USDA expects the farm's environmental footprint to be cut in half by 2050

[caption id="attachment_3931" align="aligncenter" width="1014"] US Agriculture Secretary George Ervin (Sonny) Perdue. Picture: Collected[/caption] The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has set a goal for a portion of the farm's efforts to cut the carbon footprint in half, Thursday (February 20, 2020) to make agriculture more environmentally friendly. “It’s a stretch goal, but it should be and we think we can get there,” Agriculture Secretary George Ervin (Sonny) Perdue said at the Annual Agricultural Outlook Forum. The USDA intends to increase production by 40 percent while reducing pollution from multiple aspects of the industry. The vision relies heavily on public-private partnerships, outlining a series of targets the USDA wants the industry to hit: reducing food waste by 50 percent by 2030, reducing water pollution from nutrient loss by 30 percent by 2050 and growing enough feedstock by 2050 to have biofuels constitute 30 percent of the nation’s fuel supply. The goals are asking agriculture to isolate more carbon in soil and plants while adopting technologies and practices that can reduce overall carbon footprint. The greenhouse gas target does not set a specific goal, and the agency does not outline any consequences for the absence of its standards. “It's going to take alignment to do that between the public sector and the private sector. That's how we define doing right and feeding everyone as we go forward,” Perdue said. In addition to hoping to promote research and development of greener technology and farming practices, USDA will also up data collection on sustainability practices to keep pace with the numerous other ways it tracks the industry. “We need to make sure that we do it in a way that preserves privacy. We know that farmers are very private about their individual data, the same way we would be about our tax returns,” Purdue said. The announcement comes amid a growing push from agriculture to embrace greener practices, with a coalition of 21 farm and ranch groups launching their own sustainability effort on Wednesday. The effort from President Trump’s USDA also comes as Democrats have increasingly turned to the agricultural sector in the fight against climate change, using farming components of their climate plans as a way to reach out to the demographic.  Find more… Source: Online/SZK