Here's the Environmental Quality Incentives Program,
- [00:08:10.020]it basically promotes agriculture production
- [00:08:13.015]and environmental quality, by providing both financial
- [00:08:16.893]and technical assistance, and it's basically cost-sharing
- [00:08:21.026]for certain practices, conservation practices
- [00:08:25.089]being installed in lands, and I'll talk about that,
- [00:08:27.829]but this could be cover crops, no-till,
- [00:08:31.057]it could be terraces, waterways, any of the normal things
- [00:08:35.550]you would associate with agriculture.
- [00:08:38.139]Within nationwide, there was 1.3 billion dollars invested
- [00:08:42.052]in just this agricultural program, and about 33 million
- [00:08:45.883]dollars came to Nebraska in that particular year.
- [00:08:49.633]So, it's a huge program, a great investment then,
- [00:08:52.234]in terms of preserving lands and soils, not only
- [00:08:58.236]from erosion, but also preserving them in terms of
- [00:09:01.431]protecting them from extreme weather events
- [00:09:04.018]or other calamities from climate change.
- [00:09:07.861]We talked about adaptation and mitigation.
- [00:09:10.543]I won't go into any of these in specifics, but they really
- [00:09:14.795]are the two in-member concepts of most of the actions
- [00:09:18.298]that we do within the USDA,
- [00:09:20.991]and almost everything we do has dual impacts.
- [00:09:25.624]It does mitigate greenhouse gasses in many cases,
- [00:09:28.863]but it also is an adaptive process.
- [00:09:33.441]Now, the President's Climate Action Plan, as I discovered
- [00:09:37.571]when I took this job, is sort of a driving force in terms of
- [00:09:42.632]how agencies or departments are addressing climate change.
- [00:09:47.555]So we get our direction from the officer
- [00:09:51.746]of the Council of Environmental Quality
- [00:09:53.325]out of the White House, they drive what happens
- [00:09:55.833]at the department, or USDA level, and it kind of filters
- [00:09:58.828]down to individual agencies, but the climate action plan
- [00:10:02.346]of 2013 was to cut carbon pollution in America,
- [00:10:06.944]prepare the U.S. for climate change, and then also lead
- [00:10:10.462]international efforts, and I think you can see
- [00:10:12.726]that all these things are coming to fruition
- [00:10:15.094]through the Obama administration.
- [00:10:18.171]Within that, the Climate Action Plan was to dictate
- [00:10:23.662]to create seven new regional climate hubs,
- [00:10:26.808]and what they were trying to do was build on the existing
- [00:10:29.688]network of federal agencies, and also research centers.
- [00:10:33.635]So there's the Department of Interior, and Wildlife,
- [00:10:36.944]all have climate hubs addressing different issues,
- [00:10:40.601]but there was nobody looking specific at agriculture.
- [00:10:43.585]And that's what the USDA was mandated to do
- [00:10:47.323]through the Climate Action Plan.
- [00:10:50.571]So, what we could say, just a couple of things,
- [00:10:53.442]about why the climate hubs exist,
- [00:10:56.066]and what they're trying to do.
- [00:10:57.691]Well, they're supposed to develop and deliver science-based,
- [00:11:00.373]regionally-specific information and technologies
- [00:11:04.031]for basically planning on the adaptation of farms,
- [00:11:08.268]and ranches, and the forestry sector.
- [00:11:11.681]But one of the things I think is most important
- [00:11:14.851]is we're trying to create easily-understood products
- [00:11:17.741]and tools, because we can generate research
- [00:11:21.273]from universities, or ARS, or the Forest Service,
- [00:11:25.381]but how does that have any meaning to the producer?
- [00:11:29.456]How do we get it into his hands, that can really make
- [00:11:31.940]an impact on the landscape?
- [00:11:33.798]And that's really what the climate hubs were supposed to do.
- [00:11:36.503]We're not working to just USDA, but there's partnerships
- [00:11:40.625]being developed, we're just trying to be a conduit
- [00:11:43.852]of helping spread this information, and so all of the other
- [00:11:48.450]agencies, the extension service, universities, they're all
- [00:11:51.875]part of what we call the greater hub network,
- [00:11:55.671]because obviously as it has been brought out,
- [00:11:59.401]they do surveys to producers, and really federal employees
- [00:12:04.347]are not the most influential source
- [00:12:08.468]of information to a lot of these people.
- [00:12:10.848]That might be their crop advisors, extension agents,
- [00:12:13.669]or even family members, so we have to enclose
- [00:12:17.269]all of those into the greater organization,
- [00:12:21.171]and so the climate hub is a lot larger than USDA.
- [00:12:26.348]Here's our seven hubs, or seven primary hubs
- [00:12:30.330]around the United States, and the red circles
- [00:12:32.199]are three sub-hubs, so in my mind, because the sub-hubs
- [00:12:37.006]somewhat function independently, though they're not funded
- [00:12:40.533]to quite the same degree, is that we have 10 hubs.
- [00:12:45.293]Down in the bottom, I have pasted the information,
- [00:12:48.938]and I put together a little two-page handout
- [00:12:51.551]that has some of this, but Justin Derner,
- [00:12:53.814]he's a research leader with ARS in Cheyenne, Wyoming,
- [00:12:57.576]is the current regional climate hub director
- [00:13:01.361]for the northern plains, which encloses Nebraska as well.
- [00:13:05.808]Right now, the hubs are undergoing some reorganization,
- [00:13:09.395]they're trying to make them more of a permanent basis,
- [00:13:12.541]Justin has a permanent job as a research leader,
- [00:13:15.305]and they're gonna hire within, through ARS,
- [00:13:18.149]some new directors, and new coordinators
- [00:13:21.342]within each of the hubs to help make
- [00:13:24.894]these more permanent jobs, and into the future.
- [00:13:29.480]I thought I'd just bring a couple examples,
- [00:13:31.442]I've talked to Justin, what's going on
- [00:13:34.647]in the northern plains climate hub as an example
- [00:13:37.305]of what I could bring forth that might involve Nebraska.
- [00:13:41.752]Well, they have partnered with extension programs
- [00:13:45.177]in a number of different states, Nebraska being one of them,
- [00:13:48.080]and this was a project, a scenario planning
- [00:13:50.843]for resilient beef systems, that UNL extension
- [00:13:54.466]is partnering up with South Dakota State University.
- [00:13:58.842]Basically looking at scenario planning
- [00:14:00.967]for beef system stakeholders using regional climate data,
- [00:14:06.423]trying to look at better management options,
- [00:14:09.059]prioritize the extension programming, and just having
- [00:14:13.099]a better, more resilient operation within this region.
- [00:14:16.698]So I can't tell you I know anything about this particular
- [00:14:19.368]program, it might be fairly new, but it's something
- [00:14:22.817]to just demonstrate that the extension service
- [00:14:27.879]and other aspects are partnering with the climate hubs,
- [00:14:31.106]in terms of creating information, and also delivering
- [00:14:37.979]something that's of utilitarian value to the producers.
- [00:14:43.343]Here's another project that the northern plains climate hub
- [00:14:47.941]is involved with, you can see another litany
- [00:14:51.145]of organizations and universities that are part of this.
- [00:14:54.965]It's an adaptive grazing management research plan.
- [00:14:58.018]It's for eastern Colorado, but I thought
- [00:14:59.690]what was interesting here is this is a 10-year commitment
- [00:15:03.277]on terms of better bringing forth the information
- [00:15:06.749]that farmers and ranchers might need, and they have
- [00:15:10.835]these stakeholder committees that meet over time
- [00:15:14.376]with ranchers, conservation groups,
- [00:15:16.037]and land management agencies.
- [00:15:18.080]Again, the goal is to increase the amount of knowledge
- [00:15:22.202]to better manage these farms and ranches.
- [00:15:25.917]And what they're looking at is they have certain goals
- [00:15:29.504]in terms of the types of vegetation for these range lands,
- [00:15:33.282]what are profitable ranching operations,
- [00:15:36.644]and then wildlife is a concern of this as well.
- [00:15:39.349]So they're meeting, what's the most important thing,
- [00:15:41.183]if climate is changing, how can we address that?
- [00:15:43.889]How can we better manage the species
- [00:15:46.652]that are in our pastures and range lands?
- [00:15:49.299]What about our cattle herd, do we do rotational grazing,
- [00:15:52.642]and this kind of stuff.
- [00:15:54.448]And so this is a second project that's been taking place,
- [00:15:57.735]just as an example.
- [00:16:00.162]Now on the mitigation side of things, President Obama
- [00:16:04.051]declared that the United States by the year 2025
- [00:16:08.126]will reduce out greenhouse gas emissions
- [00:16:09.995]from 26 to 28 percent below the 2005 levels.
- [00:16:14.697]So what's mandated up in the White House eventually filters
- [00:16:18.006]down to our agencies and such,
- [00:16:21.152]and it does impact agriculture.
- [00:16:25.251]This is just a small graphic, you can see
- [00:16:26.981]that there's various sources of greenhouse gasses
- [00:16:31.369]in the agricultural sector, and those predominately
- [00:16:35.735]can be methane, nitrous oxide, and as carbon as well.
- [00:16:39.868]And this is taken from the Greenhouse Gas Inventory of EPA,
- [00:16:43.181]just from their latest report, and you can see
- [00:16:46.211]that ag soil management is one of the major sources.
- [00:16:50.599]And this is basically fertilizer management, and again,
- [00:16:53.897]we're not talking carbon is a big problem here,
- [00:16:56.242]we're talking about nitrous oxides, it's nitrogen fertilizer
- [00:16:59.841]that undergoes reduction, or oxidation,
- [00:17:03.742]and can be moved up into the atmosphere.
- [00:17:07.120]Enteric fermentation from cattle, that's a methane issue,
- [00:17:10.952]manure management, another methane issue.
- [00:17:13.738]It's not really 'til we get down to field burning
- [00:17:16.095]of ag residue, which is less than half a percent
- [00:17:19.717]of a million metric tons of Co2,
- [00:17:22.980]that we're really addressing carbon.
- [00:17:25.093]And the thing about nitrous oxide and methane,
- [00:17:27.415]nitrous oxide has basically 300 times the greenhouse gas
- [00:17:32.697]potential as just carbon itself, so some of these
- [00:17:37.202]are real issues, and agriculture contributes
- [00:17:40.139]about 8.4 percent of the greenhouse gasses
- [00:17:43.527]in the United States, and that's not counting
- [00:17:45.603]the fuel that we burn.
- [00:17:47.008]When you start adding up the amount of fuel
- [00:17:48.842]that's being expended, agriculture has a footprint
- [00:17:51.779]of about 20 to 22 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions.
- [00:17:57.352]Well, as it came down to us, the USDA
- [00:18:00.696]is pretty well positioned to actually make contribution
- [00:18:03.227]in this, because we know farmers and ranchers can reduce
- [00:18:06.640]greenhouse gasses, they can store carbon by using some
- [00:18:10.506]of the same fundamental soil programs
- [00:18:13.072]and conservation practices that we try to promote.
- [00:18:16.497]Our agencies are already well-involved in the program,
- [00:18:19.892]we have a soil health initiative that's been ongoing
- [00:18:22.249]for about four or five years, trying to educate
- [00:18:24.803]not only producers, but our own employees of the importance
- [00:18:28.831]of some of these conservation practices, and how we can
- [00:18:31.920]build carbon within the soil,
- [00:18:33.650]and actually improve productivity and reduce cost.
- [00:18:37.934]Because sometimes, the producers focus so much on yield,
- [00:18:41.208]but that's not always the most important thing,
- [00:18:43.495]it's profitability.
- [00:18:45.085]So sometimes they can change their farming practices,
- [00:18:48.812]do less tillage, and their costs are reduced.
- [00:18:52.377]Maybe their yields depress just a little bit,
- [00:18:54.536]but their overall profitability is still maintained.
- [00:18:57.868]So, from this, at the USDA level, we've created
- [00:19:01.270]the Building Blocks for Climate
- [00:19:03.127]Smart Agriculture and Forestry.
- [00:19:05.194]The lead for this is our climate change program office
- [00:19:07.644]in Washington D.C., but you can see a number
- [00:19:10.465]of other agencies are involved
- [00:19:13.088]in terms of creating the building blocks,
- [00:19:15.504]and then implementing those to move things forward.
- [00:19:20.449]This is just kind of the progress
- [00:19:21.727]that's taken place over time.
- [00:19:24.316]In April of 2015 the secretary went up and made
- [00:19:28.066]a big announcement at Michigan State University
- [00:19:30.086]that USDA was making a commitment, that we were ready
- [00:19:33.151]to move forward, but it's basically taken another year or so
- [00:19:36.692]to actually start deciding how we can best do this,
- [00:19:39.652]and then calculating the impacts
- [00:19:41.986]on the greenhouse gasses themselves.
- [00:19:45.492]The one thing about our building blocks
- [00:19:47.303]is this is not really anything new, this is not something
- [00:19:51.320]out of the blue that we're trying to descend
- [00:19:53.642]on the producers this is just the same stuff,
- [00:19:56.591]our same conservation programs that we've been using.
- [00:20:00.318]It's more or less re-emphasizing, trying to re-educate,
- [00:20:03.755]trying to make sure people understand the importance
- [00:20:05.937]of doing some of these things, and it should provide some
- [00:20:10.129]sort of economic and environmental benefits along the way.
- [00:20:15.446]Now this is just a graphic, we have a new website
- [00:20:19.149]that features the 10 building blocks, and basically
- [00:20:24.269]what they're estimating the greenhouse gas
- [00:20:27.567]mitigation potential of each of these over a period of time.
- [00:20:31.711]And one thing that we've noticed is that agri-forestry
- [00:20:36.588]is not really included.
- [00:20:38.341]NRCS has a huge amount of-- puts a lot of emphasis
- [00:20:43.925]on agri-forestry practices, which have been brought
- [00:20:46.491]out already this morning, and I think when we add in
- [00:20:50.009]that particular component, you can see that our
- [00:20:53.794]mitigation potential is gonna be even greater.
- [00:20:58.583]But what we're talking about here is that we're trying
- [00:21:01.223]to encourage the producers to do many of the conservation
- [00:21:04.566]practices that we know that will prevent erosion,
- [00:21:07.492]that will increase water quality, that will store carbon,
- [00:21:11.463]and then mitigate greenhouse gasses.
- [00:21:14.690]And one thing, we see that for production agriculture,
- [00:21:19.752]especially in corn areas, has a real issue
- [00:21:23.259]with water quality, so not only erosion, but water quality
- [00:21:28.019]are huge agricultural issues, I think you know
- [00:21:30.294]that the lawsuit over in Des Moines is relative
- [00:21:33.336]to drinking water, so what we're trying to promote here
- [00:21:36.819]as part of our greenhouse gas mitigation, can look at some
- [00:21:41.114]of these natural resource and ecosystem services,
- [00:21:45.109]and hopefully by increasing our nutrient management,
- [00:21:50.601]or reducing the amount of nitrogen used, or maybe it's
- [00:21:53.855]a better source of nitrogen, it might be better timing,
- [00:21:57.478]better placement, might involve nitrogen inhibitors,
- [00:22:02.307]that we can actually control nitrogen not only
- [00:22:05.628]in terms of greenhouse gasses, but water quality.
- [00:22:08.554]So all these have huge environmental impacts that go
- [00:22:11.990]well beyond what we're talking about
- [00:22:14.474]in terms of just greenhouse gas mitigation.
- [00:22:19.745]But this is from a recent article
- [00:22:21.580]in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation,
- [00:22:23.600]just going to show that the orange building block
- [00:22:28.476]is our soil health practices, and then you can see
- [00:22:31.634]the one below it, the yellow one above it,
- [00:22:34.049]is the grazing lands, what we're trying to do is increase
- [00:22:38.205]the number of acres of different conservation practices
- [00:22:41.711]that take place over time, and then if these practices
- [00:22:46.355]are installed, like cover crops, can we encourage
- [00:22:48.980]the farmers to maybe maintain those cover crops
- [00:22:52.707]for a number of years long after
- [00:22:54.448]the conservation financial assistance has been delivered?
- [00:22:58.744]So, like NRCS might give you so many dollars per acre
- [00:23:03.248]to plant cover crops for three years, but after the payments
- [00:23:07.567]stop in three years, what are you gonna do?
- [00:23:09.541]Are you just gonna go back and not do cover crops anymore?
- [00:23:12.002]You tried it, but well, it cost a little bit of money?
- [00:23:14.928]Or are you gonna maintain those?
- [00:23:16.948]So part of what we're trying to emphasize through
- [00:23:19.085]the building blocks, delivered through the climate hubs,
- [00:23:22.637]and with all the extension personnel, and the state
- [00:23:25.168]and local offices, is trying to educate the producers
- [00:23:28.883]that these practices are really good things, not only
- [00:23:32.459]to increase our mitigation, but a large proponent
- [00:23:35.733]of other impacts as well.
- [00:23:39.959]One thing that NRCS has done to basically support
- [00:23:45.300]the building blocks is our leadership came up with
- [00:23:48.899]72.3 million dollars in extra funds this year,
- [00:23:54.402]you know you just happen to have it laying around,
- [00:23:56.074]and they put it into an EQIP funding.
- [00:23:59.255]Well the whole point of that, it would go into the existing
- [00:24:01.786]pot to help fund conservation practices on existing
- [00:24:06.267]conservation plans in certain states, or in every state,
- [00:24:11.376]and what we're gonna try to do is target those practices
- [00:24:15.231]that reduce or mitigate greenhouse gasses.
- [00:24:17.901]And from this 72 million dollars, Nebraska got
- [00:24:22.731]about 2.2 million from this EQIP--
- [00:24:26.074]this is a special EQIP funding
- [00:24:27.421]on top of their regular allotment for the year.
- [00:24:31.600]So this was the list of practices
- [00:24:33.203]that we helped put together.
- [00:24:35.223]We try to decide, well which conservation practices
- [00:24:39.170]are the best at mitigating greenhouse gasses, and so we sent
- [00:24:42.816]this list out to the state, and tried to encourage them
- [00:24:47.367]that for this 72 million dollars, these are the practices
- [00:24:51.105]we really wanna start targeting.
- [00:24:53.776]Now if a farmer submitted a conservation plan, and this
- [00:24:57.189]is part of it, then that's great, but we can maybe fund
- [00:24:59.789]some other types of practices along with that as well,
- [00:25:03.179]'cause we're trying to create a conservation program
- [00:25:06.059]for a farm, we don't necessarily want to inject
- [00:25:08.868]one conservation practice, like a conservation cover
- [00:25:12.421]or contour farm, and we wanna basically protect the entire
- [00:25:15.649]farm, so its a number of practices combined together
- [00:25:20.339]to basically create a soil health management system,
- [00:25:24.379]a system that will protect the entire farm, and its a number
- [00:25:27.607]of conservation practices, it's how they might actually
- [00:25:32.460]change some of their other practices in terms of doing
- [00:25:35.920]a better job in terms of preserving these farmlands.
- [00:25:41.725]Now this last one is just the list, I went through several
- [00:25:44.581]of the climate action plans of surrounding states
- [00:25:48.459]this weekend, and I will again read over this,
- [00:25:50.897]this is on the sheet that I delivered, but I notice
- [00:25:54.821]a large part of what you're already doing within the state
- [00:25:58.374]of Nebraska, a large part of what we're doing
- [00:26:01.949]within the building blocks, are the same things
- [00:26:04.504]that they're talking about in other states.
- [00:26:07.011]So again, I don't think what you're gonna be listing
- [00:26:09.495]in the climate action plan is all necessarily new things,
- [00:26:14.024]it's like some of your existing programs.
- [00:26:16.253]Some of this is, you're kind of doing some of these things,
- [00:26:19.318]but you're gonna put an added emphasis in terms of educating
- [00:26:21.919]the public, and moving these things to a higher level,
- [00:26:26.749]and so basically, one thing I saw on this was partnering
- [00:26:31.207]with research institutions and federal agencies.
- [00:26:34.016]You might consult the northern plains climate hub,
- [00:26:37.337]how can we actually work with them to help increase
- [00:26:42.259]some of these different things
- [00:26:44.117]in terms of agriculture in Nebraska?
- [00:26:47.509]I think, I always think about an ongoing farm preservation
- [00:26:50.692]program, I'm sure there's something like that in Nebraska,
- [00:26:53.130]maybe there could be a greater
- [00:26:54.593]emphasis on that in the future.
- [00:26:56.799]Conservation tillage issue, biomass, obviously ethanol
- [00:27:02.024]has a huge program within the state of Nebraska,
- [00:27:05.367]so that's already ongoing, that's already received
- [00:27:07.549]a lot of funding and support within the state.
- [00:27:11.450]Forest management, reforestation, one thing that occurred
- [00:27:14.818]to me is the National Agri-Forestry Center is here,
- [00:27:18.881]right on east campus in Lincoln, and obviously the state
- [00:27:23.409]forester is well-connected
- [00:27:24.500]and is a big supporter of all this as well.
- [00:27:28.517]Environmental markets, that'd be the carbon markets
- [00:27:30.932]or other things, we're putting a greater
- [00:27:33.602]amount of emphasis at NRCS on that.
- [00:27:35.878]I know there was an environmental or carbon markets program
- [00:27:38.989]in Nebraska at one point, and I guess, I'm not sure
- [00:27:43.448]if it folded or just, the funding didn't move forward,
- [00:27:48.719]but maybe there's some increased emphasis on that.
- [00:27:51.899]And then improve water management for agriculture.
- [00:27:54.988]Obviously water is a driving force for everything,
- [00:27:57.704]and so that could be one more topic
- [00:28:00.166]that could be thought about and listed.
- [00:28:03.695]So, that's it.
- [00:28:04.903]I've got some contact information, my name and Neil,
- [00:28:08.479]he's definitely the expert here in the state of Nebraska,
- [00:28:11.265]I'm more of the Washington guy that can talk
- [00:28:15.909]more about the climate hubs and building blocks,
- [00:28:17.836]since I'm involved with that, but if you have specific
- [00:28:19.717]questions, then Neil would be glad
- [00:28:21.737]to answer them about Nebraska, so...
- [00:28:28.634]Just a couple questions, time for a couple questions,
- [00:28:32.271]and then we'll take a real short break
- [00:28:34.692]and then get back in the room.
- [00:28:38.013]Does anybody have any questions?
- [00:28:40.637]USDA also will administer grants
- [00:28:43.121]that are probably new for solar development (unintelligible)
- [00:28:50.250]Can you talk about that at all?
- [00:28:52.525]Yes, I think that's through Rural Development,
- [00:28:54.639]and that's not something that I'm that familiar with.
- [00:28:58.354]I don't know, Neil, do you have any connections?
- [00:29:01.000](unintelligible)
- [00:29:05.412]Yeah, you know, they also administer, we're trying to get
- [00:29:09.011]these large anaerobic digesters connected with a lot
- [00:29:11.890]of these big dairy operations, and I think there's been
- [00:29:14.538]about 40 anaerobic digesters installed in the United States,
- [00:29:17.928]'cause they're pretty expensive, and even though,
- [00:29:19.928]if you get cost-sharing, there's been about 40 of them
- [00:29:22.064]over the last five or six years, and you know, the proposal
- [00:29:25.059]in the building blocks is like 500 of them over the next 10,
- [00:29:28.775]so they're really trying to pump that up, but some of these
- [00:29:33.093]are fairly hard to get going.
- [00:29:36.832]Like a lot of these conservation practices, cover crops
- [00:29:40.199]is one of them, you know, it makes sense, but a lot
- [00:29:43.705]of producers don't have success with them, so through
- [00:29:46.793]the extension service, and the universities,
- [00:29:48.976]and there's a lot of testing going on, research as to what
- [00:29:54.526]the best cover crops mixes are, and they're trying to bring
- [00:29:58.868]in producers that are success stories, and one of the things
- [00:30:02.281]that they're finding out is demonstration farms,
- [00:30:04.673]or successful locations where some of these
- [00:30:07.431]conservation practices are beneficial is probably
- [00:30:11.193]the best thing to reach other farmers.
- [00:30:13.376]And I wen to Columbus, Nebraska this winter, and Gabe Brown
- [00:30:17.440]came down, he's a producer in North Dakota that has changed
- [00:30:22.687]his operation, and he does a lot of the no-till cover crops,
- [00:30:25.961]he's introduced cattle into his grazing system because
- [00:30:30.211]they find out if you run cattle over some of your fields
- [00:30:33.183]and pastures, it incorporates some of this other components
- [00:30:38.500]in terms of mixing the vegetative material better,
- [00:30:42.099]adding some bacterial component, and all of this,
- [00:30:44.561]and he's a huge success story, he's a great speaker.
- [00:30:46.929]They had over 300 farmers at that meeting
- [00:30:49.088]in Columbus, Nebraska this winter.
- [00:30:51.131]It's a great outreach, and it's probably the best way
- [00:30:54.847]we can to reach agricultural producers, and then show them,
- [00:30:58.957]"Hey, this guy just to the north,
- [00:31:00.745]"he's successful at it, you can be too."
- [00:31:03.182]And so the education is a huge importance
- [00:31:06.066]in terms of spreading the gospel.
- [00:31:11.546]We thank you very much, we appreciate you.
- [00:31:13.592](applause)
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