U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE 

AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY 

PROGRESS REPORT 
2 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

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USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

May 2021
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 1 

A Message from Secretary Vilsack 

Dear Reader, 

As we face the global challenge of climate 

change, there has never been a more important 

and exciting opportunity for leadership from 

American agriculture and forestry. America’s 

producers and forest owners have long been at the 

forefront of stewardship of our lands, promoting 

wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and clean air and 

water – while also sequestering carbon to combat 

climate change. Today, they are on the front lines, 

experiencing the impacts of climate change as 

shifting weather patterns and increasingly frequent 

and severe storms, foods, drought, and wildfre 

wreak havoc and cause billions of dollars in 

damages. At the same time, scientists tell us that 

our powerful nature-based carbon sink—our farms 

and forests—could begin to degrade if we do not 

take action. With the right tools and partnerships, 

American agriculture and forestry can lead the 

world in solutions that will increase climate 

resilience, sequester carbon, enhance agricultural 

productivity, and maintain critical environmental 

benefts. 

At this pivotal time, President Biden has called 

upon USDA to develop a strategy for climatesmart agriculture and forestry as part of a wholeof-government effort to addressing the climate 

crisis. Central to USDA’s approach is the concept 

that to be effective, whatever we do must work 

for farmers, ranchers, and landowners. We must 

pursue strategies that create new markets for rural 

Americans and build wealth that stays in rural 

communities. 

Over the past months, USDA has heard the views 

of Tribes and stakeholders across agriculture and 

forestry on how USDA should develop its climate 

smart agriculture and forestry strategy. This report 

refects some of those initial conversations, and in 

the coming months we look forward to continuing 

to work with you to develop and implement our 

approach. It will be multi-pronged and centered 

on voluntary incentives that beneft producers 

and landowners. We will look across climate 

science and research, forest health, outreach 

and education, existing programs, and new and 

emerging markets to advance climate-smart 

agriculture and forestry. All of this must be done in 

partnership with landowners, producers, state and 

local governments, Tribes, and other stakeholders 

across agriculture and forestry. 

Equity and justice will play a guiding role in our 

work. We recognize that to tap the potential 

within agriculture and forestry, we need to reach 

all producers and landowners. As we build our 

strategy, we will ensure that socially disadvantaged 

producers have a seat at the table and reap the 

benefts of these programs. We will also prioritize 

actions that provide tangible, near-term benefts 

for low-income communities and communities of 

color. 

I am confdent that in partnership with our 

country’s agriculture and forestry stakeholders, we 

can develop a strategy that is a win-win for our 

producers in building climate resilience, mitigating 

emissions, and conserving our natural resources. I 

look forward to continuing to work alongside you 

as we move forward. 

Sincerely, 

Secretary Tom Vilsack 
2 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

Introduction 

On January 27, 2021, President Joe Biden signed 

Executive Order 14008 Tackling the Climate Crisis 

at Home and Abroad. This Executive Order directs 

Federal agencies to coordinate a Governmentwide 

approach to combat the climate crisis. Recognizing 

the important role that agriculture and forestry 

will play in climate change mitigation and 

resilience, the Executive Order tasked the U.S. 

Secretary of Agriculture to deliver a report with 

recommendations for a climate-smart agriculture 

and forestry (CSAF) strategy. In developing this 

strategy, the Secretary was directed to consider 

CSAF practices that decrease wildfre risk fueled 

by climate change, source sustainable bioproducts 

and fuels, and result in conservation actions 

that provide measurable carbon reductions and 

sequestration. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

welcomes the President’s focus on developing a 

climate-smart agriculture and forestry strategy 

that employs proven conservation practices to 

achieve enhanced productivity and economic 

sustainability for U.S. agriculture and forestry; 

improved ecological, social, and economic 

resilience to climate change; increased carbon 

sequestration; and reduced greenhouse gas 

(GHG) emissions. Climate-smart practices 

include activities that store carbon and improve 

resilience and soil health, such as reduced and 

no-till, cover crops, and prescribed grazing; reduce 

GHG emissions, including methane and nitrous 

oxide, using practices such as ruminant feed 

management, manure management, and fertilizer 

management; improve on-farm energy effciency, 

such as improved irrigation effciency, reduced fuel 

use, and energy conservation; and improve forest 

management to increase forest resilience and 

health. 

The Department also is committed to 

implementing a CSAF strategy that furthers 

equity, environmental, and racial justice, and 

is accessible to and will beneft all farmers, 

landowners, land managers, Tribes, and 

communities — particularly low-income 

communities and communities of color. The 

USDA’s climate smart strategy builds on the 

administration’s whole-of-government approach to 

tackling the climate crisis, including its America 

the Beautiful conservation campaign, which 

focuses on locally-led conservation activities that 

employ nature-based climate solutions, including 

on working lands. 

Outreach Strategy 

The Executive Order directed the Secretary 

to collect input from Tribes, farmers, ranchers, 

forest owners, conservation groups, frefghters, 

and other communities and organizations as part 

of its strategy development. In line with this 

directive, USDA published a Federal Register 

Notice to collect input on how to best develop and 

implement CSAF strategies. The Department’s 

efforts focused on opportunities within existing 

USDA programs, potential new policies, and 

ways that USDA can support emerging markets 

to provide CSAF solutions. Within these broad 

categories, USDA requested specifc input on 

agriculture and forestry carbon benefts; biofuels, 

wood, and other bioproducts; renewable energy 

technologies; addressing catastrophic wildfre; 

and achieving environmental justice. This 

Federal Register Notice was issued on March 16 

and closed on April 29, 2021. USDA received 

over 2,700 comments in response to the Federal 

Register Notice. 

USDA also hosted a series of 10 stakeholder 

listening sessions to provide a forum for feedback 

and discussion around CSAF strategy development 

and implementation. Participants included farmer 

organizations, commodity groups, livestock 

producer groups, environmental organizations, 

forestry representatives, agriculture businesses and 

technology companies, environmental market 

organizations, renewable energy organizations, 

Tribal organizations, and organizations 

representing socially disadvantaged communities. 

Over 260 participants attended these listening 

sessions and provided USDA with feedback on a 

CSAF strategy. 
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 3 

Preliminary takeaways from outreach 

This report takes note of the broad array of 

perspectives raised during these initial outreach 

activities. Initial feedback underscored a broad 

range of ongoing work and the need for USDA 

to learn from existing initiatives, leverage current 

programs and networks, forge new relationships 

with community and private-sector partners, and 

continue to build on the efforts of producers, land 

managers, Tribes, and other groups to conserve 

America’s natural resources and address climate 

change. 

While a wide range of ideas and comments were 

shared with USDA, several common themes 

emerged. Respondents valued the Department’s 

efforts to assert a leadership role in combating 

climate change within the sector and welcomed 

the opportunity to partner with USDA on this 

work. USDA was urged to seek approaches that 

integrate climate, environmental, and equity 

and justice goals. Feedback indicated that the 

CSAF strategy should recognize and account for 

co-benefts that CSAF practices provide beyond 

reducing GHGs, including protecting habitat, 

improving air, water, and soil quality, and building 

resilience. USDA also heard the need to remain 

attentive to potential adverse impacts of a 

CSAF strategy, particularly on already burdened 

communities, and to engage directly with 

community members. 

Another main theme was that a “one-sizefts-all” policy or program will not work for all 

producers and land managers and that a CSAF 

strategy needs to be place-based, fexible, and 

locally led. Feedback cited the effectiveness but 

oversubscription of USDA’s existing programs 

and initiatives and raised the need for increasing 

investment in or modifying these programs and 

providing adequate technical assistance. Early 

discussions offered ideas for new and innovative 

programs and technologies focused on securing 

climate benefts, including the roles that USDA 

can play in supporting private, voluntary 

environmental markets. USDA was encouraged 

to continue to support and enhance the entire 

value chain of established and emerging industries, 

enabling the United States to remain competitive 

in a global economy. 

The Department will synthesize the wide array 

of comments received from the Federal Register 

Notice and listening sessions. This feedback, 

and ongoing engagement with Tribes and 

stakeholders, will help guide USDA’s CSAF 

strategy development and implementation moving 

forward. 

Recommendations for a USDA 

Climate-Smart Agriculture and 

Forestry Strategy 

A successful CSAF strategy will rely on a multipronged approach. This will allow USDA to meet 

multiple objectives and provide a unifed strategy 

across USDA’s agencies and offces to address 

diverse needs and opportunities throughout the 

agriculture and forestry sectors. Below are seven 

recommended elements of a CSAF strategy: 

1. Prepare USDA to quantify, track, 

and report the benefts of 

CSAF activities 

USDA will take the following actions to quantify 

and assess efforts to expand climate-smart practices 

and technologies, including: 

• Identify promising CSAF practices. 

USDA will continue working to identify 

and defne a suite of practices and 

technologies that deliver on climate 

outcomes, including GHG emission 

reductions, carbon sequestration, climate 

adaptation and resilience, and other cobenefts that are appropriate for large-scale 

adoption. This may include practices for 

which there is strong scientifc evidence 

of emissions reductions and carbon 

benefts, as well as those that are welldefned within existing USDA, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) 

Conservation Practice Standards. USDA 

will continue to identify a suite of CSAF 
4 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

practices and technologies that will be the 

primary programmatic focus of its CSAF 

strategy. 

• Develop or enhance tools to assist 

farmers, ranchers, and foresters in 

quantifying benefts of CSAF practices. 

USDA will develop or enhance 

methods and tools for quantifying the 

GHG benefts and other co-benefts of 

promising CSAF practices and ensure 

that they are consistent and scientifcally 

sound. These methods and tools should 

accurately capture real reductions but also 

be simple and fexible enough to cover 

the broad range of contexts in which they 

will be applied to facilitate streamlined 

reporting by producers and landowners. 

• Track implementation and quantify 

benefts of CSAF practices at the 

national scale. USDA will establish 

specifc goals and benchmarks for 

encouraging and tracking progress on 

CSAF practice adoption. USDA will 

consult with government and outside 

experts to develop and conduct timely 

surveys of the adoption rates of CSAF 

practices and to track progress on 

their implementation. In addition, 

the Department will work with the 

Environmental Protection Agency to 

use this information when updating 

the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas 

Emissions and Sinks and ensure that it 

accurately refects the benefts of CSAF 

actions. 

• Support research and data collection 

for quantifcation, monitoring and 

verifcation of carbon benefts. The 

Executive Order directs USDA to 

encourage CSAF practices that “result 

in additional, measurable, and verifable 

carbon reductions and sequestration.” 

USDA recognizes that carbon 

measurement, monitoring and verifcation 

present challenges in the agricultural 

and forestry sectors due to variability 

among land types and practices and 

the limited soil carbon data collection 

and testing—particularly in regard to 

agricultural practices. Soil carbon data 

collection is typically limited or rare, 

and the use of satellite and other newly 

available technologies that can help 

estimate soil carbon is not routinely or 

consistently used or applied. Moreover, 

there is no common platform in which 

soil carbon data can be made accessible 

for supplemental analysis. Improved 

soil carbon data is critical to help refne 

quantifcation tools and models for 

estimating and verifying benefts of CSAF 

practices. As part of this effort, USDA 

will increase data collection and feld 

testing of carbon sequestration benefts 

associated with CSAF practices to help 

calibrate and/or validate methods and 

tools used to quantify GHG benefts for 

CSAF practices. 

USDA and other government scientists 

are aware that these shortcomings apply 

broadly across all land and ocean carbon 

contexts. The Biden administration 

is launching a science-based review 

to address these issues by investing in 

improved carbon data collection and 

synthesis techniques that can confrm 

additional, measurable, and verifable 

carbon reductions and sequestration across 

a variety of land types and practices. The 

administration and USDA are committed 

to advancing CSAF practices and will 

invest substantial resources in this effort. 

USDA offcials will work closely with 

scientists and practitioners from across 

the Federal Government and the private 

sector to elevate carbon measurement and 

verifcation capabilities on a continuous 

improvement basis. 
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 5 

2. Develop a CSAF strategy that works 

for all farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, and communities 

The Executive Order directs USDA to undertake 

robust actions to mitigate climate change while 

building resilience to the impacts of climate 

change that have already manifested and are 

continuing to intensify. This requires a CSAF 

strategy that will further equity and environmental 

justice and is inclusive of Tribes, farmers, ranchers, 

forest owners, public land users and communities, 

and land managers of different sizes and operation 

systems, including organic and conventional 

producers. USDA recognizes that Black and 

Indigenous farmers and ranchers have been 

innovators in regenerative agriculture and will 

ensure that their leadership helps shape its CSAF 

strategy. 

The history of systemic discrimination against 

Black farmers has been well documented, 

including a 2003 U.S. Commission on Civil 

Rights report which found discrimination in the 

processing of Black farm loan applications, and a 

more recent study fnding that Black farmers suffer 

disproportionately higher rates of foreclosure than 

any other race. The CSAF strategy must establish 

the support systems that enable Black farmers and 

other socially disadvantaged producers to take 

advantage of the opportunities that climate-smart 

practices provide. Only with the establishment 

of such systems will USDA be able to address the 

cumulative effect of discrimination and break the 

cycles that are holding these producers back. 

USDA is also committed to securing 

environmental justice and spurring economic 

opportunity for communities, including socially 

disadvantaged farmers, ranchers, forest owners, 

producers, and Tribes. USDA will pay particular 

attention to ensure that Tribes and stakeholders 

are meaningfully consulted and substantively 

engaged throughout this process. To advance 

environmental justice and equity, USDA should 

take the following actions: 

• Strengthen consultation and engagement 

with Tribes and socially disadvantaged 

communities and producers. Meaningful 

and substantive consultation and 

engagement with socially disadvantaged 

communities is a priority for USDA, with 

a focus on supporting communities and 

Tribes in achieving success on their terms. 

USDA is reaching out to representatives 

from socially disadvantaged communities, 

as well as historically underserved 

producers and forest landowners, 

including limited resource, beginning, 

socially disadvantaged, and veteran 

farmers, ranchers, and forest owners, to 

identify ways to ensure that the benefts 

of the CSAF strategy are distributed 

equitably. While these frst steps are 

critical in shaping a just and equitable 

CSAF strategy, they will only be the 

beginning of the Department’s efforts to 

consult Tribes and engage stakeholders, 

including those in both urban and rural 

areas. In engaging in this outreach, 

USDA will consider specifc community 

needs, including translation services and 

internet access. 

• Identify opportunities for broader 

inclusivity within USDA programs. The 

Department is committed to providing 

opportunities equitably and will pay 

special attention to barriers that may 

preclude full participation. Specifc areas 

to investigate may include impacts of farm 

size and land tenancy on participation; 

distributional effects of promoting 

certain CSAF practices; effciency-equity 

tradeoffs; and the particular needs of 

small-scale, family-owned, specialty crop, 

and socially disadvantaged producers 

and forest landowners. Likewise, many 

opportunities exist in rural and urban 

forests, including ensuring access to urban 

and suburban greenspaces, building equity 

through forest legacies, and engaging 

in meaningful shared stewardship 

and co-management with Tribes and 

communities. 
6 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

• Remove barriers to participation and 

adoption. To ensure its programs are 

widely accessible by all farmers, forest 

owners, and Tribes, USDA will identify 

and remove barriers to entry in existing 

programs and build enabling provisions 

into the design of its new programs from 

the start, with an emphasis on addressing 

systemic discrimination. 

• Recognize and include early adopters. 

While USDA seeks to expand voluntary 

adoption of CSAF practices, it recognizes 

that innovative farmers, ranchers, and 

forest landowners may have already 

adopted many of these practices on 

their own. Recognizing how critical 

early adopters are to championing new 

conservation practices, USDA should 

provide options within its programs to 

ensure that early adopters are included 

and not disadvantaged by their initial 

commitment to using environmentally 

sound practices. 

• Target education and outreach. Programs 

must be complemented by education 

and intentional outreach to maximize 

the uptake of CSAF practices. Targeted 

education and outreach efforts are critical 

for building trust with Tribes, socially 

disadvantaged producers, and forest 

landowners, demonstrating long-term 

economic and environmental benefts, 

and ensuring that all communities are 

aware of and able to take advantage 

of available programs and support. 

Recommendation 4 below expands on the 

importance of education and outreach. 

• Design the CSAF strategy to advance 

environmental justice. The CSAF 

strategy should support the Department’s 

goal to reduce overall emissions and help 

achieve healthy communities in line 

with the Biden-Harris administration’s 

vision for tackling the climate crisis 

and addressing the disproportionately 

high and adverse human health, 

environmental, climate-related and other 

cumulative impacts on disadvantaged 

communities as laid out in the Executive 

Order. 

3. Leverage existing USDA programs 

to support CSAF strategies 

USDA has a wide range of programs that provide 

cost share and fnancial assistance for on-farm and 

forest conservation. USDA’s CSAF strategy should 

strengthen the ability of these programs to deliver 

climate benefts alongside other environmental 

benefts. Many of these programs already include 

funding and technical assistance for practices 

that have carbon benefts, including cover crops, 

precision agriculture, manure management, and 

forest restoration. They can also help reduce risks 

from extreme weather and other climate change 

impacts. Opportunities to leverage existing 

programs include: 

• Identify and prioritize climate 

risks, adaptation opportunities, and 

carbon benefts of USDA programs. 

Evaluation of the carbon benefts and 

explicit consideration of climate risks 

and adaptation would strengthen 

programs such as the Environmental 

Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), 

which provides agricultural producers 

and forest landowners with fnancial 

resources and one-on-one assistance 

to plan and implement conservation 

practices; the Conservation Stewardship 

Program (CSP), which incentivizes 

enhanced environmental stewardship; 

the Agricultural Conservation 

Easement Program (ACEP), which 

helps landowners, land trusts, and other 

entities protect, restore, and enhance 

wetlands, grasslands, and working farms 

and ranches through conservation 

easements; and the Conservation Reserve 

Program (CRP), which provides annual 

rental payments to farmers enrolled 

in the program who agree to remove 
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 7 

environmentally sensitive land from 

agricultural production while planting 

species that improve environmental 

health and quality. Promoting climate 

mitigation and adaptation practices 

and projects as a priority for funding in 

these programs, as well as in competitive 

grant programs such as the Conservation 

Innovation Grants (CIG) and Regional 

Conservation Partnership Program 

(RCPP), will spur on-the-ground 

innovation and learning. USDA has 

already begun this work through the CRP 

by introducing a new Climate-Smart 

Practice Incentive that will increase 

signups for the program while providing 

the opportunity to demonstrate “proof of 

concept” regarding CRP-related increases 

in carbon sequestration and reduced 

GHG emissions. 

• Keep forests as forests while building 

climate resilience through forest 

conservation programs. The Forest 

Legacy Program (FLP) is a critical 

tool that advances climate goals by 

encouraging the protection of privately 

owned forest lands through conservation 

easements or land purchases. Other 

forest conservation programs, such as the 

Community Forest Program (CFP), Forest 

Stewardship Program (FSP), Sustainable 

Forestry African American Land 

Retention Program (SFLR), and Urban 

and Community Forestry (UCF) Program, 

should explicitly incorporate forest carbon 

and climate impacts into decision-making 

to ensure that mitigation and adaptation 

considerations more clearly infuence 

forest management and project design 

decisions. 

• Reduce food loss and waste. USDA is 

committed to reducing food loss and waste 

to meet the national goal of a 50-percent 

reduction by 2030. Reducing food loss 

and waste reduces the methane emissions 

associated with food scraps decomposing 

in landflls and conserves resources 

that may otherwise contribute to GHG 

emissions. USDA should continue 

working across government and with 

partners to reduce food loss and waste 

through increased consumer education 

and outreach, improved data collection 

and tracking of food loss and waste, 

improved food labeling and donation 

guidelines, collaboration to reduce food 

loss and waste across the supply chain, 

and reduced food loss and waste at Federal 

facilities. 

• Invest in infrastructure improvements 

that can facilitate the implementation 

of CSAF practices. USDA’s Rural 

Development offce offers loans and 

grants to provide funds for the costs 

of construction, improvement, and 

acquisition of facilities and equipment 

needed to provide enabling infrastructure 

and technology, such as broadband 

service, in eligible rural areas. 

Broadband is essential infrastructure for 

implementing practices like precision 

agriculture, which is an important 

technology for reducing nitrous oxide 

emissions from fertilizer, for reducing 

emissions from fuel use, and for increasing 

agricultural productivity. Broadband 

is also necessary to ensure that rural 

communities remain engaged and have 

access to the full suite of USDA resources. 

• Support and help fnance renewable 

energy and energy effciency activities. 

USDA is committed to supporting rural 

communities in completing energy audits, 

providing renewable energy development 

assistance, making energy effciency 

improvements, and installing renewable 

energy systems. USDA currently has 

programs that help convert older heating 

sources to cleaner technologies, produce 

advanced biofuels, install solar panels, 

construct anaerobic digesters, build 

biorefneries, and much more. USDA’s 
8 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

Rural Development offce is at the 

forefront of renewable energy fnancing, 

with options including grants, guaranteed 

loans, and payments. 

• Help build community resilience to 

climate change. Climate change poses 

risks to the operational and economic 

viability of farms, ranches, and forests. 

USDA provides risk management 

products that build resilience to these 

threats. USDA should examine additional 

opportunities to incorporate CSAF 

through USDA’s risk management and 

disaster relief programs in innovative 

ways that work for farmers, ranchers, and 

forest landowners. In addition, USDA 

should build on the existing work to 

improve resilience through promotion of 

soil health practices and other adaptive 

practices. 

4. Strengthen education, training, and 

technical assistance for CSAF practices 

Outreach, education, training, and technical 

assistance are important elements of effective 

voluntary programs. They also help USDA 

learn from program participants. Effective 

communication and meaningful engagement with 

Tribes, producers, and forest owners on CSAF 

practices is necessary for conveying the benefts 

of these practices, raising awareness of available 

fnancial assistance, creating literacy around 

new and emerging market opportunities, and 

integrating feedback into programs for continued 

improvement. Technical assistance will also 

be important in ensuring that producers have 

access to the expertise they need to successfully 

implement and integrate CSAF practices into 

their operations in ways that are ecologically 

appropriate and tailored to their needs. In 

addition, it will be necessary to train feld offce 

staff, conservation planners, forest managers, 

and other technical staff on the suite of CSAF 

practices and the new tools, opportunities, and 

markets related to CSAF so that they are well 

positioned to provide effective guidance to 

producers and landowners. 

To meet these needs, USDA should rely on and 

enhance many of its existing efforts, relationships, 

and programs. This includes the USDA Farm 

Service Agency’s (FSA) county offce staff as well 

as NRCS’s Conservation Technical Assistance 

Program, which provides conservation planning 

and implementation assistance through a 

network of locally respected and technically 

skilled conservationists. USDA should work to 

incorporate Indigenous and Tribal knowledge 

into its CSAF outreach and education strategy. 

USDA should also leverage its Climate Hubs, 

which deliver science and data syntheses; tool and 

technology curation and implementation support; 

and technical assistance and training on CSAF 

practices and technologies. This strategy should 

also build on programs such as the Soil Health 

Initiative, which provides education, outreach, 

and training on critical conservation strategies. In 

addition, USDA should continue to work through 

partners like land-grant university extension 

offces, conservation districts, Technical Service 

Providers, and others to perform outreach and 

deliver technical assistance on CSAF practices. 

To build trust and ensure effective outreach to 

Tribes and socially disadvantaged producers and 

forest landowners, USDA will work with partners 

such as 1890 land-grant institutions, historically 

Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), 

Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribal colleges 

and universities, and other potential technical 

assistance partners from socially disadvantaged 

communities. New initiatives, such as the Civilian 

Climate Corps, may also play a role in mobilizing 

additional work force to support outreach and 

technical assistance efforts. 

Specifc opportunities for improving education 

and outreach under USDA’s CSAF strategy may 

include: 

• Strengthen and increase technical 

assistance. With input from Tribes and 

stakeholders, USDA should identify 

opportunities to leverage existing 

technical assistance skills and resources 
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 9 

in support of USDA’s climate goals. 

The Department should also expand 

and strengthen its network of expertise, 

including through recruitment and 

training of additional NRCS and Forest 

Service staff and Technical Service 

Providers, to enable better outreach to 

socially disadvantaged producers and 

new and beginning farmers in areas of 

CSAF practices and technologies, as well 

as their climate benefts and appropriate 

applications. Finally, USDA should 

work with Tribes and stakeholders to 

determine gaps or limitations in capacity 

and accessibility of technical assistance to 

farmers, ranchers, and forest owners, with 

a priority of understanding the needs of 

socially disadvantaged producers, new and 

beginning farmers, and local and regional 

food systems. 

• Build on and expand existing education 

and outreach efforts. USDA should 

expand CSAF knowledge through 

activities such as on-farm and forest 

adaptation demonstrations and other 

applied research and technical assistance. 

USDA should leverage its network to 

reach a wider community of producers, 

as described above in recommendation 

2. Achieving these outcomes will require 

meaningful engagement with communitybased groups, non-governmental 

organizations, educational institutions, 

Tribes, and other State and Federal 

agencies on CSAF strategies. USDA 

should also increase awareness and 

participation in its conservation programs, 

particularly from socially disadvantaged 

producers and landowners. Education and 

outreach efforts should also include use of 

extension services and partnerships with 

1890 and other land-grant universities, 

HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, 

and Tribal colleges and universities. 

USDA can work with its offces, 

including Offce of Partnerships and 

Public Engagement and Offce of Tribal 

Relations, to leverage internal equity 

efforts to amplify these opportunities. 

• Invest in and strengthen the role of the 

Climate Hubs. USDA Climate Hubs help 

identify regional climate vulnerabilities 

and work with farmers and land managers 

to prioritize, plan, and implement 

projects or practices to adapt to climate 

stressors. The Climate Hubs also serve 

to connect research to practice, reducing 

the vulnerability of productive working 

lands to long-term climate change and 

extreme weather events. In support of 

the CSAF strategy, the Climate Hubs 

should continue to lower barriers and 

increase the rate of adoption of CSAF 

practices. They should also help identify 

opportunities for collaboration with 

partners to develop necessary innovations 

or curate tools and technologies to 

moderate stressors. The Climate Hubs 

should also continue to bring lessonslearned back to USDA agencies and 

their partners to complete a cycle of 

learning, enhance resilience, and improve 

productivity. 

5. Support new and better markets 

for agriculture and forestry products 

generated through CSAF practices 

The private-sector demand for carbon credits 

and commodities produced with CSAF practices 

could be an important lever for incentivizing 

CSAF practice adoption across the landscape. 

Consumers, including processors and their 

domestic and international customers, are 

increasingly demonstrating a preference for 

agricultural commodities produced using CSAF 

practices. Extensive evidence exist that a growing 

number of purchasers of agricultural commodities 

are placing a premium on commodities that can 

demonstrate these attributes. However, barriers 

and limitations, such as high transaction costs, 

diffculty in estimating GHG benefts, and high 
10 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

implementation costs of some CSAF projects, 

are hampering growth in these markets and 

limiting opportunities for agricultural producers to 

effectively participate. 

A wide range of market-based approaches exist 

for incentivizing climate-friendly agriculture 

commodities. These include voluntary markets 

for carbon where agriculture and forestry can 

provide carbon offsets or credits, sustainable supply 

chain initiatives, and “insetting” approaches 

where companies reduce emissions within their 

own supply chains and production facilities. 

They can also include markets for low-carbon 

biofuels, renewable energy, and biobased and wood 

products. These markets can promote voluntary 

adoption of conservation technologies and 

practices and leverage private-sector demand for 

GHG benefts associated with CSAF practices. 

These types of market opportunities can offer 

cost-effective ways to incentivize CSAF practice 

adoption and provide new income streams. 

Through the CSAF strategy, USDA should 

support the identifcation and verifcation of the 

GHG benefts associated with CSAF practices and 

facilitate the participation of farmers, ranchers, 

and landowners in new markets for CSAF goods 

and services. 

The expanded adoption of CSAF practices 

will increase opportunities in domestic and 

international markets for commodities produced 

in climate-friendly ways, ensuring benefts for 

farmers and forest landowners. Ultimately, these 

efforts will contribute to the development of new 

and additional markets and uses for a broad range 

of crops, commodities, and forest products. 

It is also important to broaden access for small, 

socially disadvantaged, and beginning farmers, 

ranchers, and forest landowners, as well as those 

early adopters who have paved the way and 

demonstrated the benefts of agricultural and 

forest conservation. Opportunities for supporting 

markets for CSAF practices include: 

• Support producer participation in 

voluntary carbon markets. Although 

agricultural and forest carbon market 

opportunities have great potential to 

fnance large-scale adoption of CSAF 

practices, there are barriers that have 

kept that potential in check. As a result, 

only 2 percent of carbon offsets sold in 

the United States are generated from 

agricultural practices. These barriers 

include the relatively small scale of 

agricultural and small forestry offset 

projects, high transaction costs associated 

with project development, monitoring, 

reporting, and verifcation, and confusion 

in the carbon marketplace where there is 

a lack of consistency among approaches to 

protocols for generating GHG offsets from 

agriculture. For these reasons, producers 

and small landowners have yet to reap the 

full benefts of this market potential. 

USDA can help to overcome these 

market barriers. In line with the 

Department’s commitment to equity, 

inclusion, and transparency, efforts 

are underway to solicit public input 

and inform our decision-making as 

we consider possible strategies. These 

strategies may include setting standards 

to reduce transaction costs; adopting 

science-based monitoring, reporting 

and verifcation approaches for CSAF 

practices; bolstering market infrastructure; 

or serving as a source of demand for 

agricultural carbon credits by setting clear 

price signals through price supports, loan 

programs or other fnancial tools that 

can help producers implement CSAF 

technologies. USDA’s carbon market 

strategy will likely include a multipronged approach to achieve a variety of 

objectives. 

• Support the role of agriculture in 

decarbonizing the transportation 

sector. The growth of the U.S. biofuels 

sector, driven in part by the Renewable 

Fuels Standard, has reduced GHGs and 

strengthened the rural economy. Ethanol 

produced from corn reduces GHG 

emissions relative to gasoline. Market 
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 11 

opportunities such as California’s Low 

Carbon Fuels Standard and the 45Q 

Federal Tax Credit for carbon capture 

and sequestration can further drive down 

the GHG footprint of the biofuels sector. 

USDA should identify opportunities 

for agriculture and forestry to play a 

role in the production of low-carbon 

biofuel feedstocks, and for innovative 

technologies such as Bioenergy with 

Carbon Capture (BECCS) to reduce 

emissions associated with biofuel 

production while spurring rural economic 

development. 

• Support renewable energy development 

in rural America. USDA should help 

position Tribes, farmers, ranchers, rural 

landowners, and environmental justice 

communities to be leaders in renewable 

energy development. This includes 

making investments in technologies 

such as rural wind and solar that can 

operate on working farms and ranches, 

liquid fuels, renewable natural gas from 

livestock, and production of sustainably 

produced biomass for renewable energy 

generation. Investments in these 

technologies can provide new market 

opportunities for Tribes and rural America 

and create new uses for agriculture and 

forestry waste products, while reducing 

GHG emissions. 

• Support deployment and development of 

methane digesters, biogas, and biobased 

products. The adoption of on-farm biogas 

capture technologies and the production 

of biobased products can provide 

producers with new income streams 

while also reducing GHG emissions and 

improving water quality. Opportunities to 

generate income from these technologies 

include the generation of renewable 

electricity and the production of biobased 

products from manure, renewable 

natural gas (RNG) and liquifed natural 

gas (LNG). USDA should support 

producers as they enter these new 

markets and consider innovative fnance 

mechanisms to provide upfront capital 

for biogas technologies and encourage the 

connection of multiple small operations 

to provide economical renewable energy 

production. 

• Support new markets for wood products. 

Wood products such as building materials 

currently account for 9 percent of annual 

carbon sequestration and storage in the 

United States. Potential increases in the 

use of wood in buildings could sequester 

carbon at the rate equivalent of taking 

7 million cars off the road per year. 

USDA should support the wood products 

industry and the development of new 

wood product innovations such as crosslaminated timber, nanomaterials, and 

urban wood utilization to enhance carbon 

sequestration while providing economic 

opportunities to both rural and urban 

America. 

6. Develop a forest and wildfre 

resilience strategy 

Forests are distributed across the spectrum of rural 

to urban environments, covering 896 million 

acres (including approximately 130 million acres 

in urban, suburban, and developed areas), or 33 

percent of land in the United States. Forests on 

public and private lands provide numerous benefts 

to people in the United States, including clean 

water, fber and wood products, fsh and wildlife 

habitat, biodiversity, recreational opportunities, 

spiritual renewal, and carbon storage. Forests and 

harvested wood products take up the equivalent 

of more than 14 percent of economy-wide CO2 

emissions in the United States annually, and 

there is potential to increase carbon sequestration 

capacity by approximately 20 percent (−187.7 

million metric tons [MMT] CO2

) per year 

by facilitating re-plantings in understocked 

productive forestland. 

Realizing this carbon potential while maintaining 
12 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

other ecosystem services, building resilience 

to climate change, and reducing risk to severe 

wildfre, will require integrating climate 

considerations throughout forestry-related 

programs and practices in USDA. Core actions 

include fuels reduction, climate-informed 

reforestation and forest management, research 

to support mitigation and adaptation, and an 

equitable distribution of services related to wildfre 

mitigation and response. Maintaining the health 

and integrity of America’s forests is vital to 

protecting their carbon sequestration potential, 

including conserving old-growth forests from 

wildfre and other threats, ensuring proper forest 

regeneration after fre and other disturbance, 

and ensuring that forests are resilient across 

large landscapes. Forest and wildfre resilience 

opportunities within the CSAF strategy include: 

• Increase the rate of fuels reduction to 

decrease the risk of severe wildfre. 

Over 10 million acres burned across 

all jurisdictions in the 2020 wildfres, 

with nearly 4.8 million acres on Forest 

Service lands–the most since the “Big 

Burn” of 1910. High-intensity wildfre 

adversely affects communities, people, 

and watersheds, and can move forests 

from being a solution to address our 

changing climate to a signifcant emitter 

of GHGs. Restored, resilient forests that 

withstand low-intensity wildfre are key 

to decreasing wildfre risks to our forestdependent communities and providing 

long-term carbon storage to mitigate 

climate change. In FY 2020, the agency 

improved forest conditions on over 2.65 

million acres. Forest Service and other 

research scientists have determined that 

this current level of treatment is not 

enough to keep pace with the scale and 

scope of the wildfre problem. Current 

modeling indicates that in order to 

signifcantly reduce the risk of highintensity wildfre, USDA must increase 

the scale of its actions by two to four 

times more than is currently treated. 

This means that over the next 19 years, 

it is necessary to treat an additional 20 

million acres on National Forest System 

(NFS) land and 30 million acres on 

other Federal, State, Tribal and private 

lands, especially in the Western United 

States. USDA needs to thin forests 

and return low-intensity fre to freadapted landscapes across the country 

in the form of prescribed fre to enable 

U.S. forestlands and communities to be 

resilient to the natural fre they need. 

Working collaboratively through shared 

stewardship with States, Tribes, local 

communities, and private landowners, 

a sustained investment over the next 

10 years to treat other Federal, State, 

Tribal, and private lands, especially in 

the Western United States, can reset our 

future. 

• Increase the rate of reforestation, 

especially after disturbances. Nearly 90 

percent of current reforestation needs 

on National Forest System lands are 

the result of wildfre and other natural 

disturbances. The greater the rate of 

reforestation, the greater the cumulative 

carbon sequestration. Increasing the rate 

of reforestation also requires increases in 

nursery capacity and associated supply 

chains. Climate-smart principles and 

ecologically sound strategies should 

underpin all reforestation efforts, ensuring 

that investments into nurseries and 

planting are reinforced by intentionally 

choosing climate-adapted species and 

genotypes and using climate-informed 

planting techniques, consistent with 

maintaining or restoring the ecological 

health of the landscape. 

• Support applied forest research 

to inform climate mitigation and 

adaptation. Forest inventory, trend, 

and health analyses help quantify 

the distribution and extent of forests, 

disturbance agents and impacts, and forest 
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 13 

carbon and benefts. This information 

informs decision-making and creates 

context for further applied science such 

as market analyses, scenario planning, 

climate impacts modeling, large landscape 

research, and adaptation decision support 

tools and processes all of which support 

shared stewardship and climate resilience. 

This type of research should also be used 

to assess carbon baseline information in 

different forest types and potential carbon 

gains from improved forestry practices. 

As with agricultural practices, USDA 

needs to increase data collection and 

the feld testing of carbon sequestration 

results associated with specifc CSAF 

practices to help calibrate and/or validate 

methods and systems used to quantify 

GHG benefts of forestry practices. 

Enhancements to the wildland fre system, 

including prediction, planning, decision 

support, impact assessment, and recovery, 

are also important to help manage fre 

risk. 

• Ensure equitable distribution of 

services regarding wildfre mitigation 

and response. As climate change 

exacerbates the severity and frequency 

of wildfres, USDA needs to work with 

Tribes, partners, communities, and 

across landscapes, to reduce the risk of 

catastrophic wildfre, mitigate smoke 

hazards, and communicate in ways that 

are meaningful for each community. 

USDA should incorporate Indigenous 

and Tribal ecological knowledge into 

its wildfre strategy. This work needs 

to be distributed equitably across all 

populations, considering the unique risks 

to socially disadvantaged populations 

who are often the most vulnerable to 

climate change. Likewise, by engaging 

with diverse communities to develop 

and implement climate mitigation and 

adaptation strategies, USDA can gain 

critical insights and input from local 

knowledge and needs. 

7. Improve research 

Ensuring that agricultural lands, national forests, 

and private working lands are sustainably managed 

makes agriculture and forest production more 

resilient to climate change and other disturbances 

such as drought, invasive species, and wildfre. 

Further, based on the best available science, 

new strategies and management practices should 

be developed to mitigate and adapt to climate 

change. Agricultural systems must adapt to 

changing weather patterns and temperature 

regimes to ensure food security. Moreover, 

increasing agricultural productivity even while 

improving agriculture’s carbon footprint is 

critical given the need to feed a growing world 

population. These enormous challenges call for 

innovative research supported by bold, transdisciplinary collaborations. Some of these research 

opportunities are provided below: 

• Support landscape-scale conservation 

and management. USDA should 

build on its existing research by 

identifying existing gaps and generating 

new interdisciplinary research that 

incorporates Tribal and stakeholder input 

to increase the use of best management 

practices, innovative technologies, 

and tools to promote resilient farms, 

forests, and rangelands, and improve 

ecosystem services. These initiatives 

should include open access to research 

data to facilitate trans-disciplinary 

research, meaningful and substantive 

Tribal and stakeholder engagement, 

and the co-development of research 

and management recommendations. 

Investment in research and development, 

education, and extension activities can 

also increase our collective understanding 

of whole ecosystem responses to current 

and projected climate change, as well as 

environmental impacts of agricultural 
14 CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT

and forestry activities. USDA should also 

invest in farmer-led research efforts to 

demonstrate the effects of CSAF practices 

on working lands. 

• Evaluate potential climate benefts of 

new technologies. USDA should leverage 

its research agencies to evaluate the 

potential of new CSAF technologies and 

practices to mitigate and adapt to climate 

change. USDA should develop protocols 

for performing research to evaluate 

the effectiveness of these technologies 

and practices and should publish these 

protocols to allow partners to perform 

research consistent with USDA’s 

methods. 

• Increase our understanding of climate 

change and variability, its effects on 

agriculture and forests, and ways 

to build adaptation and resilience. 

USDA should collaborate with relevant 

agencies, including the National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration, to 

perform and contribute to research that 

addresses the resiliency and vulnerability 

of agricultural production, natural 

resource stewardship, and socioeconomic 

systems. This includes analyses, tools, 

and data that support decisions for 

agriculture, water resources, land, and 

forest management. Likewise, it is 

critical to identify mechanisms that 

increase resilience of food and forest 

products systems after extreme events. 

It is necessary to monitor and evaluate 

the environmental effects (including 

benefts and limitations) of adaptation 

and mitigation practices through a 

combination of scientifc research and 

adaptive management. 

• Support research into human 

dimensions and economic effects of 

climate change for agricultural and 

forest-dependent communities. USDA 

should develop deeper knowledge of the 

human dimensions of climate change and 

weather variability, including perceptions 

and effective framing of risk, adaptation, 

and mitigation incentives. Examining 

the economic effects of climate change 

and weather variability on communities 

and agricultural producers will contribute 

to the development of appropriate and 

effective responses. USDA should also 

determine the economic costs and 

benefts of CSAF practice implementation 

on farms, ranchlands, and forest lands. 

In addition, USDA should consider the 

effect of climate change on food nutrient 

content and human health. 

• Target research on technologies with 

potential for mitigating U.S. agricultural 

GHG emissions. The agricultural 

industry is increasingly called upon to 

contribute to climate change mitigation 

by reducing GHG emissions, sequestering 

carbon to reduce atmospheric CO2

, 

and even developing working landsbased approaches for generating energy 

as alternatives to fossil fuels. Working 

lands are also faced with adapting 

quickly to unprecedented climate 

changes and weather extremes with 

minimal interruptions in production. 

Specifc opportunities for deeper research 

identifed by a recent series of internal 

USDA listening sessions included 

development of solutions for reduction 

of enteric methane emissions; animal 

resilience to climate stress; abatement 

of nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer 

(e.g. from improved fertilizer management 

or use of enhanced effciency fertilizers); 

enhancement of soils and crops for carbon 

storage and adaptation; and improved 

waste management for GHG emissions 

reductions and energy generation. 

Next Steps 

This report is the beginning of a process to 

position USDA to adapt to and mitigate climate 
CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY STRATEGY: 90-DAY PROGRESS REPORT 15 

change in ways that build strong communities, 

fair markets, and are inclusive of all Tribes and 

stakeholders. USDA will continue outreach on 

CSAF to ensure policies are responsive to the 

needs of constituents. Ongoing activities include: 

• Continue outreach plans and activities. 

Public comments received through the 

Federal Register Notice process and 

listening sessions are being reviewed and 

will be given full consideration as USDA 

continues to develop its CSAF strategy. 

As mentioned, these initial engagement 

opportunities will serve as the starting 

point for ongoing conversations between 

the Department, Tribes, and stakeholders 

who will beneft from or be impacted 

by its CSAF strategy and programs. 

USDA values this input and is intent on 

designing its strategy around the needs of 

farmers, ranchers, and landowners, with 

particular attention to removing barriers 

and elevating opportunities for socially 

disadvantaged groups. 

• Develop and implement strategies based 

on stakeholder feedback. As USDA 

continues to gather input and lessonslearned from Tribes, stakeholders, and 

States, it will refne and narrow its vision 

to develop concrete actions and policies 

for implementing a CSAF strategy. 

Specifcally, USDA will internally review 

its programs to identify opportunities for 

integrating elements of a CSAF strategy 

into existing programs as well as making 

the necessary investments in training, 

tools, personnel, programs, and research 

to enable successful implementation 

of a CSAF strategy. In implementing 

any strategies going forward, USDA 

will identify ways to work across the 

Department and partner with other 

Federal agencies, Tribes, State and local 

governments, and others to effectively 

implement a CSAF strategy.