Agriculture and global warming

By Dean Kleckner, President, American Farm Bureau Federation

If there's one thing those of us in agriculture wish we could control, it's the weather. Much of our livelihood depends on whether it rains too much or not enough, whether this year's crops are rained out, or a severe frost destroys the harvest. So when talk turns to the issue of climate change, we listen. Unfortunately, right now we don't like what we're hearing as the federal government talks about the need for a new international agreement setting compulsory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to curb the threat of global climate change.

In the last decade or so, there's been considerable talk about whether or not greenhouse gases are contributing to increases in average global temperatures that could cause adverse changes in the world's climate. Although there is data to show that there has been a slight increase in global temperatures -- about one-half degree over the last 100 years -- there is disagreement about the magnitude of the change and the relative contribution of human versus natural causes. Moreover, ten years ago, various models predicted that the temperature would rise many times greater than the actual experience. So much for models.

World leaders have been grappling with this scientific debate for years, culminating in the signing of the 1992 Rio Treaty that called for voluntary, non-binding measures to limit greenhouse gases. But in Geneva, in a surprise move, U.S. negotiators reversed previous U.S. policy and announced support for a "legally enforceable," unspecified, "binding target" with unspecified timetables and government enforcement programs for greenhouse gas reductions. This sudden reversal in policy could have a dramatic effect on agricultural practices and could cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars in reduced production and services.

According to the IPCC, one-fourth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from agricultural activity. Six percent of those emissions are from U.S. agricultural operations. Although most of the public discussion of greenhouse gas emissions concerns the burning of fossil fuels, land use and livestock production are considered by the UN panel to be major contributors to those emissions. For example, soil tillage produces large amounts of carbon dioxide. Cattle, rice paddies, wetlands, and animal waste produce methane gas. Cultivation, fertilizer application, and the burning of crop residue produce nitrous oxide. And the burning of fossil fuels by pickup trucks and farm machinery contributes to the emission of all three of these greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, agriculture's critics ignore farmers' positive role in reducing greenhouse gases through photosynthesis.

International negotiators are pressing for strict, binding limits on man-made greenhouse gas emissions. If such limits are adopted, then the U.S. will be forced to consider drastic policies to meet those targets -- such as new taxes on fertilizer, forced mileage increases, and downsizing for pickup trucks, limitations on production per acre for some crops, requirements for plowless soil preparation, mandatory fallowing of crop land, limits and restrictions on livestock production, restrictions on timber harvesting, and restrictions on the processing, manufacturing and transportation of food products.

The new treaty would place the United States at a competitive disadvantage because it would commit developed countries such as the U.S. to specific emissions reductions, but sets no binding requirements for developing countries -- like China, Mexico, and South Korea -- that have lower labor and production costs. This makes little sense either from an environmental or an economic standpoint. In the first place, carbon dioxide emissions increases from third-world countries will far out-pace those of developed nations, thus raising a basic fairness question from the start. And second, the U.S. policies that put American farmers and businesses at a competitive disadvantage could make us easy prey in the world of free trade. Finally, an international agreement with mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions would subject the U.S. to international oversight and enforcement. So, U.S. agricultural operations would be subject to international supervision in addition to national, state and local oversight.

Climate change is a relatively new field and scientists are still not sure whether unnatural global warming is occurring or how much of it, if any, is due to man-made factors. It is regrettable that our government is working behind the scenes in the international arena to quietly maneuver the United States into buying an expensive "environmental insurance policy" without really understanding the difference between long-term climate change, with cycles that go of for centuries, and the impact of man-made factors or how much the policy will cost. We all need to pay more attention to this issue and insist on a commonsense approach to national policy.

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