# Presentation: 904350

## USDA Global Change Activities 

- William Hohenstein
- Global Change Program Office
- August 2, 2002

## Importance of Climate Change to Agriculture and Forests 

- Natural resources are potentially vulnerable to climate change
- Agriculture and forests are important sources and sinks of greenhouse gases
- Agriculture contributes 7% of US emissions
- US sinks offset 15% of overall emissions
- Carbon sinks offer a potentially significant low-cost opportunity to address climate change

## Potential impacts of climate change on agriculture and forests

- Overall, there are likely to be benefits for U.S. Agriculture and forestry in the near term to due climate change and rising CO2 concentrations
- However, there is considerable disparity across regions
- Specifically, in the southeast, southern plains, and delta states, production may decline significantly
- At a regional scale and over the longer term there is much more uncertainty
- Tools to adapt to uncertainties and changes can reduce costs
- These tools include mechanisms to manage water, pests, and changes in growing seasons

## The contribution of agriculture and forests to overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 1999 

**Fossil Fuel CO****2**
**81%**

**Ag. N****2****O  5%**

**Ag. CH****4  ****2%**** **

**Other CO****2  ****2%**

**Other N****2****O****  ****2%**

**Other CH****4****  7 %**

**HFC’s, PFC’s, SF****6****  2 %**

**Total Emissions: 1840.4 **MMTCE** **

**Forests **
**70%**

**Wood **
**products**
** ****22%**

**Carbon Sequestration: 270.2 **MMTCE** **

**Ag soils 8%**

## Opportunities for Offsetting Greenhouse Gas Emissions

**Croplands . . .**
**Less tillage**
**Increasing cropping intensity**
**Adding hay to the rotation**
**Fertility and water management**
**High biomass crops**

**Rangeland or Pasture . . .**
**Restoring eroded lands**
**Adding legumes**
**Improved grazing management**
**Fertility and water management**

**Forests . . .**
**Tree planting**
**Longer rotations**
**Reduced impact logging**
**Storage in wood-based products**
**Fossil fuel offsets for energy and products**
**Increased recycling**

**Animal Agriculture. . .**
**Improved feed and forage**
**Methane capture**

## Member of USDA Climate Change Policy Group

- Chief
- Economist

**Notes:**
ERS is in REE with ARS

We supply research for issues pertaining to all the ag-related agencies; US/NRE, US/FFAS 
except not to Forest Service

## Roles of the USDA Agencies 

**ARS:**  Assess potential impacts and vulnerabilities to agriculture; identifying opportunities to respond and adapt; develop technologies and practices to mitigate greenhouse gases
**Forest Service:  **Assess and manage potential impacts on forest productivity, health, disturbance processes, and species distributions; improve the information on carbon cycling and inventories, provide landowner assistance.
**CSREES:  **Support the national UV-B monitoring network; provides competitive grants to assess impacts; oversee major soil carbon study.
**NRCS:**  Provide technical assistance to farmers; help farmers plan and implement conservation systems; maintain soil survey and associated databases.
**ERS:**  Assess the economics of mitigation options and impacts of climate change on well-being of global and US agricultural producers and consumers.
**Others with roles**:  FSA, RUS, International Forestry, FAS, NASS

## USDA Global Change Program Budget

**USDA Global Change Program Proposed FY03 Budget (Mil $)**

## USDA’s Global Change Focus

- Global Change Research Program ($42-71 million per year)
- US Global Change Research Program
- Line-item grant to nine universities (CASGMS)
- USDA Conservation Programs
- provide greenhouse gas reductions as a side-benefit
- Basic USDA research also contributes to climate change understanding.
- Extensive land use and land cover data systems
- Forest Inventory and Analysis
- Natural Resources Inventory
- Census of Agriculture
- Other surveys, NASS

## USDA Research Priorities

- Reducing key scientific uncertainties
- Carbon cycle
- Ecosystems
- Water cycle
- Understanding human dimensions of climate change
- Land use and land cover changes
- Socio-economic analyses
- Application of science to support decision making
- Decision support tools for greenhouse gas offsets
- Build adaptation tools for land managers
- Develop an early-warning system:  monitoring key indicators for signs of change

## Pursue Technological Solutions

- Optimize existing technologies & management systems
- Greenhouse gas benefits of many existing practices and techniques could be improved
- Pursue technologies that have multiple benefits
- Improved waste handling and management
- Apply advanced technology
- Use remote sensing and satellite imagery to improve landowner decision-making
- Develop real-time devices to test soil carbon and nutrient levels
- Enhance energy efficiency
- Evaluate the costs and benefits of actions
- Technical assistance, outreach, and education

## Improve Carbon Measurement and Observation System

- Limitations of forest and agriculture carbon inventories have hurt efforts to gain credit for sequestration actions.
- Globally, carbon inventories rely heavily on default coefficients and generic assumptions.
- US systems can serve as models for other countries.
- Inventories could be greatly improved
- Building carbon into NRI and FIA data collection systems;
- Greater investments in satellite imagery data collection; and
- Less reliance on defaults and assumptions.
- USDA leading efforts to develop verifiable accounting rules and guidelines for sequestration projects
- Effort to improve IPCC methods is underway
- USDA plays a leadership role
- New methods will affect our reporting over the next decade

## Presidential directives to USDA

- In February, 2002, the President directed Secretary Veneman to:
- Provide recommendations on targeted incentives for forest and agricultural sequestration of greenhouse gases
- Develop accounting rules and guidelines for crediting carbon sequestration projects, in consultation with DOE and EPA

## Greenhouse gas benefits of current USDA programs 

| Program | Current |
| --- | --- |
| CRP | 15.3 |
| EQIP  | 0.6 |
| Conservation Technical Assistance | 12.4 |
| Swampbuster | 1.0 |
| WRP | 2.4 |
| Farmland Protection Program | 0.02 |
| WHIP | 0.7 |
| Forest Stewardship | 00.7 |
| Incentives for bioenergy and bioproducts | N/A |
| Total | 33.1 |