Like voluntary restrictions have worked so well with Big Agriculture in the past. For instance, how long has Obama's USDA been proposing voluntary restrictions for reduction of
antibiotics in livestock production? A long time and still not much has been done. The only way that some antibiotics have been restricted is when consumer pressure has been effective in pushing a
retail giant to source antibiotic free meat or lose customers.
DesMoines Register:
The Agriculture Department unveiled a host of voluntary programs and initiatives Thursday to encourage agricultural producers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase carbon storage and generate clean and renewable energy in their operations.
The department hopes the programs will help reduce emissions and boost the capture of carbon by more than 120 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2025 — equivalent to taking 25 million cars off the road.
"This is an ambitious but voluntary strategy that rewards and incents and builds upon the good work that is already being done by our farmers, ranchers and landowners," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in announcing the plan at Michigan State University. "It lays out the foundation for agriculture and forestry to be visible as part of the climate change solution for the country."
It's
essential to reduce emissions from Big Ag if we are going to meet climate goals and stop the worst effects of climate change. So this new announcement from the USDA is welcome.
But...
When you look at what they are proposing it certainly seems sensible enough, a lot of actions that will probably reduce emissions, all voluntary of course. They will give financial incentives to the industry to encourage complying with the restrictions. This is on top of continued subsidies because the Big Ag lobby is one of the most powerful on the planet and you certainly don't want to piss them off.
The majority of emissions from agriculture come from the livestock sector so it's realistic that they are targeting the sector with efficiency methods. They are proposing better manure management, burp management, etc. which is all fine and good, but no mention of reducing the scale of production.
The current scale of production is unsustainable from the prospective of water, land and energy. So if there are no proposals to reduce production, how do they intend to address these issues, especially water and land? If not reducing production the only way is even more economy with more Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO's); larger CAFO's , some methods for converting manure to energy, etc. Right now, water use in livestock production is a major issue. It's not going to get better. Livestock production uses over 50% of all potable water in US.
Is there anyone out there thinking this through?