American Farmland Trust is treating climate change as their "primary thrust" in their advocacy work. This is a major commitment by AFT to make strides in agricultural work to reverse climate change.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon, lead strategist with the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me John Piotti, president of American Farmland Trust. This is the second episode we’ve done with AFT. We did another one on reversing climate change with Jimmy Daukus about a year ago. Happy to follow back up, see what’s happening. John, I hear there’s some news with American Farmland Trust. There’s a lot of murmurings, you could say. Murmurings? Murmurings makes It sounds insidious, but it sounds good that you’re working on climate change and agriculture in some exciting way.
John Piotti: Well, we’ve been in this space for almost 40 years. From our earliest days in 1980, we’ve had a focus on soil health. And of course, back in the 80s and 90s, we were thinking of soil health from the perspective of building organic matter and reducing soil. Nutrient flow and retaining water and all those wonderful things, but those same practices also, of course, sequester carbon. And maybe for the last 15 years, we’ve been consciously pursuing our soil health work with that goal in mind. And I guess the big news is that in the last couple of years, we have really made this a major thrust for us.
And we’ve hired some great people and we’re bringing some considerable new resources to bear. And it’s an exciting time to be in this space. As you know, Ross, this is the issue of our day. We need to address it. Two days ago, Congress had a hearing on this topic. Four folks were invited to participate. The only NGO was American Farmland Trust, which I think is a recognition of the role that we’ve traditionally played in this space. The big news is we’re intent on making this the organizing feature of our work.
We’ve been around for 40 years, as I said. We’ve done amazing work protecting farmland, advancing good federal policy around conservation and the farm bill. A lot of work focused on next generation farmers. And climate is really a thread that laces all of those things together in a very positive, powerful way. And that’s our primary thrust going forward.
Ross Kenyon: How’s it been working with farmers on climate issues? Are they receptive? Are they distrustful a bit? Or do they sort of sense that this is a chance for them to see an upside and participate in some of these solutions?
John Piotti: Well, I think it varies. Obviously, farmers are individuals and there are folks with different opinions out there. But I can tell you this. I’ve worked with farmers professionally for 30 years and really only on the national stage since I came to AFT three years ago. But in that period of time, I have never met a farmer who denies climate change. Now, some of the more conservative ones might think it’s God’s will or it’s not caused by man. But they do not deny that it is happening. And that makes sense because farmers have to be in tune with their environment.
And they see what’s happened. They see the storms that have come. They see the change in weather patterns. They know how they can’t get on their fields when they used to in the spring because it’s wetter. They see the changes in the growing seasons. So there are very few, if any, and as I said, I’ve never encountered any climate deniers amongst the farm community. There are folks who question how we can address it. And there are some, and perhaps appropriately, there are some farmers who worry that solving the climate crisis will be yet another burden put on them.
I mean, think about farmers. It’s a tough industry. They operate under really tight margins. In many parts of the country, farmers are villainized. They’re the bad guys. They’re the polluters. They’re the folks who raise livestock, the horrible thing that kill animals and things like that. So farmers in many cases are villainized. And then on top of that, it’s a tough business. And then if we also lay the burden on them, oh, and by the way, you are the solution to the climate crisis. You just have to do all these other things that you don’t necessarily get compensated to do.
So it’s a lot of burden. And I think some farmers see this as an amazing challenge and opportunity.
Ross Kenyon: They say, I can have an incredibly positive impact on That tracks with my experiences pretty closely too from, you know, my experience with farmers is admittedly orders of magnitude less than yours, but we’ve been pretty successful in talking to people using a carrot approach rather than a stick approach. I think farmers recognize that if people are going to help them pay to transition to more regenerative practices, if people want to pay for these ecosystem services, there’s something to be gained from it. But of course, if you go there and tell them, yeah, you’re a problem and also you need to change everything that you and many generations of your family have been doing, that’s a hard sell.
I wouldn’t want to be in that position.
John Piotti: And that’s exactly why the work that you’re doing is so important. I mean, when you come right down to it, what we ultimately need to do is figure out a way of compensating farmers fairly and adequately for two things, right? For growing food and for providing a whole range of critically essential products. Right now, one could argue that we don’t often even compensate farmers fairly for the food they grow, and we barely compensate them at all for the full range of environmental services, be it wildlife habitat, We need mechanisms that do those things.
Right now, really, all we have is the conservation title of the Farm Bill, which provides cost share for farmers who do want to do some things. That would be to the benefit of the land long term. But that’s not enough. And we really need a number of market based solutions along the lines of what you’re pushing for, coupled with better, smarter policies. I think some people think that the marketplace can’t solve this. Others think the marketplace is the only answer. I’m a diet and exercise kind of guy. I think you need both.
I think we need the kind of things like you’re doing at Nori. We need efforts like what’s going on along the supply chain with General Mills and other groups who are trying to get the farmers who are providing them with product to switch practices. We need those efforts in the marketplace. And then we also need a very robust federal policy program that is rewarding and paying farmers for providing the right Environmental services. That’s my take on it anyway. I’m curious about your reactions.
Ross Kenyon: Fair enough. We don’t want to be dependent on policy since that’s quite out of our control. But we can recognize that there are places where policy can be quite a big lever to pull.
Unknown speaker: Exactly.
Ross Kenyon: And the details always matter quite a lot. So we always want to nerd out on those details rather than I think that’s the correct way to go. But it seems like in general, agriculture is moving in a more regenerative direction. And everyone’s talking about it. It’s in the Democratic primaries. The primarians are speaking about it frequently. What is it? Why is it the cool kid all of a sudden?
John Piotti: Well, it really has changed. And I’ll give you an example of that. A little over a year ago, I was in California for Jerry Brown’s Climate Action Summit and the wonderful Secretary of Food and Ag in California, Karen Ross. Karen really wanted to push the governor to have Climate and Ag play an important role in that international event. And she’s a very Strong-willed woman, very smart, very well connected. And to be very blunt about it, she really didn’t get that far. The event itself barely talked about agriculture. And when it did, it talked about it in the ways we’ve all heard about how agriculture is a major greenhouse gas emitter and how all the horrors of livestock production didn’t talk about it as a solution.
Now, Karen, to her benefit... Did get an add-on day on the front end and gave AFT a chance to play a big role in that. So we began to raise some consciousness. But we weren’t part of the big event. That was only a year ago. And now everyone and their brother is talking about regenerative ag. So what happened? We might look back this historically as being one of the most critical turning points in human history. Maybe sound a little overly melodramatic about it. But it really has been a sea change in just the last year.
And I think it’s two things. Partly, it was the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, not the one that came out this summer, but the one that came out last fall. That basically said we will never meet the Paris Climate Accord goals simply by reducing our emissions. We have to also take atmospheric carbon and put it back in the I think that really was a turning point. And then I think the 2018 elections had a lot to do with it as well, because with the House changing to Democratic, you finally had an opportunity For voice on some of these critical issues.
So historians might come up with other factors, but those are the two things that I point to. I don’t know what did it, but it’s been wonderful to see this change. There are some challenges here. We still have a heck of a lot of work to do. And between you and me, I worry that everyone and their brother thinking about regenerative ag means they sometimes miss some of the details and nuances. It is the newest, latest, hottest And sometimes bandwagons have problems as well. But nonetheless, it is great to see the attention and interest.
And I think we can build on that. We can take the people who are excited about this, give them a more nuanced understanding of some of these issues. And I think we’re poised to make some real change.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think your analysis is pretty spot on. The IPCC report definitely validated carbon removal and regenerative ag in a new sort of way. That was exciting for us to watch, too. It’s seemingly because we’ve been doing Nori for about two years now, and it’s been an entirely different universe than when we first started working on this. It’s been very exciting. Yeah.
John Piotti: Yes.
Ross Kenyon: Well, how can people follow your work and what’s coming up with AFT and if people want to follow you and make sure that they don’t miss anything, how should they do it?
John Piotti: Well, you can certainly go to our website, which is farmland.org. And follow us there. And American Farmland Trust has a fairly comprehensive website. You have to sort of search around, even though carbon is front and center and regenerative ag, I believe, is right there on our homepage. You’ll want to dig in and learn about some of the projects and work that we do because we are active across the country on some Some pretty interesting things. And then beyond that, you can become a member. It costs you 25 bucks a year, believe me.
We don’t make money on you. The newsletters we send you cost more than that. But what we really need is a growing body of people I urge people to go online, drop the $25, and stay informed and stay connected.
Ross Kenyon: Great. I’ll put links in the show notes, listeners, in case you’d like to do that. And John, this is me going out on a limb here, but I have to think that if I wanted to, you’re the guy I could ask to put me in touch with Willie Nelson. Is that true?
John Piotti: I don’t know the man. We have in the past been involved in some farm aid events, but I was going to ask you the same thing, Ross. I thought you were well-connected.
Ross Kenyon: I like to think I am, but I’m not nearly cool enough to have him on my speed dial there. But I thank you for the kind words and vote of confidence, Sean. Well, thanks for joining me. I’m really happy to have had you on.
John Piotti: Well, it’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure to be here. I applaud what you’re doing. I think the market side of this is critically important. We need all parties taking a bite at this. It is the issue of our time.
Ross Kenyon: Absolutely. Definitely. We’re all on the same team. We need many approaches trying out different things. And there are so many stakeholders. In fact, it’s probably the whole planet. And we got to be working together on this. So thank you for the valuable work that you’re doing as well, John.
John Piotti: Thanks for us.
Ross Kenyon: Thank you. And if you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes or Apple Podcasts or on Stitcher. And thank you so much for listening.
