NY Farm Bureau Announces 2024 Legislative Priorities
This post discusses the 2024 federal and state legislative priorities for the New York Farm Bureau.
Morning AgClips announced today that New York Farm Bureau (NYFB) released its 2024 federal legislative priorities. There is very little here about specific legislation, but the overview is useful.
The first of these priorities came as an announced “win for farmers”: the removal of Scope 3 emissions reporting requirements from the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) final climate disclosure rule. Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions will be included in the rule.
A visualization of Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions from the USDA’s ERS, taken from the “Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard”
Scope 1 emissions are those which a company or farm is directly responsible for: any emissions from sources that are directly controlled by the farm. Scope 2 emissions are those which may or may not be generated at the source (i.e., on the farm), but for which the farm is directly responsible for its operations, largely in the form of energy generation. Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are generally considered the easiest to calculate and report because of the nature of the farm’s control over these resources and transparency in their use.
Scope 3 emissions are where things get complicated. These include indirect emissions from the production of other upstream or downstream activities. Given the lack of transparency in our global supply chain, and the vast distances that agricultural inputs and outputs travel, Scope 3 emissions can be very difficult to calculate. An emphasis on Scope 3 emissions reporting could catalyze more local supply chain networks and could lead to greater transparency in the supply chain, but at a massive immediate cost to individual reporters.
Examples of Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions for agricultural producers.
The USDA’s ERS estimates that agriculture is responsible for about 10% of overall emissions in the US, with the vast majority of those emissions coming from direct sources.
Soil and land management, including land use change and fertilizer application, and enteric fermentation (cow burps) contribute by far and away the most emissions in the sector. These are both direct, or Scope 1, emissions, and will therefore be included in the SEC’s disclosure rule. The EPA recently released an even more up to date Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks with incredible detail about agricultural contributions; the report can be accessed here.
Of course, Scope 3 emissions are missing from this reporting from the ERS and EPA. Ideally, emissions for Scope 3 emissions would be captured indirectly from Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions for other sectors, such as industry and transportation, that contribute to agriculture’s Scope 3.
Learn more about Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 accounting in agriculture here:
The EPA’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 overview (2023): https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/scope-1-and-scope-2-inventory-guidance
USDA’s ERS (2023): https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/natural-resources-environment/climate-change/
The EPA’s Draft Inventory of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (2024): https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/scope-1-and-scope-2-inventory-guidance
The Greenhouse Protocol’s Corporate Standard: https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard
The Greenhouse Protocol’s Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard: https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/standards/Corporate-Value-Chain-Accounting-Reporing-Standard_041613_2.pdf
The Greenhouse Protocol’s Agricultural Guidance: https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/GHG%20Protocol%20Agricultural%20Guidance%20%28April%2026%29_0.pdf
Other national legislative priorities include:
Requests for the still in progress Farm Bill
An emphasis on strengthening local supply chains, including by expanding crop insurance to a variety of specialty crops that currently are not covered. (This is an area that the Farm Service Agency (FSA) is actively exploring as it pertains to increasing support for urban growers.)
More funding for agricultural research. Public agriculture research in the US has been supplanted by private (and therefore patented, market-oriented) research, while public research in countries like Brazil and China have increased dramatically. The US is no longer the prevailing research partner for much of the developing world. NYFB would like to see an increase in land grant investments to schools like Cornell University.
Significant agriculture labor reform
This largely involves guest worker authorization. Farm Bureau wants guest worker status for non-seasonal workers, and wants to pay them less. The economics of farm worker wages must be the subject of a later post. Applying H-2A to non-seasonal workers would be a huge boon for the dairy industry, which relies on migrant workers but is not seasonal, and would potentially create more stability in US agricultural labor. I am not an expert in this area, so will look into this more and post again.
Dairy pricing reform
Dairy pricing is one of the most complex areas of US agriculture policy. Hearings on this topic have taken place over the past year with a decision due soon.
Supply chain issues
This request calls for less oversight from national regulators in an attempt to speed up delivery and expand capacity for meat processing.
The Farm Bureau relates some of these issues to the lack of available USDA inspectors, but increased funding and support for federal inspection could be the solution here, rather than reduced oversight in an industry (meat processing) that is already under scrutiny for unsavory practices and treatment of workers.
Rural mental health
A true issue as the number of family farms continues to decline.
“NYFB supports Senator Gillibrand’s proposed legislation, The National Agricultural Crisis Hotline Act, that would establish a 24/7 national crisis hotline to provide real-time live assistance catered to the unique needs of farmers, ranchers, and their families.”
In addition to immediate, crisis mental health solutions, Farm Bureau and others should also be advocating for increased scrutiny of farm consolidation and investment in infrastructure and markets in rural areas.
Climate smart farming
Great to see the Farm Bureau acknowledging the extent and reach of climate change in its legislative priorities.
The Farm Bureau is calling for the continuation of a voluntary, market-based approach to climate smart agriculture - a position on which the USDA no doubt agrees and will continue.
The Inflation Reduction Act invested billions of dollars into conservation funding, and the NYFB is asking for more investment in research and innovation.
NYFB released its New York State-level legislative priorities earlier this year (available on their website, here). This overview is more specific and actionable than the national priorities. I will try to share another post soon that matches these state-level priorities to specific legislation, with commentary.