DES MOINES, Iowa — Farmers are used to adjusting for weather, but some are adjusting for climate change by planting a variety of crops, sowing cover crops and leaving land unplowed.
Many small farmers fear adjusting to climate change will add more regulations to their already declining bottom line. But others, such as sixth-generation farmer Wade Dooley of Albion, say more erratic and extreme weather events related to climate change mean farmers need to adopt mitigation strategies.
"So that we can keep operating, so we can keep farming, so that this isn't a sixth-generation farm that stops after me — because the weather's not gonna stop, the climate is going to continue to change,” Dooley said. “We don't hit the brakes and stop things from happening, we just can slow them down and keep them from being horrible."
Some farmers and landowners are adopting conservation practices that include farm ponds, wetlands, oxbows and buffers, and structural improvements to reduce anticipated flood impacts.
Katie Rock, policy associate with the Center for Rural Affairs, said when talking to Iowa farmers, it's increasingly clear that many want to innovate on their farms to address climate change.
"They've taken the initiative to add on-site solar power and make energy-efficient upgrades, and these changes have led to significant cost-savings,” Rock said. “And farmers and landowners, they also lead through conservation practices that can improve soil health."
Matt Russell is executive director of the state's Interfaith Power and Light. He believes Iowa and other Midwest states that provide America's food are in a position to lead the conversation on climate change.
"One of our strongest ways to lead is to engage Iowa farmers to innovate on their farms, capturing carbon, generating renewable energy," Russell said. “And then also to advocate for those practices and the resources to make that happen on their farms."
He said to deal with a changing climate, government policy makers will need to not only encourage maximum yields, but also incentivize carbon farming.
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Recent editorials in The New York Times and Washington Post defending factory farms make one critical mistake, according to environmental advocates: They both assume there is no other option.
Peter Lehner, sustainable food and farming program managing attorney for the advocacy group Earthjustice, said industrial agriculture does not feed the world. It feeds itself, perpetuating a cycle of overproduction, sickness, and environmental degradation. And U.S. taxpayers foot the bill, sending tens of billions of dollars each year to large corporations.
"There are huge numbers of subsidies to the livestock industry," Lehner pointed out. "The hamburger that you pay for is only a fraction of the true cost as reflected by what taxpayers pay."
The New York Times editorial argued the crop yields of smaller-scale family farms are insufficient to meet the world's daily caloric needs. The Washington Post editorial urged readers to save the planet by not eating free-range beef, arguing moving millions of livestock off pastures and into high-density operations, where in many cases animals cannot even move around, conserves valuable farmland.
Lehner contended a better way to make more farmland available is to stop growing inefficient crops. For example, it takes 15 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.
"We use almost 60 million acres, an area the size of Indiana and Illinois combined, to produce biofuel," Lehner noted. "Where we could produce the same amount of energy with a couple hundred thousand acres of solar panels."
Lehner worries doubling down on industrial agriculture, which mostly produces commodity crops like corn, soy and sugar for highly processed foods, ignores other meaningful reforms like reducing waste. One third of all food produced in the U.S. ends up in landfills.
"Let's try to not have taxpayer subsidies for inefficient products," Lehner urged. "Ensure that we have a food system that produces nutritious food, not one that gets us sick, and we spend a trillion dollars a year in our health care system because of diet-related disease."
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Food advocates are calling on lawmakers to help jump-start the state's SNAP Stretch program, which was paused last year due to budget constraints.
The program, developed in 2018 by the West Virginia University Extension Service Family Nutrition Program and the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition allowed SNAP participants extra dollars for every dollar spent toward locally grown produce at farmers markets statewide.
Kristin McCartney, associate professor and public health specialist for the extension service, said SNAP Stretch also benefited local producers and businesses.
"Not only to drive consumers to eat healthier foods but also this extra money is also going to fund people who are growing food in the community," McCartney explained.
Local produce is fresher and more nutrient-dense than food shipped into grocery aisles from other states or countries, and keeps money circulating in local economies, according to the Natural Agricultural Law Center.
SNAP Stretch has generated more than $4 million in economic impact, returned $3 million to the local agricultural sector and supported 79,000 Mountain State families.
The average benefit for SNAP Stretch is around $1.29 per meal. McCartney pointed out the federal food assistance program on its own is not designed to ensure people are receiving essential nutrients.
"Snap is supplemental," McCartney emphasized. "It's not there to cover everything you need. Every additional dollar that can be given and used to promote those healthier choices is a benefit to those individuals."
McCartney added while eating fresh whole foods regularly can be daunting, purchasing frozen fruits and vegetables can help fill the gaps and reduce prep time.
"You're still getting all the nutrients," McCartney noted. "But it takes a lot of that prep out, and they're still pretty budget friendly."
According to the nonprofit Feeding America, more than 266,000 West Virginia residents are facing hunger, and more than 73,000 of them are children.
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By Sophie Kevany for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for Kentucky News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration
Fifteen development banks and a fund tasked with supporting sustainable economic growth are investing billions of dollars to expand factory farming in the global south and other lower income countries, a new analysis from the non-profit Stop Financing Factory Farming finds. The lower income countries where banks are funding industrial agriculture are often the same countries that are more vulnerable to the extreme weather linked to climate change, which itself is fueled by industrial meat and dairy operations. The analysis finds 15 banks and one fund, including the World Bank Group and the United Nations' Green Climate Fund, invested just over $3 billion on animal agriculture in 2023, with over three quarters of the funded projects described by the researchers as factory farms. Another $3.4 billion was marshaled from other private and public funders.
Factory farms are responsible for between 11 and 20 percent of global greenhouse emissions, as well as a host of other impacts like water pollution, pandemic risks and animal suffering. The analysis is based on data from a civil society database called the Early Warning System, which collects funding information from project websites.
Development Bank Investments May Contradict Climate Goals
A number of climate models predict populations in developing countries will consume more meat as incomes increase, yet the new analysis finds the investments from development banks encourage the production of feed crops for farm animals, not humans, worsening food insecurity. Many of those animals are exported: a 2021 paper found developing countries provide nearly 80 percent of international poultry exports by volume, for instance.
"These investments often generate negative consequences for local communities and for animal welfare... [creating] hurt at many levels, locally, globally and for the environment, the climate, people and animals," Alessandro Ramazzotti, a researcher with the International Accountability Project, tells Sentient. The International Accountability Project is a member of the Stop Financing Factory Farming coalition.
Factory farm investments hurt the financiers themselves, as well, Ramazzotti says. "Development banks have climate change goals and if they keep investing in animal agriculture, especially when this is industrial, large-scale, they are not going to meet those commitments."
This tension is especially clear at the World Bank Group, the largest development investor by volume in factory farming projects. The bank says it is aligned with the Paris climate agreement goal of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It also published a report suggesting subsidies be redirected away from "emissions-intensive, animal-source foods," which account for almost 60 percent of total food-related emissions.
Despite its climate goal and the report, one of the World Bank's members, the International Finance Corporation, invested $501 million in factory farming in 2023, including a $47 million loan for a multi-story pig farm, the analysis finds.
A statement from the International Finance Corporation reads in part: "Animal protein is important for nutrition, especially in several of our client countries where early childhood and maternal undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies remain pervasive and animal-source foods consumption is far below the recommended amount. There are 1.3 billion people whose livelihoods are tied to livestock and we also know this sector is responsible for over 30 percent of the global GHG emissions...IFC works with livestock clients that are committed to enhancing animal health and welfare, protecting the environment, and promoting food safety...By investing in sustainable solutions that intensify production and improve efficiency in livestock operations, it is possible to reduce global GHG emissions and eliminate deforestation in direct and sourcing operations while providing affordable and safe food in emerging markets."
Shifts from Beef to Pork Present Risks and Tradeoffs
In the past several years, analysts for development banks have also argued for shifts from large-scale beef operations to pork and poultry, citing the lower emissions associated with these foods. A 2021 document drafted by the European Investment Bank, described non-ruminant meat - essentially pork and poultry farms - as a climate-friendly investment option. Last year, the same bank invested $427 million in factory farming, the new analysis says.
Shifting factory farms from one animal to another because they produce lower emissions does not make it a good idea, says Ramazzotti. "In the case of the multi-story pig farm in China, that is supposed to limit the environmental impact, yes, but then what about animal welfare?" There are other impacts to consider, Ramazzotti adds. "Farms like that are a big risk for human health, because they are a great place for viruses to develop."
A spokesperson for the European Investment Bank responded in part that "EIB Group's lending policies for farming, agriculture and the bioeconomy are fully aligned with the EU's strict legal framework, including European Green Deal policies, as well as with legislation regarding animal welfare." The full statement is here.
The spokesperson also criticized the report's characterization of some projects as "entirely unrelated to animal production."
In an email to Sentient, Ramazzotti provided a specific description of each of these projects, and responded more generally: "those three projects have been included because the EIB's project disclosures are among the worst of all MDBs in terms of transparency - and therefore one of the most challenging institutions to analyze and hold accountable." The full response is here.
The contradiction between climate goals and climate investments are not unique to development banks. The United Nations has reported that animal agriculture is a disproportionate threat to biodiversity and the environment, and that eating more plants would reduce those threats, improve human health and lower the risk of pandemics. Meanwhile, the United Nations' Green Climate Fund, an initiative that aims to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries, invested $175 million on industrial animal agriculture last year, the analysis finds.
Funding Better Projects
In Mongolia, Ramazzotti highlighted the irony of development bank funding for an industrial cattle project in a country already suffering from extreme weather known as the dzud. The dzud is characterized by dry summers and freezing winter temperatures, heavy snow and frozen ground. "And here, the International Finance Corporation is proposing an investment in an industrial cattle farm. As I understand, the investment is not likely to benefit, or only marginally, local people and it will increase the pesticides on feed crops and the methane produced by cattle, plus the farm is near a coal producer, and in a valley, which makes everything worse for the local people," he says.
Stop Financing Factory Farming is asking the financiers to stop funding industrial livestock operations at this scale, and instead shift investments toward farming systems that put "communities first and protect the planet."
In response to Sentient's request for comment on the report, the United Nations, the Green Climate Fund and the African Development Bank did not immediately comment on the analysis.
Yet a change of direction is entirely possible, the analysis finds, citing the same Green Climate Fund for supporting some low-carbon projects. One example is a fund to help women farmers in Cote D'Ivoire adapt to climate change in a variety of ways, including boosting financial literacy and knowledge of land rights.
Sophie Kevany wrote this article for Sentient.
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