Priorities for agriculture and the climate. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
By The Clerk of the US House of Representatives Public Domain, Link
The House Agriculture Committee recently discussed The Role of Climate Research in Agricultural Resiliency.” Ranking Member, Representative Glenn G.T. Thompson gave his four guiding principles on the matter.
“Climate policies need to benefit producers, our farmers, our ranchers, and foresters primarily. Whatever we do when it comes to policy in climate and agriculture, they need to be the primary beneficiaries. They need to be rewarded for, quite frankly, what they’re doing today and what they can do with more tools as we provide them for them, in helping them increase production efficiency and profitability,” he said. “Second principle is you can’t have a healthier environment without a healthier economy. That is the fatal flaw of many proposals that have been floating around here for a couple years in Washington, such as the New Green Deal. If it would happen to be implemented, which would be unfortunate, it wouldn’t last a year because it would crash the economy. We know that you can’t have a healthier environment without a healthier economy. And vice versa actually.”
Representative Thompson said his third principle was science.
“We should truly be science-based and not political science. For too long the climate discussions have been based in political science. We need to be in real science, or as I like to say according to God’s law,” he said. “And finally, the fourth principle is that we need to start with what we know works, and that’s the Farm Bill’s provisions.”
He said the provisions in the Farm Bill are tools that allow the nation’s farmers and ranchers to be equipped with science, technology, and innovation.
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Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.