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Agriculture highlighted during Paris Climate Talks

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack released a new report at the Paris-Climate Change conference, warning that climate change would harm agricultural production in the US and around the world.

Vilsack says the report shows global warming could decrease yields – diminishing the progress made in fighting global food insecurity.   The report also says the effects of global warming have decreased yields for the world’s grain farmers by 2.5 percent since 2000 – but the worst impacts are yet to come and will be seen in tropical countries first.

National Corn Growers Association director and South Dakota farmer Keith Alverson took part in a panel at the conference discussing what organizations and businesses are doing to increase ag sustainability and protecting the environment.

Alverson tells Brownfield corn farmers can be part of the solution.  Corn, like other crops, takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and puts it back into the soil helping to build organic matter.  “The good things that can bring to us as farmers having increase organic matter and nutrient holding capacity and water holding capacity AND increase our yields,” he says.  “It’s really beneficial.”

He says by implementing conservation practices farmers are being good stewards of the land – and the environment.  “It’s helping out the climate and it is being recognized,” he says.  “And it’s a good thing.”

According to the Economic Research Service, farms sequester about 60 million tons of carbon a year through current conservation practices.  Ag Secretary Vilsack says all nations have a role to play in supporting agricultural growth and driving the innovation needed to combat the issue.