USDA’s new Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities funding program will invest up to $2.8 billion in 70 projects, including $60 million to advance agroforestry.
Source: https://civileats.com/2022/11/03/with-new-federal-funding-has-agroforestrys-moment-arrived/
Recent months have delivered a harvest of agroforestry funding news in the U.S., just as the season’s remaining crops ripened. The announcement of $60 million in support from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in particular has stoked enthusiasm for this sustainable agriculture technique that also sequesters carbon and boosts biodiversity.
“This funding will catalyze significant private investments into the industry and increase farmers’ incomes while simultaneously expanding carbon sequestration, soil health, biodiversity, and water quality.”
“There is a windfall of federal money entering the agroforestry sector,” Meghan Giroux told Mongabay. The director of Vermont-based agroforestry consultancy Interlace Commons, she is currently implementing a program to boost regional training capacity toward helping farms implement this sustainable farming technique–which blends annual crops and livestock with perennial shrubs and trees in a carbon-sequestering system that’s also more resilient to droughts and floods–while keeping her eye on the sizable new opportunities coming from the federal government.
That federal funding comes as interest in agroforestry is growing rapidly in the U.S. alongside the need to rapidly adopt more climate-positive types of agriculture: Though Giroux’s current project is funded by a private foundation, people like her see a myriad of funding opportunities and even more enthusiasm among people seeking training and support to implement it.
Will U.S. commodity agriculture start looking more like this? Planting crops like corn and soybeans between alleys of trees or shrubs that produce fruits or nuts also increases carbon sequestration and resilience to heat, drought, and heavy rainfall. (Photo credit: NAC/CC BY 2.0)
Lindsay Allen of Buckland, Massachusetts, is a good example. Her Fern Hill Farm is one of many currently receiving support from Interlace Commons to implement an agroforestry system where annual crops will be grown among rows of closely planted nut and berry cultivars.
Lindsay Allen plans to implement an agroforestry system on her farm with support from Interlace Commons. (Photo credit: Erik Hoffner/Mongabay)
“I’ve been farming for 12 years, but it’s not been agroforestry-focused, so to have the advice of someone like Meghan is excellent,” Allen told Mongabay between helping customers at her busy farmer’s market booth in neighboring Ashfield.
Many other farmers like her stand to gain from the USDA’s mid-September unveiling of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (CSC) program, investing up to $2.8 billion in 70 projects. One of these 70 is a $60 million project to advance agroforestry, and is administered by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which will distribute funds to local and regional for-profit and nonprofit training and support partners–from Alabama to Maine, Minnesota to Hawaii and Texas–37 states in all.
One of the partners in their “Expanding Agroforestry Production and Markets” program to advance agroforestry systems for nut, fruit, and grass-fed beef production is Wisconsin-based Savanna Institute.
“We are honored and grateful to be among this incredible group of organizations and businesses who are committed to mitigating climate change,” said Keefe Keeley, director of the nonprofit which is a leading agroforestry training and research provider in the Midwest on techniques like alley cropping of hazelnuts.
Agroforestry sequesters two to five tons of carbon per acre per year, TNC estimates. TNC’s Joe Fargione adds that the level of adoption expected from this project would generate carbon sequestration of 1-2.5 percent of 2020 U.S. emissions from all sources, and over 20 years, the project could help farmers develop 80 million acres of high-density agroforestry, mitigating 3-6 percent of the country’s 2020 emissions.
For-profits including Propagate Ventures, which helps farms transition from conventional crops to agroforestry while turning a profit, are also part of the mix on the project.
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