Perdue, Vilsack and leading agricultural groups gathered in a Maryland barn to talk about the farm-country issue that dare not speak its name.
The meeting last June in a wood-beamed barn in Newburg, Md., an hour due south of Washington, had all the makings of a secret conclave. The guest list was confidential. No press accounts were allowed. The topic was how to pivot American agriculture to help combat climate change — an issue so politically toxic that the current administration routinely shies away from promoting crucial government research on the issue.
But this meeting represented a change. It was hosted by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, a group made up of the heavyweights in American agriculture. It brought together three secretaries of agriculture, including the current one, Sonny Perdue, among an A-list of about 100 leaders that included the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation — a longtime, powerful foe of federal action on climate — and CEOs of major food companies, green groups and anti-hunger advocates.
Even a year ago, such a meeting would have been improbable, if not impossible. But the long-held resistance to talking about climate change among largely conservative farmers and ranchers and the lobbying behemoths that represent them is starting to shift. The veil of secrecy attested to just how sensitive the topic remains, but over the course of the two-day gathering, the group coalesced around big ideas like the need to pay farmers to use their land to draw down carbon from the atmosphere, participants told POLITICO.
“It was a pretty serious meeting,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat who serves on the House Agriculture Committee, and attended the gathering. “It was led by commodity groups and farm groups that didn’t waste a minute debating whether there’s a problem.”
The June conclave isn’t the only sign that the agriculture industry is waking up on climate change after a truly terrible year in the farm belt, replete with historic levels of rain and disastrous flooding — a body blow that came right in the middle of a trade war.
In Nebraska, farmers are exploring ways to reorient their farms to focus on rebuilding soil and sequestering carbon — a buzzy concept known as regenerative agriculture. In Florida, where rising sea levels are not a hypothetical discussion, farmers and ranchers have recently launched a working group to discuss climate change and how agriculture can help. Similar groups have cropped up in North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri and more states are expected to follow. In Iowa, faith leaders have been engaging farmers on the topic, hosting discussion groups in churches and building a network of farmers who are comfortable speaking publicly about climate change, whether it’s telling their story to reporters or 2020 Democratic candidates.
At the center of this shifting conversation are farmers themselves, such as Ray Gaesser, a political conservative who served on President Donald Trump’s agricultural advisory committee in the run-up to the 2016 election. Gaesser farms some 6,000 acres of corn and soybeans outside of Corning, Iowa, in the southwest corner of the state, and he’s become a vocal advocate for changing farm practices to not only improve soil health but also to sequester carbon.
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