America’s farmers, foresters, and ranchers are important stewards of God’s creation. The five-year Farm Bill is a crucial opportunity to better enable our farmers to carry out this critical work as well as advance the food security of our families and America’s national security. The Evangelical Environmental Network applauds House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson for his leadership advancing the Farm Bill process with the release of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act.
On behalf of the 90,000 pro-life Christians who have voiced their support for a conservation-forward Farm Bill, we especially thank Chairman Thompson for the historic investment in conservation included in the Chairman’s mark. We also applaud the inclusion of critical bipartisan provisions that will increase farmer access to technical service providers, expanded support for advanced high-risk/high-reward agricultural research and development, the prioritization of natural climate solutions in research and extension services, and improvements to streamline the USDA’s conservation practice standards review process.
As the House Agriculture Committee moves to consider this proposal, opportunities remain to fully resource our farmers in their critical role stewarding our land, air, and water well. With farm families still receiving denial notices for requested assistance to voluntarily adopt climate-focused agriculture practices due to lack of funding, there is still a demonstrated need to provide dedicated and guaranteed resources to put NRCS’s climate-smart agriculture and forestry mitigation practices into our farmers’ hands.
In addition to being climate smart, these practices are also water-smart, soil-smart, and smart for our farmers’ bottom line. They are also critical to protecting God’s creation and safeguarding our families, farmers, and food systems from climate-fueled disasters. That’s why over 90,000 pro-life Christians also voiced their support for ensuring our farmers receive the full benefits promised to them for climate-smart agriculture.
The voluntary climate-focused agriculture and forestry practices are widely popular and in high demand amongst farmers, and they continue to be oversubscribed despite previous investment increases.
We are grateful for the Chairman’s leadership taking a big step in the right direction on conservation. As a ministry centered on bringing people together around our shared call to protect God’s creation and ensure a bright, healthy, and secure future for all God’s children, we at EEN urge the committee to continue to come together and establish a bipartisan pathway for maintaining dedicated resources for climate-focused practices at levels no less than those previously promised to our farmers. Doing so will help build the common ground coalition needed to finalize a bipartisan Farm Bill this year.
