40 Senate Farm Bill Provisions to Get Excited About
Let’s get this out of the way right now: “We don’t have the text yet, but…” There, I said it at the top, so I don’t have to say it for all 40 bullet points.
It’s true that we don’t have any full–even draft–Farm Bill text yet, but the recent releases by the House and Senate agriculture committees have taken us a few big leaps towards a Farm Bill. Senator Stabenow’s 94-page section-by-section summary is especially detailed.
However, it’s worth celebrating not just the summary’s existence but all of its excellent content. It took me a little while to put this together because I just kept finding pieces I loved and having to go back to write more about them.
To create some semblance of organization, I’ve split these many provisions up into sections based on the three main strategies EPIC uses across our mission areas, plus miscellaneous. Read on to see some of–There are more I couldn’t even include!--the most exciting provisions in the Senate’s Farm Bill summary.
Refocusing programs onto what matters: outcomes
Regional Conservation Partnership Program
Establishes a definition of “performance-based-payments” under the program.
Adds a definition of “conservation benefit” to streamline the agency’s interpretation of benefits identified in partnership agreements
Anybody who’s talked with me about the Farm Bill in the past 2+ years has heard me expound on RCPP and its potential for paying for outcomes. The program’s authorities already encourage “performance-based payments,” but that term hasn’t had a clear definition. “Conservation benefits” are meant to be defined as the unit that is being paid for, such as a pound of nitrogen prevented from entering waterways or a ton of carbon sequestered. To make an analogy to the Maryland Conservation Finance Act, “performance-based payments” are like “Pay-for-Success contracts” and “conservation benefits” are like “environmental outcomes”.
The hope here is that this codification will encourage USDA to expand and standardize the use of performance-based payments. Giving state staff some more guidelines will reassure them that payments for quantified outcomes–in amounts that depart from conservation practice schedules–are fully authorized by Congress.
More could be done to expand the use of these payments. For instance, EPIC has seen in Maryland that performance-based payments for structural practices need to be non-linear, a nut that has not been cracked for RCPP. It would also be good to say in the “Assistance to Producers” section that performance-based payments can be made directly by the Secretary, not just through partners. In addition to keeping a close eye on draft text, EPIC’s work will continue on supporting the administrative development of processes for performance-based payments and recruiting new performance-based project applications.
Requires the Secretary to establish guidance, including suggested quantification models, to assist eligible partners with meeting their reporting requirements.
Requires the Secretary to make funding available to not-for-profit entities and land grant universities to make project assessment tools on environmental outcomes more broadly available to partners.
Allocates a small percentage of funding to establish partnerships with non-profit entities and land grant universities to develop project assessment tools on environmental outcomes more broadly available to partners.
Paying for outcomes generally requires using modeled results since transaction costs for measured results can be too high. These provisions will both streamline the process for applicants to choose which models to use and further improve the quality of models for determining conservation benefits. Hopefully, this will lead to the development of more dynamic models for conservation benefits that incorporate remote monitoring and machine learning to increase precision and accuracy in real time.
Eliminates the 15-project cap on the AFA authority.
Expands the types of projects eligible for Alternative Funding Arrangements to include projects that use innovative approaches to delivering conservation funding to producers, including by using innovative contracting or performance-based payments, supporting environmental markets, or accelerating the adoption and use of agricultural or processing equipment by producers that achieves conservation benefits.
Since the 2018 Farm Bill, RCPP’s Alternative Funding Arrangements (which basically just allow funds for farmers to flow through partners instead of NRCS) have driven innovation in conservation program delivery. As I like to say “innovation in the field requires innovation in the office,” and AFAs allow conservation partners–from EPIC to the Vermont Department of Agriculture to the American Coalition for Ethanol–to drive that in-office innovation. It’s absolutely crucial that the cap on AFAs get removed, like it was in the Inflation Reduction Act, in order to deploy RCPP’s significant funding across the landscape in the most innovative and thus efficient manner.
Also, it’s great to see the eligibility expanded to use of equipment. Equipment is obviously a huge expense for many farmers, and lack of access to tools like a grain drill for cover crops or a roller crimper for green planting can stifle use of some of the most cost-effective best management practices. If we want to pay for outcomes, let’s not artificially limit what can generate those outcomes.
Conservation Outcome Monitoring
Directs the Secretary to establish long-term monitoring of conservation outcomes from [Conservation Reserve] program enrollments and pilot projects to determine program results in terms of soil conservation, soil health, carbon sequestration, water quality and quantity, and biodiversity and wildlife habitat.
Requires the Secretary to publish the report submitted by partners on the implementation and outcomes of [Regional Conservation Partnership Program] projects in a public-facing manner
Measurement, Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Carbon Sequestration
Here we have mandates for two different programs and across all programs to actually look at the results of the billions of dollars that will be spent in the Conservation title. While I prefer to evaluate the outcomes of projects before they’re funded, it’s still very worthwhile to check the results on the backend…if that leads to evaluation and improvement of the programs.
The MMRV of Greenhouse Gas Emissions is a whole section that was too long to include in its entirety, but it’s really worth checking out. I would love to see a future Farm Bill expand this to other crucial conservation benefits like nutrients in waterways. In fact, the models for Greenhouse Gas Emissions will likely already be accounting for some of this, since nitrogen in waterways contributes approximately .6% of total annual US greenhouse gas emissions.
Crop Insurance
Authorizes the Secretary to offer additional performance-based discounts for practices that can be demonstrated to reduce risk relative to other practices, including by:
Directing USDA to consider offering discounts for precision irrigation or fertilization, crop rotations, and cover crops; and
Requiring USDA to annually seek expert opinion and consider additional practices based on new evidence.
This is paying for outcomes in a different but related way. Here, the outcome is basically the risk of crop failure. This is really a common-sense provision: producers who proactively make their farms less prone to crop insurance claims should pay less for corp insurance. The sticking point was that it’s hard to recommend any particular BMP across the whole United States. Cover crops that work in Maryland might not work in Kansas. This version cleverly addresses that by making clear that discounts will be offered only based on the result (decreased risk) not any specific practice.
It remains to be seen exactly how the performance-based discounts will be calculated, and there are lots of interesting tech problems communicating data between NRCS (for conservation) and RMA (for crop insurance), but this has tremendous promise. Politically, tying the conservation title to the commodity or insurance titles makes some powerful interests very nervous, so keep an eye on this space.
Conservation Innovation Grants and New Practice Standards
Directs the Secretary to provide Conservation Innovation Grants for the development and evaluation of new and innovative conservation approaches, including for the purpose of establishing new conservation practice standards.
Requires NRCS to publish a schedule for the revision of existing, and establishment of new, conservation practice standards.
Streamlines the process for NRCS approval of interim and final conservation practice standards and requires NRCS to consider conservation innovations, scientific and technical advancements, traditional ecological knowledge, and the results of Conservation Innovation Grant On-Farm Trials to proactively establish new and update existing conservation practice standards.
Directs NRCS to allow flexibility for State, Tribal, and local governments to create interim conservation practice standards particular to specific regions.
These provisions–pulled from a couple different sections–all work together to translate science into more options for producers. While EPIC spends a lot of time refocusing programs onto outcomes, new conservation practice standards will also increase adoption of crucial innovations. For now, performance-based payment must still be tied to some conservation practice standard to satisfy NEPA requirements.
I’d like to see more description here of using the data from On-Farm Trials to improve models, such as for water quality improvements.
Eliminating organizational barriers to tech adoption
Integration of Conservation Innovation Grants Data
Requires the Secretary to use the data collected from the results of On-Farm Conservation Innovation Trials to evaluate data for new and emergency technology, make recommendations for State and regional applications of studied conservation practices, and consider practices studied under this program for establishment as new conservation practice standards.
This might sound very similar to my last subheading, but I separated it out for a reason. Data infrastructure is super important and often underappreciated in federal agencies. Moving information from a partner conducting an On-Farm Conservation Innovation Trial to a format that’s useful for establishing new conservation practice standards is exactly the kind of implementation challenge that can get overlooked but should be paid attention to the day after a new Farm Bill gets signed.
Farm Program Implementation Coordination
Directs coordination with the Office of Customer Experience and the Office of Digital Service in implementation of streamlining provisions in Section 1614 of the Agricultural Act of 2014.
While this is in the commodity title, it’s great to see more coordination between the Office of Digital Services and other parts of the Department. What lessons from this can be applied to the Conservation title?
Forest Data Modernization
Modernizes and standardizes strategic plan development, including by integrating the use of new technologies and clarifying that forest carbon is among the resources to be measured.
Mandates timber products and woodland owner surveys and improves the public’s access to Forest Inventory and Analysis data.
Creates a publicly available database and map of completed fuel breaks, hazardous fuel reduction projects, functional roads and bridges, intact wetlands, and other forest management activities and features on federal land that are relevant to forest management planning and can be used by firefighters in the event of a wildland fire.
Establishes a platform for Forest Service to measure and report data on the carbon emissions, sequestration, storage, and related impacts of forest management and wood products.
EPIC’s technology team recently developed a report on how the Forest Service can better design and adopt innovative data and digital tools with recommendations focused on key enablers of successful tools. These include making datasets (such as Forest Inventory and Analysis and management activities)--the fuel for better land management decisions–widely accessible and integrated, and ongoing assessment of user needs and emerging technologies as the basis for modernizing data systems. Several of the provisions above make the recommendations in our report even more imperative for the Forest Service.
Increasing private investment in conservation
Conservation Finance Projects
Authorizes a pilot program to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration and land management projects by leveraging non-federal investment in landscape-scale conservation and restoration projects conducted on National Forest System or adjoining land.
Authorizes the appropriation of such sums as necessary to carry out this section.
This provision immediately jumped out at me, but I had to look it up to find more details. Looks like this comes from Representative Panetta’s Emergency Wildfire Act.
In the text for that marker bill, we can see that this program would allow the Department to negotiate agreements with for- or non-profit entities to conduct restoration on Forest Service or adjoining lands while employing “a debt financing approach that uses loaned capital from a conservation finance project investor to cover up-front project costs, with the loaned capital repaid over time by conservation finance project beneficiaries,” preferably at a scale or 100,000 acres or greater.
It also explicitly allows for the use of Stewardship End Result Contracting, a type of design-build contracting that uses timber harvest revenue to offset restoration project costs, which we’re hoping to publish more research on. The forestry title is not my main area of expertise, so if anyone reading this knows more about the history or potential of this provision, please reach out!
Expansion of Good Neighbor Authority
Expands the program to allow counties and Tribes to retain funds received from the sale of timber harvested from authorized restoration projects on federal land.
Permits States, Tribes, and counties to conduct authorized restoration services under a good neighbor agreement on non-Federal land where those services are for the benefit of non-federal land, similar and complementary to services being performed on adjacent federal land (to include capacity building) and are carried out predominantly on federal land.
Extends the authorization of appropriations through fiscal year 2029.
Somewhat similar to above, these provisions allow local, state, and Tribal governments to conduct restoration on federal (Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management) lands. One way that partners can fund these projects is through timber sales, but they must comply with federal laws and have a silvicultural review by the federal agency.While this isn’t exactly private investment, it’s still great to see additional coordination between levels of government in pursuit of shared environmental goals. Maybe there’s an opportunity to expand this to additional eligible entities?
Rural Forest Market Investment Program
Establishes a program for nonprofits and companies to offer guaranteed loans of up to $150 million to help rural private forest landowners create and sell high-quality forest credits for storing carbon or providing other environmental benefits.
Loan guarantees are an important financial instrument that can stretch public dollars farther and ensure access to credit for smaller or newer market participants to access affordable capital. In practice, they decrease the interest rate on a loan that bridges the time between when trees are planted and when the carbon credits can be sold. The difference in borrowing costs can absolutely determine the viability of a project.
Legislation EPIC championed in Maryland made it possible for the Water Quality State Revolving Fund to provide a similar loan guarantee to the American Forest Foundation that allowed them to aggregate small forest landowners to participate in carbon markets, while providing water quality co-benefits.
Take a look at the Rural Forest Markets Act for more information.
Water Source Protection Program
Expands the categories of water end-users eligible to participate in the program and broadens the program to include watersheds adjacent to National Forest System lands.
Prioritizes projects that benefit water supply, support aquatic restoration, improve resilience to drought, fire, and climate change, or include communities that have historically lacked access to resources for such projects.
Streamlines the preparation of watershed planning documents.
Increases the federal cost share to 60% from 50% and allows in-kind contributions to include forest restoration work on adjacent non-federal lands.
Increases the authorization of appropriations to $30 million for each of fiscal years 2025 through 2029.
I remember running into a former House Ag staffer on the metro a couple years ago and jumping into a conversation about how I had just found this great program in the 2018 Farm Bill. I was so excited to tell him all about why I thought all the details of the Water Source Protection Program were so clever. He listened patiently to my explanation before calmly saying “Yeah, I wrote that program.”
I love this program because it’s so obvious. When there are Forest Service lands upstream of a water treatment plant, it just makes financial sense for the water treatment plant to decrease treatment costs by improving forest health. And it just makes sense for the Forest Service to share in the cost of those improvements since they’re also benefitting. Kudos to the American Water Works Association and the US Endowment for Forests and Communities, whose cooperation on this provision has been emblematic of the cooperation in this provision.
The particular improvements are also crucial for increasing the program’s use. It’s great to see it expanded to watersheds adjacent to federal forests, including for in-kind contributions; wildfires and runoff don’t respect human-drawn borders. Many USDA programs could use some streamlining, so it’s great to see that as well.
Unfortunately, despite the important improvements made, this program appears to still suffer from the same fate as Oliver Twist; it’s what’s known as an “orphan program,” meaning it’s been described and had funds authorized but not actually appropriated. Congress will hopefully appropriate money to the Water Source Protection Program during the next funding cycle. It seems like a good example of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure.
Miscellaneous
Regional Conservation Partnership Program
Authorizes partners to receive payments for indirect costs to cover administrative expenses of the eligible partner under a partnership agreement. For those with an established negotiated indirect cost rate, the rate shall be the established rate (not to exceed 20% of the total project cost). For those without a negotiated indirect cost rate with the Department, the rate shall be 20% of the total project cost. In the case of a partnership agreement that primarily serves historically underserved producers, the rate of payment for indirect costs may be up to 30% of the total project cost.
If you’re an NGO who works with farmers, this is REALLY exciting. RCPPs have been notorious for their prohibition on paying partners for “administrative expenses,” which is not defined in statute and seemed to vary wildly across states. To maintain compliance, NRCS administrators felt they had to scrutinize every invoice for anything that could be administrative. This took up so much of partners’ and staff’s time that it very likely cost more than it ever saved.
New rules in this section will allow a negotiated indirect rate on RCPP awards just like many other federal grants. For small organizations without that, they can receive as much as 30% of the project cost as indirect. This should cut down on paperwork for everyone involved and make the program more appealing to NGO partners.
I want to also take this opportunity to say that there are numerous (I was going to say “innumerous,” but then I counted and there are actually exactly 40) improvements to RCPP all throughout the Conservation title. Congressional staff worked really hard and spent dozens of hours coordinating with program administrators and stakeholders to improve this crucial program. They should be seriously commended for their dedication, even if I couldn’t fit every single improvement here.
Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority
Converts AGARDA from a pilot program and removes the termination date of the authority.
Increases the authorization of appropriations to $100 million for each of fiscal years 2025 through 2029.
Requires the AGARDA Director to work in close collaboration with the Office of the Chief Scientist and maintain a staff with sufficient qualifications and expertise.
Clarifies that qualified projects under the program include water conservation technologies and that the goals of the program include water conservation, the reduction, avoidance, sequestration, or mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and resilience to extreme weather, drought, and other stressors.
DARPA for agriculture! Who hasn’t heard of the groundbreaking Defense Department program that gave us GPS, exoskeletons, and even the internet you’re using to read this? The federal government has since set up similar programs for energy and health. Now, it’s the Agriculture Department’s turn.
This program was authorized in the 2018 Farm Bill but has since received relatively little appropriations, just $2 million of the previously-authorized yearly $50 million–compare this to DARPA’s $2 billion annual budget. These appropriations were enough to develop a strategic framework for the program, which is worth quoting directly. It outlines AgARDA’s principles as
1. Fund high-risk, high-return R&D only.
2. Hire and empower a cadre of highly motivated, short term, independent thinking program directors as main workforce.
3. Create a flat organization.
4. Focus on technology transfer and market translation by engaging with customers and partners throughout the process.
5. Seek additional legislative authorities to empower AGARDA with hiring and purchasing powers to facilitate speed and invention.
It’s great to see AgARDA’s mission being expanded to conservation and the authorization increased. However, it does seem like it would’ve been good to provide those additional hiring and purchasing powers that AgARDA has determined it needs for true speed and innovation.
Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative
Extends the authorization of appropriations for the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative through fiscal year 2029.
I just can’t say enough about the importance of biotech to agricultural innovation. The genetic engineering that will be possible in the next 5-10 years and what’s already possible today could revolutionize how agriculture (especially crop agriculture) is conducted–increased carbon sequestration, tastier and healthier vegetables, and highly targeted pest suppression. But data is hugely important.
The Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative provides collaborative grants to conduct research that better links traits in the field (phenomes) to a cultivar’s genome. This can allow breeders to created improved yield, enhanced climate resilience, and maybe even better nutrition. These are all especially crucial as both biotech capabilities and the need for them are rapidly expanding.
There’s still a long way to go on this Farm Bill, and you can expect to hear plenty more from me on the topic, especially as we get more information and hopefully bill text soon. Hopefully this blog highlights some of the most important places to watch as we get more of those details. If there’s any interest in collaborating on supporting the great provisions already here or in working towards further improvements, don’t hesitate to send me a message at hhuntley@policyinnovation.org .
