Farms and environmental concerns- seems like two groups that would be likely to lobby alongside each other, right? Afterall, you need clean water and healthy soil to grow the food that people actually want to buy, and if you’ve read any of Michael Pollan’s books (you should) then you know that the future of our food depends on our ability to take care of the ground that we grow it in. In the larger sense, it’s important for farmers and the land to both be healthy, working in a sort of mutually beneficial relationship. What doesn’t work is for farming to destroy the land through excess fertilizer or other kinds of chemicals, at least not in the long term.

So what do farming groups and the farming lobbyists think of the newest climate change bill? Are they celebrating the ecological wisdom of our national legislative body? Not hardly.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm group in the country, called the latest climate legislation “misguided,” and said that he and his group would aggressively oppose the legislation and do battle with animal rights activists.

In the opening speech at the national AFBF convention, AFBF President Bob Stallman said American farmers and ranchers "must aggressively respond to extremists" and "misguided, activist-driven regulation ... The days of their elitist power grabs are over."

Them’s fightin’ words.

This is the first in a series of conventions that will happen over the winter, and the positions of farmers and farming groups are usually established during the convention season.
The climate change legislation under question is the one that passed the House, calling for a 17% reduction in emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels. You would think that farms would be happy about a government attempt to control changing weather patterns, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The senate is expected to pass something similar, and both the House and the Senate will incorporate cap-and-trade into their legislation.
So what gives? What’s the downside?

Well, President Stallman says that large amounts of the farmland could turn into forests meant to capture carbon, "eliminating about 130,000 farms and ranches." Which is true- according to at least one analyst, up to 8% of crop and pasture land could become forest by 2050, as the carbon capturing capability of the trees could be more profitable than growing food. He also said that animal rights activists would, "destroy our ability to produce the meat that Americans want to eat," and bar modernized production.

Interesting debate- so it is a two-sided coin- the farmer group wants to demonize the animal rights groups that are trying to make big changes to how farmers do business- is that a real animosity or a political ploy? I say political. There are plenty of ways to raise animals without alarming the animal rights groups. As for the anger over farmland being turned into forest? Are you serious? If that’s where the money is, go for it. It may be just the kind of change that will make for a better macro-shift from huge farming farms to small gardens and urban sustainability- think about it.

Photo Credit: de Paula FJ (via Flickr under CCL)