The Pew Center on Global Climate Change / by Jessica Shipley, Sara Hessenflow-Harper and Laura Sands
http://www.pewclimate.org/node/7816
Any climate and energy legislation will impact U.S. farmers and ranchers, and the agriculture sector has many legitimate concerns about specific effects such legislation. This paper objectively assesses the impacts of climate legislation on agriculture and identifies ways that such legislation can be successfully shaped to provide greater opportunities for the sector. U.S. farmers have long exhibited adaptability and entrepreneurship in the face of changing circumstances, and they will be presented with a host of new markets and opportunities with the advent of climate and energy legislation.
Farmers have many reasons to be engaged participants in the climate and energy policymaking process. It is imperative that the United States take constructive action on climate and energy to maintain a leading role in the new energy economy. In shaping those actions, productive engagement by American farmers can help ensure that U.S. policy addresses their concerns and embodies their ideas. America’s farmers will be the best advocates of both the principles of a robust offset market and the creation of other market and renewable energy opportunities.
Highlights of this paper include:
• American farmers and industry will face greenhouse gas limitations regardless of what happens in the legislative and regulatory process.
• Costs to farmers from GHG legislation can be substantially mitigated by cost-containment mechanisms.
• The opportunities for farmers to realize a net economic gain from climate legislation are significant.
• Climate change and resulting weather patterns pose numerous and serious risks for agriculture.
