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Coops explore impact of climate change legislation

The National Council of FarmerCooperatives—NCFC—is holding a series of meetings to discuss the positives and negatives of possible climate change legislation.

Possible negative consequences were discussed at the first briefing. Among them, a warning from the National Rural Electric CooperativeAssociation that climate change legislation could cost the average American family more than 24-hundred dollars a year in increased utility costs alone. And an EPA projection that the cost of natural gas—a key component in nitrogen fertilizers—will increase by 25 percent, almost immediately, underclimate change legislation.

NCFC president Chuck Conner says agriculture needs to become a much more active participant in the climate change process. “The implications for us, both positive and potentially negative here, are enormous,” says Conner. “We justsimply can’t sit on the sidelines. We’ve got to be actively involved in this situation.”

And Conner believes farmer coops can play an important role.

“We have a very, very diverse situation in farmer coops, ranging from inputs all the wayto the marketing of a wide range of foodstuffs and value-added products,” Conner says. “So we pretty much run the gamut in terms of the food system out there.”

Conner says the group’s next climate change briefing, scheduled for May 1st, will look atopportunities that ag producers may have to participate in any market for greenhouse gas offsets.