U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE 

ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE
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August 2021
A Message from Secretary Vilsack ..................................................................................................1

I. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................2

II. Climate Vulnerabilities..................................................................................................................3

III. USDA’s Adaptation Actions .......................................................................................................14

IV. Enhancing Climate Literacy in USDA’s Workforce...............................................................26

V. USDA Actions for Climate-Ready Sites and Facilities...........................................................28

VI. USDA Actions to Ensure a Climate-Ready Supply of Products and Services.................29

VII. Next Steps ....................................................................................................................................31

Appendix: USDA Departmental Regulation 1070-001: Policy Statement 

on Climate Adaptation ......................................................................................................................32

Contents
4 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 1

A Message from Secretary Vilsack

Dear Reader,

As evidenced by the historic drought in the 

western United States, vast wildfires, and soaring 

temperatures across the country, climate change is 

already on our doorstep, and America’s producers 

are on the front lines. We are operating in new 

territory, and the changing climate creates 

immense uncertainty and threatens the resilience 

of the American agriculture and forestry sectors. 

Not only does climate change have a direct impact 

on a producer’s ability to plan and manage risk, it 

has wider impacts on the natural systems we rely 

on to support production of food and fiber, keep 

our waters clean, and maintain cultural resources.

As the “People’s Department,” USDA is preparing 

to help communities across the United States, 

both rural and urban, plan for and build resilience 

to the impacts of climate change. Answering 

President Biden’s call for a whole-of-government 

approach to climate, USDA is taking a whole-ofDepartment approach to address the challenges 

and opportunities posed by climate change. In 

USDA’s recent Climate-Smart Agriculture and 

Forestry Strategy: 90-Day Progress Report, we laid 

out our mitigation strategy to ensure that farmers, 

ranchers, and landowners can seize on these 

opportunities and contribute to greenhouse gas 

emissions reductions and sequestration. Alongside 

those actions, we must make sure that we provide 

producers, landowners, and communities with the 

tools to manage risk and adapt to this changing 

reality.

This Action Plan for Climate Adaptation and 

Resilience outlines how USDA will provide 

relevant information, tools, and resources to its 

stakeholders and target programs and activities 

to increase resilience to climate impacts. USDA 

will prioritize equity, promote environmental 

justice through a focus on healthy communities, 

and target adaptation actions with co-benefits 

for climate mitigation, conservation, and 

sustainability.

In addressing the climate crisis, the USDA 

research enterprise will develop innovative tools 

and practices for farmers and land managers of the 

future. USDA will tailor its climate outreach and 

assistance to be regionally specific through its vast 

field operations and innovative partnerships and 

enhance department-wide coordination through 

its ten regional Climate Hubs. Building climate 

literacy across all levels will enable USDA staff to 

best serve its stakeholders in the decades ahead.

Our plan will serve as the foundation for iterative 

climate adaptation across the Department. 

Taking these steps to prepare American farmers, 

ranchers, forest landowners, resource managers, 

and communities for the effects of climate change 

will help ensure that our agriculture and forestry 

sectors continue to provide healthy food and fiber 

for America and the world, and that we conserve 

our soil, air, and water for generations to come.

Sincerely, 

Secretary Tom Vilsack
2 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

Agricultural producers and forest landowners 

have extensive experience dealing with uncertain 

conditions, yet climate change is producing 

new challenges. Adaptation actions by USDA 

and our stakeholders can reduce the impacts of 

climate change while creating opportunities or 

co-benefits for mitigation, sustainable production, 

and conservation. The co-benefits of adaptation 

actions may also stretch as far as the social welfare 

of rural and urban communities by improving 

economic opportunities, infrastructure, and 

equity. The research and development necessary 

to support agricultural and forestry climate 

adaptation have the potential to spur new tools, 

practices, and technologies that may underpin the 

future of these sectors.

USDA last undertook extensive climate 

adaptation planning in 2014 in response to E.O. 

13653 Preparing the United States for the Impacts 

of Climate Change. In that plan, USDA laid 

out a vision for how to integrate consideration 

of climate change into agency operations 

and overall mission objectives in the context 

of USDA’s strategic goals. USDA provided 

progress and strategic updates to its climate 

adaptation planning via USDA’s annual Strategic 

Sustainability Performance Plan, most recently in 

2017.

FY 2021 is a transition year for USDA as 

its leadership develops a 2022-2026 USDA 

Strategic Plan, to align with the Biden-Harris 

Administration’s priorities, which include 

addressing climate change. At the same time, 

USDA is tracking key performance indicators 

(KPIs) for the 2018-2022 Strategic Plan. A 

draft of the new goals was provided to the Office 

of Management and Budget (OMB) in June 

2021. From June to September 2021, a crossdepartmental working group will establish KPIs 

to gauge progress towards specific performance 

goals that are in alignment with the new strategic 

plan. A full draft strategic plan will be provided 

to OMB in September 2021. USDA’s 2021 

Annual Performance Report and 2023 Annual 

Performance Plan, due to OMB in November 

I. INTRODUCTION

On January 27, 2021, in Executive Order (E.O.) 

14008 Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and 

Abroad, President Biden laid out a vision for a 

United States government-wide approach and a 

set of coordinated domestic actions to address the 

risks and opportunities posed by climate change. 

One of these actions directs the U.S. Department 

of Agriculture (USDA) to submit an action 

plan of steps to bolster adaptation and increase 

resilience to the impacts of climate change across 

our mission and operations.

Climate change poses a significant risk to 

agriculture, forests, and grasslands across the 

United States and the communities that 

support and depend upon them. This risk is 

disproportionately high for disadvantaged 

communities, including Tribal nations, lowincome, and minority communities. USDA 

is unique among federal departments in the 

breadth of its Mission Areas and its reach across 

the United States to urban, rural, and Tribal 

communities. Steps to reduce the vulnerability 

and increase the adaptive capacity of American 

farmers, ranchers, forest owners, and other 

stakeholders to climate change are needed to 

maintain competitiveness and sustainability in 

the coming decades. Through climate change 

adaptation planning, USDA will increase the 

resilience of these sectors and communities to 

climate change.
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 3

vulnerabilities below build on prior vulnerability 

assessments of the Department and draw from our 

best understanding of the threats posed by climate 

change and its impacts in the Fourth National 

Climate Assessment. The potential climate 

impacts to agricultural productivity, water quantity 

and quality, vulnerable communities, public lands 

and infrastructure, and as a result of extreme 

events will have broad Department-wide effects. 

For each vulnerability, we describe the threat and 

propose adaptation actions to address it. Some 

of these actions overlap with the cross-cutting 

actions outlined in section III, while others 

specifically target the vulnerabilities described 

below.

1. Decreased agricultural 

productivity

Climate change threatens growth in agricultural 

productivity through direct effects such as changes 

in temperature and precipitation patterns, and 

secondary effects, such as increased pest and 

disease pressures, decline in pollinator health, 

reduced crop and forage quantity and quality, and 

infrastructure damage. Agricultural productivity is 

additionally threatened by impacts to water supply 

and increased frequency and intensity of extreme 

weather events, which are described in more 

detail in Vulnerabilities #2 and #4. Agricultural 

productivity is vulnerable to the impacts of 

climate change via:

• Crop and livestock production. With 

variation at local, regional, and continental 

scales, climate change is projected overall 

to impact crop production by reducing 

both quantity and quality of yields, altering 

optimal growing season periods, and 

increasing likelihood of crop failure and 

damage. Similarly, livestock production will 

be impacted by reducing the quantity and 

quality of pasture and forage, lowering the 

yield of feed grain, affecting livestock health, 

and fostering the spread and resilience of 

pathogens and parasites that affect livestock 

development.

2021, will close the 2018-2022 performance cycle’s 

KPIs and, where possible, reflect the new draft 

KPIs. Finally, for FY 2021, USDA’s Risk Profile 

will be updated to incorporate risks and risk 

mitigation strategies that reflect the Biden-Harris 

Administration’s priorities, like climate change, 

where possible. 

The complete package of this USDA Action Plan 

for Climate Adaptation and Resilience includes:

• This Action Plan for Climate Adaptation 

and Resilience that builds on prior 

adaptation plans,

• An update to USDA Departmental 

Regulation 1070-001 USDA Policy 

Statement on Climate Change Adaptation, 

and

• Identification of the Director of the Office of 

Energy and Environmental Policy (OEEP) 

in the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) 

as the senior agency official responsible for 

carrying out the climate adaptation activities 

described in this Plan.

This Plan, which aligns with guidance from the 

White House Council on Environmental Quality 

(CEQ), includes:

• Five vulnerabilities due to climate change 

that USDA has identified and must address;

• Five actions USDA will implement in 

its mission, programs, operations, and 

management in anticipation of and in 

response to a changing climate;

• A description of efforts to enhance the 

climate literacy of USDA’s workforce; and

• Descriptions of how climate adaptation and 

preparedness is built into management and 

decision-points for USDA climate-ready 

sites, facilities, products, and services.

II. CLIMATE VULNERABILITIES

Climate change presents many challenges 

to USDA and its stakeholders. The five 
4 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

• Reduced soil quality. Agricultural, forest, 

and grassland soils are sensitive to long term 

changes in temperature and precipitation, 

management practices, and multiple uses 

like recreation. The interactive effects of 

these stressors can increase erosion rates, 

reduce soil quality, and alter soil composition 

that supports plant growth. Additionally, 

increases in temperature, changes in moisture 

levels, and disturbances like wildfire, pests, 

and disease can release carbon stored in soil 

organic matter.

• Pest and disease pressure. Climate change 

may expand or shift the range of a pest, 

pathogen, or vector organism, increasing its 

ability to establish in areas not previously 

considered at risk, elevating the risks to 

agriculture and forestry. Climate change may 

also lead to changes in wildlife migratory 

patterns, diseases, disease life cycles, 

predator-livestock interactions, and mass 

mortality events. These increased pressures 

may impact the Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Service’s (APHIS) ability to 

monitor for animal and plant pests and 

diseases in traded and domestically produced 

goods.

• Pollinator health. Pollinator health, which 

is essential to successful crop production and 

highly correlated with floral landscapes, is 

threatened by climate-driven temperature 

and rainfall extremes. Areas vulnerable to 

climate change include the commercial 

beekeeping industry, non-managed pollinator 

populations, and the subsequent threats to 

specialty crop industries.

• Crop insurance. Agricultural producers 

purchase crop insurance for protection 

against numerous production and price risks, 

which can include climate and weatherrelated losses from hurricanes, flood, drought, 

hail, and wildfires. Forecasts of more rapid 

changes in climatic conditions have raised 

concerns that these risks will increase 

relative to historical conditions. In addition 

to implications for landowner decisions 

regarding land use, crop mix, and production 

practices, changing agricultural risks could 

affect the performance of the Federal Crop 

Insurance Program (FCIP), managed by 

the Risk Management Agency (RMA). 

Economic Research Service (ERS) analysis 

suggests that even with some adaptation 

actions taken by producers, climate change 

could lower domestic production of major 

commodities, leading to higher prices, higher 

premiums and, consequently, higher FCIP 

subsidies. Without adaptation actions on the 

part of farmers, these potential cost increases 

are likely to be even greater.

In response to the threats and impacts to 

agricultural productivity described above, USDA 

has identified several key adaptation actions: 

• Increase implementation of on-farm 

adaptation strategies and practices. The 

Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the 

Natural Resources Conservation Service 

(NRCS) can leverage existing programs to 

support farmers, ranchers, and landowners 

in understanding the vulnerabilities of 

their operations to a changing climate 

and implementing adaptive practices and 

management strategies. NRCS programs, 

such as the Conservation Stewardship 

Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality 

Incentives Program (EQIP), and initiatives, 

such as the Soil Health Initiative, can 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

5

provide financial and technical assistance 

and resources for implementing practices, 

like cover crops, reduced and no tillage, 

and improved irrigation systems, that 

contribute to more resilient landscapes. 

FSA loan programs, including Operating 

Loans, the Farm Ownership Loan Program, 

and the Conservation Loan Program, 

can also provide funds for a wide range of 

purposes, including short-term equipment or 

operating needs or long-term infrastructure 

enhancements to support increased 

resilience. USDA agencies will continue 

to evaluate and modify existing programs, 

like the Conservation Reserve Program 

(CRP), the Emergency Conservation 

Program (ECP), and the Emergency Forest 

Restoration Program (EFRP), for climate 

risks and adaptation opportunities. In 

administering disaster-related programs, 

USDA will aim to build resilience and 

adaptive capacity to future shocks whenever 

possible. Barriers to scaling up the adoption 

of adaptation practices include high costs of 

implementation, insufficient incentives, and 

need for additional technical assistance to 

aid decision-making and implementation.

• Support active landscape-scale management 

and disturbance responses. Supporting 

healthy landscapes starts with ensuring 

that whole ecosystems are managed at 

the landscape scale, considering multiple 

components, interactions, and timescales. 

For example, the Forest Service’s (FS) 

Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) 

teams assess post-wildfire disturbances 

and implement short-term treatments to 

stabilize soils to minimize threats to built 

and natural infrastructure, helping to ensure 

long-term ecosystem integrity. On private 

working lands, NRCS’s area-wide and 

watershed planning processes bring together 

state agencies, soil and water conservation 

districts, regional planning commissions, 

counties, and other governmental entities to 

coordinate long-term resource management 

at the landscape level. Current barriers 

include capacity to translate science into 

practice and ensuring sufficient workforce 

and public education around these topics. 

• Improve access to climate data and tools.

Improved access to climate and climaterelated data can help producers better 

understand changing conditions and adjust 

their management decisions accordingly. The 

USDA Climate Hubs play a pivotal role in 

developing and curating data and tools for 

producers and the public. USDA’s Office of 

the Chief Economist (OCE) will continue 

to partner with the National Drought 

Mitigation Center (NDMC) to improve their 

capacity to provide actionable information 

to the public and record observed drought 

impacts.

• Enhance systems for monitoring and 

mitigating vector and disease spread. 

APHIS and FS will improve current 

monitoring systems and responses to vector 

and disease spread, incorporate state-ofthe-art modeling to inform surveillance, 

develop early warning systems, and identify 

better options for vector control and animal 

protection. APHIS will also evaluate its 

regulatory framework for biotechnology and 

genome editing as use of these technologies 

increases to support the development of 

climate-adapted crops and livestock.

• Continue research into climate impacts on 

agricultural productivity and adaptation 

strategies and practices. Further research 

is needed to understand the full range of 

potential impacts, inform implementation 

of adaptation strategies, and identify barriers 

to access. The Agricultural Research Service 

(ARS) and the National Institute of Food 

and Agriculture (NIFA) support research 

on adaptation strategies, including adapted 

cultivars and crops, enhanced water and 

input-use efficiency, optimal production 

efficiency, and improved resistance to 

diseases and pests. ARS’s Long-Term 
6 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) sites 

will continue landscape and regionalscale approaches to investigate sustainable 

intensification of U.S. agriculture. The Office 

of the Chief Scientist (OCS) will continue 

to coordinate research into pollinator health, 

including changes in plant pollen ranges, 

co-benefits of resilient plant species to 

pollinators and carbon sequestration, colocation of pollinator habitat with renewable 

energy sites, and practices to address 

increased stress on pollinator health.

• Provide climate-smart risk management 

products. New and continuing actions that 

RMA will take to help producers manage 

climate-related production risks include:

• Evaluation and monitoring of climate 

risks to the FCIP and update of program 

parameters, like earliest and final planting 

dates and sales closing dates, based on 

these analyses;

• Implementation of state-funded incentives 

to encourage cover crop planting;

• Use of the Whole Farm Revenue 

Protection product to support farmers who 

use crop diversification to reduce risk;

• Continued insurance coverage for crops 

that accommodate new agronomic 

practices that minimize water use;

• Implementation of procedures that 

facilitate access to insurance coverage 

to accommodate climate-driven shifts in 

production areas;

• Application of recently revised premium 

rating methodology so that rates more 

quickly reflect changes in risk; and

• Monitoring of premium rating 

methodology, loss adjustment standards, 

underwriting standards, and other 

insurance program materials to ensure 

they are appropriate for new production 

regions or practice changes within regions.

In parallel with these efforts, the Climate 

Hubs will continue to provide information 

and tools to support producers’ capacity to 

manage for impacts to crop insurance, such 

as the AgRisk Viewer, a decision-support tool 

that provides historic crop insurance data to 

assess climate risk.

Many of the actions described above are inprogress or positioned to begin soon through 

coordinated Department-level efforts and creative 

applications of existing USDA resources and 

programs. Additional investments directed 

towards these efforts will enable USDA to more 

effectively address actions that rely on new 

data or expertise or require significant program 

enhancements. In the near-term, progress can be 

measured using existing systems that correlate well 

with target outcomes, like data from the North 

American Long-Term Soil Productivity study, led 

by Forest Service Research & Development (FS 

R&D). Agency record-keeping can also support 

progress measurement, including loan funds use, 

technical and financial assistance disbursed, and 

programmatic changes or additional investments 

made considering assessed climate risks.

2. Threat to water quantity 

and quality

Climate change impacts on the water cycle are 

resulting in earlier snowmelt, reduced water 

supply, more intense and frequent drought, 

degraded water quality, excess soil moisture, and 

greater flooding, all of which will alter crop and 

animal production and quality and management of 

forest and rangeland systems. In 2021, producers 

in areas like the Klamath River Basin and the 

Colorado River Basin are again experiencing 

severe drought conditions resulting in historically 

low water allocations. Key threats and impacts 

related to water supply include:

• Water quantity and drought. With 

climate change, producers are confronting 

greater intra- and interannual variability 

in the distribution, quantity, and timing of 

precipitation. Drought has become more 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 7

persistent and widespread with impacts 

on soil moisture and health, groundwater 

recharge, runoff, and ultimately agricultural 

productivity. Changes in snowpack also 

impact water supply and seasonal runoff 

timing. These changes in the water supply 

have the potential to drastically shift the 

geographic distribution of agriculture and 

exert greater pressure on finite groundwater 

resources.

• Water quality. Precipitation extremes can 

cause excessive runoff and soil erosion, 

which lead to field production issues and 

downstream impacts on quality of water 

resources, including eutrophication and 

hypoxia.

• Riparian and aquatic ecosystems. Changes 

in climate and the water cycle are affecting 

aquatic and riparian ecosystem structure 

and function, potentially resulting in loss of 

at-risk species, new species being put at risk, 

the introduction of additional or expansion 

of existing invasive species, and the 

establishment of new diseases and pathogens.

• Forest resilience. Declines in forest health 

because of drought, excess soil moisture and 

flooding will lead to increased vulnerability 

to disasters (see Vulnerability #4) such as 

wildfires, severe storms, and forest insect 

and pathogen outbreaks. These disasters will 

impact communities through decreases in 

ecosystem health and delivery of ecosystem 

services.

Priority actions that can be taken to respond to 

these risks to water quantity and quality include: 

• Target existing programs to support 

water issues. Projected changes in water 

availability will require programmatic 

shifts that specifically integrate climate 

adaptation and resilience-building. FSA 

currently delivers several assistance programs 

for producers who have experienced 

hardships due to water-related impacts 

including the Noninsured Crop Disaster 

Assistance Program (NAP), the Emergency 

Conservation Program (ECP), the Tree 

Assistance Program (TAP), the Livestock 

Forage Program (LFP), and ad hoc programs 

like the Quality Loss Adjustment program 

(QLA). USDA will evaluate the existing 

programs within legislative authority to 

ensure that coverage or grazing periods 

accurately represent when threats to water 

quantity and quality could occur. For 

example, FSA programs could adapt to 

support water quantity and quality issues 

by broadening support to annual cropping 

systems that increase water use efficiency. 

NRCS’s Regional Conservation Partnership 

Program (RCPP) and EQIP can provide 

financial and technical assistance to the 

irrigated agricultural sector in support of 

additional water storage infrastructure and 

soil enhancing practices.

• Build resilience by enhancing soil health.

Through a variety of conservation practices, 

soils can be enhanced to promote water 

infiltration and be less prone to surface 

runoff and downstream flooding. Building 

soil health is a slow process that can take 

a number of years and requires changes in 

cropping systems and management practices. 

Programs like EQIP, RCPP, and the Soil 

Health Initiative help promote practices such 

as cover crops, reduced tillage, and prescribed 

grazing that can improve soil health and 
8 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

build more resilient landscapes. Adaptation 

Action #1, below, further highlights the 

impact that improvements to soil health can 

make on long-term sustainability.

• Use a landscape approach in addressing 

water issues. Successful adaptation will 

require an integrated, landscape scale 

approach, including managing water 

resources across private and public lands, 

restoring terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to 

enhance their resilience to climate stressors, 

and addressing the effects of pathogens and 

invasive species. Heterogeneous land cover 

makes developing resilience strategies for 

water resources on this scale complicated 

and requires participation, cooperation, and 

coordination of diverse stakeholders.

• Explore innovative technology and 

approaches. Drought-adapted varieties, 

dynamic and data-driven irrigation 

technology, and increasingly efficient 

delivery, storage, and recycling of water will 

be important adaptation tools. Improved 

and integrated climate, groundwater, and 

surface water measurements and modeling 

will help predict vulnerability in water 

availability and identify priority areas for 

reduced water use. Innovative translation of 

water management research and technology 

to on-field realities through extension and 

education will be essential to support user 

adoption and alleviate producer and land 

manager concerns.

• Invest in water management infrastructure 

and adaptive irrigation systems. Investing 

in additional water storage infrastructure, 

such as new reservoirs and managed aquifer 

recharge, and increasing the ability of waterrelated infrastructure to survive extreme 

events, can help irrigated agriculture adapt 

to a variable future and expand availability 

of seasonal runoff. In traditional rainfed 

agricultural regions, producers may adapt to 

more variable growing season precipitation 

by beginning to irrigate or practicing 

supplemental irrigation. Barriers to these 

actions include the need to address the 

ecosystem impacts of dams, the relative lack 

of institutions to guide the development of 

managed aquifer recharge, and the high cost 

to build on-farm irrigation infrastructure. 

• Leverage existing federal coordination 

mechanisms. USDA will continue to 

play a leading role in existing interagency 

drought coordination networks including 

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration’s (NOAA) National 

Integrated Drought Information System 

(NIDIS) and National Drought Resilience 

Partnership (NDRP). OCE and NDMC will 

continue to leverage their partnership to 

support Climate Hub projects that provide 

useful and usable drought products to end 

users. Moreover, the Climate Hubs will 

continue supporting NIDIS in their regional 

Drought Early Warning Systems (DEWS). 

A Drought Learning Network (DLN) was 

jointly developed by the Climate Hubs, 

NDMC, and NIDIS, and allows stakeholders 

to share experiences in preparing for, 

responding to, and recovering from drought.

Many current USDA programs are well-suited 

to address these water-related threats and can 

provide a strong foundation for completing 

the necessary actions. It will also take new and 

reinforced partnerships within federal government 

and with Tribes, states, non-governmental 

organizations (NGOs), and businesses to tackle 

the significant challenge of addressing the 

long-term sustainability of the Nation’s water 

supply. Much of this work will take years to 

complete and therefore requires five- or ten-year 

timelines to measure progress. USDA’s National 

Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) data on 

the market value attributable to irrigated farms 

and irrigated land, which is collected in the 

Census of Agriculture, will be used to assess the 

efficacy of future adaptation efforts in the irrigated 

agricultural sector. U.S. Geological Survey’s 

(USGS) water use reports, which are released 

at 5-year intervals, will serve as another useful 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 9

tool to measure changes in water use over time. 

Improvements in monitoring, infrastructure, 

and research could be realized with additional 

investments to further minimize the climate risks 

to water for soil and forest ecosystems.

3. Disproportionate impacts on 

vulnerable communities

Socially disadvantaged, low-income, minority, 

and rural populations as well as American Indians, 

Alaska Natives, and sovereign Tribal governments 

are more likely to be vulnerable to the impacts 

of climate change. These communities’ ability to 

adapt to a changing climate is often limited by 

financial, social, and other constraints. Climate 

change is likely to disproportionately impact these 

communities via several pathways:

• Health. Many communities who are exposed 

to the impacts of climate change are already 

burdened by air and water pollution and 

other environmental health hazards. Health 

risks of climate change may compound 

existing health issues in Tribal and Alaska 

Native communities, including risks from 

the loss of traditional food and practices, 

community displacement, new infectious 

diseases, and other effects of climate change.

• Food. Climate change poses risks for the 

U.S. food system, including production risks 

(as described in Vulnerability #1), transport 

and trade vulnerabilities, the potential 

for increased food loss and waste, and 

diminished food safety. These vulnerabilities 

challenge USDA’s mission to provide 

leadership on food, nutrition, and related 

issues.

• Ecosystem services and livelihoods. Climate 

change threatens ecosystem services that 

many communities depend on including 

clean air and water, subsistence foods, 

medicine, fiber, fuel, and cultural services, 

such as cultural heritage and identity, 

spiritual, aesthetic, and educational values, 

and recreation and tourism opportunities. 

Rural communities, many of whose 

livelihoods are tightly tied to the agriculture 

and forestry sectors, and migrant workers, 

who provide a large share of agricultural 

labor in some regions, are particularly 

vulnerable to climate change impacts.

• Extreme weather event impacts. As 

described further in Vulnerability #4, 

the impacts of extreme weather events 

influenced by climate change are expected 

to have a disproportionate impact on 

populations lacking resources to cope 

with economic and environmental shocks 

and uncertainty. Communities in riskprone areas can face cumulative exposure 

to multiple pollutants and climate event 

impacts. Without action, the adverse effects 

of extreme weather events, severe wildfire, 

flooding, drought, and invasive species on 

these populations and Tribal communities 

will only intensify.

USDA actions to help the most vulnerable 

communities adapt to climate change will include:

• Increase equity and environmental justice 

awareness, skills, and abilities of USDA 

staff. USDA will take additional steps to 

educate its staff on environmental justice, 

including disproportionate impacts from 

climate change, and how it relates to USDA 

agencies, programs, and activities. This will 
10 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

enable the Department to assess its current 

and future activities, identify areas and 

strategies for improvement, and develop 

metrics to ensure progress in supporting 

communities most vulnerable to the impacts 

of climate change.

• Engage meaningfully with impacted and 

vulnerable communities. The Department 

will leverage existing relationships and build 

off past and on-going Tribal consultation and 

stakeholder engagement processes, including 

those recently initiated to seek input on 

the Department’s climate-smart agriculture 

and forestry strategy. As the Department 

and individual agencies continue to develop 

adaptation and environmental justice 

strategies, they should engage directly 

with environmental justice leaders and 

communities impacted by climate change to 

understand vulnerabilities and risks, identify 

barriers to and resources for adaptation, 

and collaboratively develop solutions and 

responses, including through participatory 

adaptation planning. 

• Evaluate programs and activities for risks 

to communities. In carrying out actions to 

address climate risks, USDA should develop 

robust processes to ensure disproportionately 

high impacts and maladaptation are 

avoided or mitigated. FS has developed 

guidance for incorporating analysis and 

consideration of impacted communities 

during Land Management Planning and 

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 

processes and has established a robust Urban 

Forestry program to address environmental 

justice issues in urban areas. Evaluating risks 

to vulnerable communities may involve 

leveraging new and updated vulnerability 

assessments and existing and emerging 

tools, such as the proposed Climate and 

Economic Justice Screening Tool, to identify 

communities at risk.

• Provide assistance and resources. USDA 

will continue work to ensure its programs 

and resources are distributed equitably and 

are accessible to those most at risk of climate 

change impacts and in need of adaptation 

support. Several USDA programs have 

special provisions or dedicated funding 

for historically underserved producers—

which may include socially disadvantaged, 

beginning, limited resource, and veteran 

farmers and ranchers—who are among the 

most vulnerable to impacts. Activities to 

integrate environmental justice and equity 

into existing programs will require removing 

barriers to participation, establishing trust, 

transparency, and accountability, identifying 

opportunities for broader inclusivity, 

and targeting education and outreach. 

Additional areas for advancing equity and 

environmental justice are described within 

USDA’s Climate-Smart Agriculture and 

Forestry Strategy: 90-Day Progress Report.

Ensuring environmental justice and equity is 

an ongoing activity for USDA. The actions 

presented here can build on recent outreach 

efforts that have resulted in increases in program 

participation by historically underserved 

producers. Agencies will need to prioritize 

environmental justice in their planning and 

budget processes and when implementing new 

programs and policies. Indicators of success will be 

identified in coordination with the White House 

Environmental Justice Interagency Council’s 

forthcoming performance metrics.

4. Shocks due to extreme 

climate events

Climate change is causing more frequent and 

intense disruptive events including hurricanes, 

floods, drought (see Vulnerability #2), and fires, 

which can have significant impacts on agriculture 

and forestry. Rural and vulnerable communities 

will be disproportionately impacted by these 

events while lacking the resources to adequately 

prepare for and respond to them. Key areas of 

impact associated with extreme climate events 

include: 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 11

• Hurricanes, floods, and other extreme 

weather events. Extreme weather events are 

not new, but recent increases in frequency 

and severity of these events, like hurricanes, 

floods, tornadoes, hail, and other severe 

storms, have negatively affected working 

lands. Hurricanes and floods are expected 

to increasingly affect U.S. agriculture and 

forests leading to crop loss and production 

delays, degradation of soil and water 

resources, damage to infrastructure, alteration 

of forest health and productivity, and 

impacts to community health and safety. As 

hurricanes become more frequent and severe, 

wind, rain, and debris damage to buildings, 

power grids, and telecommunications will 

be increasingly common. Landslides, stream 

washouts, and downed trees can threaten 

water quality and community and animal 

safety, and frequently require targeted 

restoration and salvage efforts. 

• Wildfire. Climate change is expected to 

continue to alter fire regimes, increasing 

the frequency and extent of wildfire. As 

the wildland-urban interface expands, 

wildfire presents increased risks to human 

health and infrastructure. Severe wildfire 

can leave forests in need of reforestation 

and restoration and heighten the risk of 

secondary disturbances such as erosion, 

landslides, and invasive species.

• Vulnerability of rural communities. 

As mentioned in Vulnerability #3, rural 

communities are particularly vulnerable to 

extreme weather events due to a greater 

direct dependence on agriculture, forestry, 

and outdoor recreation for income and 

employment, existing challenges with 

infrastructure and connectivity, and 

limited capacity to prepare and respond 

to these events. Severe weather events 

threaten ongoing rural development efforts, 

negatively impacting projects, destroying 

properties, delaying construction, and 

disrupting revenue for existing loans. 

Increasing climate variability will result in 

increasing uncertainty in agricultural and 

forest industries in rural communities, likely 

leading to long-lasting shifts in community 

structure and composition. Current declining 

trends in population and employment tend 

to also reduce resources available to local 

government and community associations to 

deal with climate change variability.

In addition to the resilience-building actions 

described in Vulnerabilities #1 and #2, further 

actions can be taken to adapt to the risks from 

extreme climate events: 

• Update vulnerability assessments. With the 

support of the USDA Research, Education, 

and Economics (REE) agencies and FS 

R&D, in 2015 the Climate Hubs conducted 

vulnerability assessments for each of their 

ten regions based on the Fourth National 

Climate Assessment. Likewise, FS engaged 

in science management partnerships 

to develop vulnerability assessments in 

over 100 national forests and grasslands, 

including other public and private lands, 

with applications in land management and 

project plans. The Hubs will update their 

vulnerability assessments for the forthcoming 

Fifth National Climate Assessment and 

continue to support the development of 
12 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

more place-based assessments that identify 

climate-smart practices to build resilience. 

• Use monitoring tools to build resilience. 

NASS has developed a series of geospatial 

agricultural monitoring portals that can be 

used to identify and quantify impacts from 

extreme climatic events. These portals can 

provide near real-time updates on major 

storm disaster events, crop condition and 

soil moisture, decision-support system 

capabilities, and annual planted crop area 

to inform agricultural adaptation strategies. 

Examples of these NASS portals and other 

USDA-supported decision-support tools 

include:

• NASS Disaster Analysis Program, which 

captures impacts from major storm events,

• The joint vegetative condition and soil 

moisture monitoring portal,

• AgroClimate, a weather and climatebased decision support system for 

agriculture, and

• After Fire: Toolkit for the Southwest, a 

resource to assess post-fire risks.

• Build forest and grassland resilience 

through management, planning, and 

responses. Active management to build 

resilience to wildfire, insects, and disease is 

a high priority for the FS. USDA’s ClimateSmart Agriculture and Forestry Strategy: 90-

Day Progress Report and Adaptation Action 

#1, below, discuss these efforts further. 

Specific actions related to extreme events 

include development of information on 

disaster preparedness and response, support 

for forest products and markets for salvage 

and small-diameter timber, and support for 

post-disturbance emergency stabilization and 

rehabilitation. Wildfire and hurricanes can 

provide opportunities to increase climate 

resilience through species selection and 

soils restoration in disturbed areas. Barriers 

to implementation include underdeveloped 

markets and feedstock sources that slow use 

of hurricane salvage and small-diameter 

timber.

• Strengthen disaster assistance and 

relief programs. In addition to assistance 

programs mentioned in Vulnerability #2 

(NAP, ECP, TAP, LFP, and QLA), FSA 

offers the Livestock Indemnity Program 

(LIP), Emergency Assistance for Livestock, 

Honeybees and Farm-raised Fish (ELAP), 

and Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity 

Program and Program Plus (WHIP and 

WHIP+) to help producers cope with 

impacts of extreme events and natural 

disasters. FSA also provides Emergency 

Loans for producers who might otherwise be 

forced to terminate operations, and Disaster 

Set-Aside options, which allow direct loan 

borrowers to forego an installment until the 

end of the loan term to reduce short-term 

financial strain due to a disaster. 

• Enhance the adaptive capacity of rural 

communities. Resilience to extreme events 

and other climate impacts will require 

increasing local capacity to make adaptive 

improvements to community resources 

and expanding options for economic 

opportunities. USDA’s Climate-Smart 

Agriculture and Forestry Strategy: 90-

Day Progress Report highlights ways in 

which USDA can support new and better 

for markets for agriculture and forestry 

products while simultaneously building the 

resilience of rural communities. Examples of 

actions include supporting participation in 

voluntary carbon markets, renewable energy 

development and energy efficiency activities, 

and loans and grants to expand broadband 

access. 

Many measures to build resilience to extreme 

events are long term investments whereas some 

programs will have distinct timelines triggered 

by the occurrence of such events. For example, 

while loan assistance is on-going, Emergency 

Loan and Disaster Set-Aside assistance is only 

available after a declared disaster. The level of 

support proposed in the FY 2022 budget and other 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 13

mechanisms will be used to address the backlog of 

National Forest System (NFS) restoration projects 

and enhance current work on risk identification, 

vulnerability assessment, adaptation planning, 

and disaster preparedness and recovery. Program 

records, including FSA’s loan disbursement 

records and NRCS’s reporting on conservation 

and investments, can be used to track activities. 

Progress on NFS lands will be monitored through 

the FS Climate Scorecard and the number of acres 

restored. 

5. Stress on infrastructure & 

public lands

The increasing frequency, severity, and extent 

of disturbances with climate change can have 

far-reaching consequences on natural and built 

infrastructure on public lands. Changes in flood 

frequency, wildfire intensity, sea level, and 

extreme precipitation events can cause damage 

to low-elevation infrastructure, threaten utilities 

and air quality, endanger coastal communities, 

and increase erosion and landslides. For the 

NFS, in the absence of any climate adaptation 

action, reforestation and restoration needs will 

continue to increase, ecosystem services will 

be lost or diminished, aging infrastructure will 

deteriorate, and social and economic benefits will 

be disrupted. Roads and bridges damaged or lost 

because of increased flooding can limit access to 

Federal lands, create safety hazards, and reduce 

the availability of water resources. Actions USDA 

can take regarding built infrastructure and forest 

resilience include:

• Increase resilience of built infrastructure. 

Infrastructure must be upgraded, or newly 

designed, to withstand increasing extreme 

events and disturbances. The FS is using 

decision support tools and climate change 

vulnerability assessments to identify when 

and where to relocate or decommission 

vulnerable infrastructure and improve 

transportation infrastructure to reduce 

erosion and sedimentation. Other adaptation 

actions include improving streamflow 

forecasting and expanding streamflow 

and snowpack monitoring networks to 

help managers respond to extreme events 

and ensure water allocation downstream. 

Barriers to implementation include funding 

to upgrade existing infrastructure and 

uncertainty in future flood projections.

• Address forest restoration needs. FS will 

need to increase the pace of restoration to 

address 1 to 4 million acres of restoration 

needs on national forests as described in 

the FS reforestation strategy. This action 

will require the use of planning tools and 

decision-making frameworks to enable 

collaborative planning and implementation 

of large restoration treatments across 

management boundaries. 

• Build resilience to severe wildfires and 

their effects. Building resilience to wildfire 

necessitates the accelerated use of prescribed 

fire and the strategic implementation of 

hazardous fuel treatments to reduce wildfire 

impacts. Following severe wildfires, FS will 

prioritize public safety, forest rehabilitation, 

and slope stabilization. Rural Development 

(RD) and FS will work together to identify 

opportunities to link post wildfire restoration 

efforts with bioenergy generation. Barriers 

to implementing this action include limited 
14 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

capacity and competing priorities during 

periods of widespread wildfire activity, 

State and local air quality compliance for 

prescribed fires, and public resistance to 

wildfire and fuels management.

Addressing the growing reforestation and 

restoration backlog over the next 10 years will 

require a four-fold increase in planting and a 

30 percent increase in certification of natural 

regeneration, resulting in 3.6 million acres 

reforested. Given the importance of forest health 

and resilience to the long-term sustainability of 

forest landowners and surrounding communities, 

these efforts are described in further in Adaptation 

Action #1 below. For infrastructure like roads, 

bridges, and facilities, their long service life means 

that adaptation will be a long-term effort. Longterm monitoring will help detect potential climate 

change effects and evaluate the effectiveness 

of adaptation options. Existing FS monitoring 

efforts include the Climate Scorecard (biennially 

through 2025), the Key Performance Indicator 

for Terrestrial Condition Assessment (annually 

for all NFS lands), the Watershed Condition 

Framework, Biennial Monitoring Reports, and 

Forest Inventory and Analysis.

Already, the Great American Outdoors Act 

(GAOA) is being leveraged to develop more 

resilient infrastructure. In March 2021, USDA 

announced investment via GAOA’s National 

Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund, 

which will enable implementation of more than 

500 infrastructure improvements across national 

forests and grasslands. The Forest Service also 

continues to use Land and Water Conservation 

Fund (LWCF) programs to strategically 

conserve forests on private and public lands. 

Future investments to address the reforestation 

backlog and wildfire risk could be targeted 

towards nurseries and natural infrastructure, 

accelerated project planning, building expertise, 

and improving management strategies to build 

resilience to wildfire. Continued and expanded 

cross-boundary collaboration with other federal 

agencies, Tribes, states, and partners will help 

achieve the requisite scale of response.

III. USDA’S ADAPTATION 

ACTIONS

Building on the vulnerabilities identified above, 

USDA will take cross-cutting adaptation actions 

to prepare the American agriculture and forestry 

sectors and rural and urban communities to be 

resilient in a changing climate. These actions 

aim to bridge the gap between innovative science 

and technology for climate adaptation and 

preparedness and in-field and on-site practices 

to build soil and forest health. These actions will 

reduce producers’ vulnerability to climate change 

through increased access to relevant climate data 

and expanded education and outreach efforts.

The Fourth National Climate Assessment outlines 

the key challenges associated with adaptation 

planning for USDA consideration. The first 

challenge is that adaptation planning must be a 

sustained, iterative process. Mainstreaming the 

climate preparedness thought process rather than 

making it an additive step in decision-making will 

lead to greater success. Secondly, it is essential 

that USDA considers both current and projected 

climate change and variability in its planning 

and decision-making. Supporting climate literacy 

within the USDA workforce, as discussed later in 

this Plan, can support this new mode of thinking. 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 15

A third challenge is ensuring that climate 

adaptation actions are not limited to the stages 

of awareness, assessment, and planning but are 

implemented, monitored, and re-evaluated, which 

will require sustained attention and measures of 

success. Finally, the impacts of climate change on 

USDA and its stakeholders will vary regionally 

and locally, requiring climate adaptation actions at 

relevant scales.

USDA proposes adaptation actions to:

1. Build resilience across landscapes with 

investments in soil and forest health;

2. Increase outreach and education to promote 

adoption and application of climate-smart 

adaptation strategies;

3. Broaden access to and availability of climate 

data at regional and local scales for USDA 

Mission Areas, producers, land managers, and 

other stakeholders;

4. Increase support for research and 

development of climate-smart practices and 

technologies to inform USDA and help 

producers and land managers adapt to a 

changing climate; and

5. Leverage the USDA Climate Hubs as a 

framework to support USDA Mission Areas 

in delivering adaptation science, technology, 

and tools.

1. Build resilience to climate 

change across landscapes with 

investments in soil and 

forest health

Economic vitality and quality of life throughout 

America depends on healthy, climate-adapted 

agricultural and forest systems. Proactive 

investments in soil and forest health will 

build resilience to climate change into these 

systems. This action includes efforts to build 

resilience via conservation practices, improved 

water management and efficiency, climateinformed reforestation and forest management, 

and ecosystem restoration and management. 

Enhancing soil and forest health will protect 

ecosystem functions that support the long-term 

resilience of working lands and forests and enable 

producers to successfully and sustainably enhance 

productivity to meet growing global demand in a 

changing climate.

Climate change threatens to increase the 

degradation of soil and water resources, including 

via increases in extreme precipitation events 

that lead to soil erosion, degraded water quality 

in lakes and streams, damage to infrastructure, 

and diminished crop production. On forest land, 

a combination of acute disturbances and shifts 

due to gradual climate change are expected to 

alter forest structure, function, productivity, and 

health, which will decrease the ability of forests to 

provide important ecosystem services. The rate at 

which restoration services are needed across the 

landscape is currently outpacing the capacity of 

land management agencies and their partners.

A variety of conservation management practices 

to restore soil structure and hydrologic function 

of agricultural landscapes can be adopted to 

improve resilience, including no till and reduced 

till, cover crops and crop rotations, improved 

nutrient management, agroforestry practices 

such as windbreaks and buffers, and prescribed 

grazing. These practices help to reduce erosion and 
16 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

increase organic matter in the soil, which improve 

water holding capacity and water infiltration, 

thereby increasing resilience to drought, heavy 

precipitation, and extreme temperatures. Current 

adoption of these practices varies by practice, 

region, and crop. For example, U.S. farmers 

have rapidly expanded their use of cover crops, 

a 50 percent increase from 2012 to 2017, yet 

their use spans only 5 percent of total harvested 

cropland. Active forest management, including 

thinning forests and treating fire-deficient 

landscapes by prescribed burning, and climatesmart reforestation can increase resilience and 

reduce risks of wildfire, insect, and disease related 

mortality. 

Many of these practices provide co-benefits for 

climate change mitigation via enhanced soil 

carbon sequestration and reduced emissions and 

for water quality and quantity through reduced 

erosion and runoff. Improvements in forest health 

can mitigate emissions from increased wildfire, 

increase soil carbon sequestration, mitigate risks to 

communities in the wildland-urban interface, and 

maintain other valuable forest ecosystem services.

Recent and ongoing USDA activities to promote 

resilience via enhanced soil and forest health 

include:

• Creation of The Adaptation Workbook, 

which producers can use to assess threats 

and document management choices to 

minimize climate change impacts to their 

operations. The workbook uses menus of 

adaptation strategies and approaches for 

forests, urban ecosystems, forested watershed 

and water resources management, agriculture 

and working lands, and recently published 

menus focusing on Tribal perspectives, forest 

carbon, and recreation. The workbook has 

been used to generate hundreds of adaptation 

demonstration projects using real-world 

examples of forest and farm management.

• Curation and continued growth of an online 

compendium of nearly 500 adaptation 

approaches with numerous associated 

examples on the FS Climate Change 

Resource Center (CCRC).

• Awards through NIFA’s Agriculture and Food 

Research Initiative (AFRI) to fund 14 Soil 

Health grants and 7 Signals in Soil grants, 

an interagency program with the National 

Science Foundation (NSF).

• Investment in NRCS’s Conservation 

Innovation Grants (CIG) to support the 

development of innovative tools, approaches, 

practices, and technologies to further 

natural resource conservation on private 

lands. The Soil Health Demonstration Trial, 

part of the CIG On-Farm Conservation 

Innovation Trials, will focus extensively on 

implementation of conservation practices 

and systems that improve soil health.

• Commitment of NRCS resources to fund 85 

locally driven, public-private partnerships 

via the Regional Conservation Partnership 

Program (RCPP) to address climate change, 

improve water quality, combat drought, 

enhance soil health, support wildlife habitat, 

and protect agricultural viability. 

• Encouraging enrollment in the Conservation 

Reserve Program (CRP) with new incentives 

and other adjustments to payments and 

a focus on the program’s role in climate 

change mitigation. CRP provides annual 

payments to producers in exchange for 

removing environmentally sensitive 

lands from production and implementing 

practices to improve soil health and provide 

other benefits. In addition to general and 

continuous CRP sign-up, FSA offers CRP 

Grasslands and pilot programs focused 

on soil health and clean water, such as 

Clean Lakes, Estuaries and Rivers 30-year 

contracts (CLEAR30). FSA administers 

CRP on behalf of the Commodity Credit 

Corporation.

• Investments in the FS and NRCS’s Joint 

Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership, 

which includes projects to mitigate wildfire 

risk, improve water quality, and restore 

healthy forest ecosystems on public and 

private lands. 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 17

• Release of a new fire mapping tool, Southeast 

FireMap, to enable resource managers to 

improve their approaches to managing 

wildfire risk and fire management needs 

through targeted prescribed burns and 

training.

Building on the efforts described above and in 

conjunction with the objectives of the ClimateSmart Agriculture and Forestry Strategy: 90-

Day Progress Report, USDA will use strategic 

investments to carry out climate-informed forest 

management and restoration activities, provide 

wildfire mitigation response, incentivize and scale 

up voluntary adoption of soil and forest health 

enhancing practices, and support markets that 

value the enhanced resilience of producers and 

ecosystems. Climate-adaptation practices will 

need to fit the geographic context and align with 

the interests of farmers and land managers. This 

is especially important because implementation 

costs are usually incurred on shorter timescales 

than the soil and forest health benefits are realized. 

A combined effort from NRCS, FSA, FS, USDA 

research agencies, the Climate Hubs and other 

USDA agencies will be essential to implement 

these actions effectively and address these 

challenges.

NRCS will play a key role by providing technical 

and financial assistance to farmers to implement 

and incentivize conservation practices through 

several existing programs and initiatives, including 

EQIP, CSP, RCPP, CIG, and the Soil Health 

Initiative. The backbone of NRCS data for 

designing assistance is the National Cooperative 

Soil Survey Program, which provides information 

on soil and ecological site resources of farms and 

ranches across the United States. FSA aims to 

increase enrollment in CRP by 4 million acres or 

more over the coming year, with the long-term 

goal to establish valuable land cover to improve 

water quality, soil health and carbon sequestration, 

and prevent soil erosion and loss of wildlife 

habitat. REE agencies and other programs, like 

the National Agroforestry Center, will provide 

the science and innovations that will underpin 

the management choices taken by the program 

agencies, as described in Adaptation Action #4.

FS will scale up its activities to accelerate the 

strategic implementation of hazardous fuel 

treatments and prescribed fire to reduce wildfire 

risks and to increase forest restoration and 

reforestation. To significantly reduce the risk of 

high intensity wildfire, over the next 10 years, 

the FS will need to treat an additional 20 million 

acres of NFS land and 30 million acres of other 

Federal, State, Tribal and private land, especially 

in the Western United States. These goals are 

consistent with the recommendations outlined in 

USDA’s Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry 

Strategy: 90-Day Progress Report and current 
18 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

budget priorities. A number of FS programs and 

initiatives will be engaged to build resilience on 

forests and grasslands including the Forest Legacy 

Program, which supports easements and land 

purchases for private-land conservation, as well 

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. Planning and decision-making in 

these programs and management activities will be 

based on climate-smart principles informed by FS 

R&D and the Climate Hubs.

The Climate Hubs will support efforts to build 

soil and forest health through ongoing work to 

empower land managers to incorporate climate 

adaptation into their land management planning. 

Further details of the Hubs’ outward and inwardfacing efforts are included in Adaptation Actions 

#2 and #5, respectively.

Scope, Performance, and Resources

• This action will work to build resilience 

across diverse landscapes at local to national 

scales, with a particular emphasis on 

supporting producers and land managers 

most vulnerable to climate change impacts. 

While conservation practices are often 

implemented at the field, farm, and stand 

levels, conservation planning can also be 

coordinated at the area and watershed levels. 

Large-scale forest treatment and restoration 

often spans management boundaries.

• USDA will track and estimate benefits of soil 

health practices using national survey data 

and program data. These data can be used 

to estimate soil carbon benefits and other 

co-benefits of soil health practices. USDA 

is planning to improve conservation data 

collection and reporting by implementing 

new surveys, which will provide more 

information on the adoption and benefits of 

soil health practices.

• FS will use its Climate Scorecard, particularly 

the Adaptation element, to monitor progress. 

• Active forest management treatments 

to reduce wildfire risk on Federal, State, 

Tribal and private lands will require crossgovernment coordination.

• The President’s FY 2022 Discretionary 

Funding Request includes significant 

investments within FS, NRCS, and other 

USDA agencies to enhance soil and 

forest health and resilience on public and 

private lands, including through support for 

voluntary conservation on working lands and 

for high-priority hazardous fuels and forest 

resilience projects.

2. Increase outreach and 

education to promote adoption 

and application of climate-smart 

adaptation strategies

The Nation’s farmers, foresters, and ranchers 

face increased vulnerability of their operations 

to extreme weather and long-term changes 

in climate. Low-income, minority, and Tribal 

communities as well as small-scale, beginning, 

young, underrepresented, and underserved farmers 

and foresters will bear the brunt of negative 

climate change impacts, made more difficult by 

lack of accessible and useful information sources. 

Maladapted agriculture and forestry sectors could 

lead to a less diverse and resilient food system, 

degraded natural resources, and missed economic 

opportunities.

The goal of this action is to promote adoption and 

application of climate-smart adaptation strategies. 

USDA’s Climate Hubs and NIFA, in partnership 

with the Cooperative Extension Service, 

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 

Tribal colleges, Hispanic Serving Institutions, 

additional university partners, NGOs, and others, 

can provide resources to farmers, ranchers, and 

forest landowners to increase awareness of and 

engagement in opportunities to address climate 

change. Investments in the Climate Hubs program 

will allow the network to scale up their efforts to 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 19

develop and deliver science-based, region-specific 

information and technologies. The Climate Hubs 

will strengthen partnerships to enhance support 

for science-based decision-making and facilitate 

knowledge sharing of climate risks, vulnerabilities, 

and adaptation strategies. NIFA will evaluate 

the inclusiveness of climate in its education and 

extension portfolio and leverage its resources 

to encourage stakeholders to partner with the 

Climate Hubs to develop and deliver resources 

to America’s farmers, ranchers, and landowners. 

Together, the Climate Hubs and NIFA can 

strengthen the role of extension as a force 

multiplier in increasing adoption and application 

of climate-smart practices. With a presence in 

nearly all of the more than 3,000 counties of 

the United States, the Cooperative Extension 

System’s network of agents and specialists will be 

essential to expanding the use of climate-smart 

strategies described in Adaptation Action #1.

Recent accomplishments by NIFA and the 

Climate Hubs towards this goal include:

• NIFA support for Cooperative Extension 

professionals who are actively engaged in 

the National Extension Climate Initiative 

(NECI), which promotes the recognition 

of the climate crisis, coordination and 

management of climate-smart agriculture and 

forestry outreach activities, and sharing of 

program materials;

• A NIFA solicitation for extension and 

education projects that include partnerships 

with the USDA Climate Hubs through 

AFRI’s Foundational and Applied Science 

Request for Applications (RFA);

• Through the Climate Hubs, development 

of 11 curricula reaching 402 students, 

production of 118 in-person or virtual 

workshops with an estimated 7,800 

participants, 214 presentations, and 

439 engagements with Tribes or Tribal 

organizations in FY 2020.

The Climate Hubs are a focal point for outreach 

and education efforts around climate impacts and 

risk management on working lands. Moreover, 

the Hubs act as conveners helping to gather 

information from Tribal and stakeholder groups to 

understand regional issues and deliver actionable, 

relevant information to enhance climate-informed 

decision making. While many of the Climate Hubs 

already engage with local communities, states, 

and Tribes, the Hubs’ capacity to increase climate 

outreach and education could be enhanced 

through dedicated Tribal and state liaisons. In 

addition, the Climate Hubs can expand their 

reach into under-resourced and underserved 

communities through delivery of timely, relevant, 

and credible information, data, and tools. NIFA 

can leverage existing and new funding sources 

to support colleges and universities, especially 

minority-serving institutions, in developing 

partnerships with the Climate Hubs. NIFA will 

also increase consultations with community 

colleges and minority-serving institutions to 

ensure widely accessible climate education and 

outreach opportunities.

Implementation will be accomplished through an 

expansion of the USDA Climate Hubs program 

and establishment of NIFA funding opportunities 

to address this Adaptation Action. USDA intends 

to leverage opportunities for enhanced technology 

transfer and implementation of climate-smart 

practices by linking USDA staff with other federal 

climate change coordination efforts such as the 

Department of the Interior’s Climate Adaptation 

Science Centers (CASCs), NOAA’s Regional 
20 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

Climate Centers and Regional Integrated Sciences 

and Assessments (RISAs), and U.S. Global 

Change Research Program (USGCRP) working 

groups. 

The Climate Hubs will evaluate success based 

on activities including vulnerability assessments, 

adaptation planning and menus, jointly 

developing decision-support tools, building 

technology to support climate resilience, and 

stakeholder workshops/listening sessions. Key 

metrics for NIFA include number of RFAs 

published that include climate change language 

and projects funded that support climate outreach 

and education.

Scope, Performance, and Resources

• The USDA Climate Hubs are located at five 

ARS and five FS research stations comprising 

ten regions spanning the United States and 

its territories. The Climate Hubs support 

local, state, and regional efforts including 

cross-region and national initiatives when 

there are common interests or technology 

needs.

• The Climate Hubs are overseen at the 

national level by an Executive Committee 

(EC) comprised of senior program leaders 

from across the Department who provide 

leadership on action development, 

implementation, monitoring, evaluation, 

and oversight. The National Lead, a 2-year 

rotating position among ARS, FS, and 

NRCS, works through the EC to ensure 

national coordination to capitalize on 

synergies and efficiencies.

• New NIFA programmatic support for 

climate extension and education is expected 

in FY 2022. NIFA will need to balance 

climate with other priorities across its 

research, education, and extension portfolio. 

Additional National Program Leaders with 

social and behavioral science expertise will 

help develop effective climate outreach and 

education programs.

• The President’s FY 2022 Discretionary 

Funding Request for the Climate Hubs will 

support an expansion of climate science tools 

and landowner awareness and engagement in 

climate adaptation practices.

3. Broaden access to and 

availability of climate data at 

regional and local scales for 

USDA Mission Areas, 

producers, land managers, 

and other stakeholders

Increasing access to and use of climate data, 

models, and decision support tools at the regional 

and local scales for producers, land managers, state 

and local policymakers, and USDA Mission Areas 

is a critical and ongoing priority for supporting 

timely responses to the impacts of climate change. 

This action necessitates organizing, streamlining, 

and coordinating data access points and online 

data delivery. Ensuring that climate adaptation 

strategies are accessible to all farmers, ranchers, 

forest landowners, and communities will require 

that USDA address internet access and other 

infrastructure or resource issues that limit access 

and use of climate data.

The Department aims to increase access to reliable 

climate data by supporting the collection and 

curation of scientific information on climate 

change and translating that information into 

user-friendly decision support tools, models, 

and recommendations to provide guidance 

on benefits and outcomes associated with 

agronomic decisions. To accomplish this goal, the 

Department must also provide equitable access to 

technical assistance and training for climate data 

end users.

Ways in which USDA already collects and 

provides data for improved resource management 

in a changing climate include:

• ARS’s development of the Agricultural 

Collaborative Research Outcomes System 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 21

(AgCROS) database to provide data to the 

public research and development community 

and its Partnerships for Data Innovation 

(PDI) program to implement sensors and 

other data collection, integration, and 

sharing systems that will help farmers get the 

most from their limited resources;

• ERS’s regular evaluation of its Agricultural 

Resources and Management Survey data 

products;

• NRCS, which delivers data on conservation 

practices and is modernizing its Plant List 

of Accepted Nomenclature, Taxonomy, and 

Symbols (PLANTS) database;

• FS’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA), 

which provides annual data on forests to 

assess sustainability of management practices, 

monitor forest health, productivity and 

carbon stock change, and predict the effects 

of climate change;

• NIFA with its AFRI Data Science for Food 

and Agricultural Systems program area that 

supports projects that harness data science to 

aid land managers in decision-making and a 

collaboration with the National Agriculture 

Library on an open data framework; and

• The Climate Hubs, which have improved 

the discoverability and usability of RMA 

crop insurance data for enhanced climate risk 

management with the AgRisk Viewer.

This action provides an opportunity to deliver 

credible science and user-friendly decisionmaking tools that can help producers and land 

managers apply climate change and weatherrelated information to their operations. Reliable 

data can inform planting decisions, farming 

practices, and business decisions. By improving 

current data access, this action enables USDA 

to provide support and incentives for agricultural 

data standards and to encourage partnerships with 

public and private data trusts. Additionally, this 

action presents the opportunity to create a USDAwide open access agricultural, rangeland and 

forestry database to drive development of more 

advanced tools for producers and land managers.

The Department will identify existing or emerging 

issues with data access as well as opportunities 

for improvement, with a particular focus on 

access for low-income, socially disadvantaged 

and historically underserved communities. 

Consistent financial support will be key to ensure 

that the necessary infrastructure exists for data 

access. The lack of a cohesive and consistent 

cloud computing environment will restrict the 

ability to deliver spatial data sets, and Chief 

Information Officer restrictions on research and 

development application development may delay 

delivery of user-friendly climate dashboards and 

tools. Other challenges include the availability 

of temporally resolved geospatial imagery, the 

need for additional data science expertise, and 

the capacity to incorporate social and behavioral 

sciences to evaluate human dimensions of the 

food system. Data and decision-support tools 

need to be accessible to rural communities, which 

may be challenging with current broadband and 

internet infrastructure in some communities. 

Collaborations with federal funding agencies to 

provide research support will aid in understanding 

complex climate issues and allow the Department 

to craft models and decision-making products 

essential for the sustainability of economic and 

natural resource systems. 
22 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

Scope, Performance, and Resources

• Increasing access to climate data is an 

ongoing priority in the Department, and 

a reasonable timeframe for achieving the 

goal will be FY 2021 through FY 2025. The 

first key milestone of this action will be 

leveraging new technologies and computing 

resources to effectively deliver additional 

climate data through online tools in FY 2022 

and FY 2023.

• This action will require contributions and 

support from ARS, ERS, FS, NASS, NIFA, 

NRCS, and OCS.

• Maintaining current levels of delivery and 

data access will likely be possible with 

existing resources. Direction of additional 

investments and technical capacity towards 

this action could further improve data 

quality, timeliness of delivery and ease of 

access by users.

• Increased access to and consistency of 

climate data should be addressed at the 

national, regional, and local scales.

• Supporting information tools that provide 

resolution across multiple scales will be 

critical to allow users to adjust output based 

on their specific need.

• Increased availability of technical assistance 

to support climate data and tools, increased 

access and use of climate and climate-related 

data, feedback from user communities on 

the usefulness of information and data, and 

the reduction in gaps of science and science 

delivery for agriculture will serve as useful 

performance measures.

• USDA will work to better understand Tribe 

and stakeholder needs for climate data, 

particularly in underserved communities.

• The Department will coordinate with science 

agencies across the federal government, 

including the NSF, the Department of 

Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration, and NOAA to ensure that 

federal climate-related data are accessible 

to those in the agriculture, rangeland, and 

forestry sectors. 

4. Increase support for research 

and development of climate-smart 

practices and technologies to inform USDA and help producers 

and land managers adapt to a 

changing climate

USDA will continue to support and coordinate 

the efforts of its research agencies to develop 

innovations in climate-smart agriculture and 

forestry. Evaluating the efficacy of adaptive 

practices and technologies on working lands, 

including productivity synergies and tradeoffs 

and mitigation co-benefits on soil carbon storage 

and GHG emission reductions, is a research 

priority. Other key topics for climate research 

include improved fertilizer technologies, genetic 

studies to identify climate resilient plants and 

trees, and studies of the impacts of climate change 

on pollinator communities and vector-borne 

livestock diseases. Modeling efforts can project 

the affordability of climate-smart activities, 

infer adoption likelihood, and project pest and 

disease outbreaks under different climate change 

scenarios. USDA’s long-term monitoring networks 

for snowpack, precipitation, and soil moisture 

provide data to investigate trends and develop 

management options.

The Department’s research activities form the 

basis for validating existing climate adaptation 

options and identifying and developing new ones, 

while ensuring the actions are regionally relevant 

and economically viable. USDA’s research 

integrates climate and socioeconomic change 

with production and land-management outcomes, 

while considering the secondary effects of climate’s 

influence on pollinators, pests, diseases, invasive 

species, and extreme events such as flooding and 

drought. New scientific information and tools, 

contextualized and implemented locally, can help 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 23

land and resource managers increase the resilience 

of those systems and the communities that depend 

on them. To date, however, implementation has 

been slow. Increasing partner engagement, science 

co-production, and delivery will ensure that the 

best available science is understood and put into 

practice.

USDA’s efforts to understand and minimize 

climate risks for its stakeholders have yielded 

important accomplishments, a few of which are 

highlighted here:

• In July 2020, USDA published a report 

documenting 20 Climate Indicators for 

Agriculture to support decision making and 

to understand the larger climate context of 

U.S. agriculture.

• NIFA currently supports approximately 400 

active projects related to climate change 

representing an investment of approximately 

$200 million. 

• Scientists at ARS are developing a Grand 

Challenge Synergy Project proposal 

“Creating pollinator landscapes and 

beekeeping practices for a changing climate,” 

to synergize efforts across ARS and other 

federal and state agencies to find solutions to 

the climate change challenges experienced 

by pollinators. In May 2021, Project Leaders 

held a workshop to obtain perspectives 

from scientists and stakeholders and build 

collaborations required to generate and 

implement solutions to pollinator loss from 

climate change.

• FS has developed national and regional 

syntheses of climate effects on forests, 

agroforestry, non-timber forest products, 

forest and rangeland soils, invasive species, 

and the wildland urban interface and 

identified management opportunities and 

adaptation practices.

• In collaboration with ARS, NRCS, NDMC, 

and university partners, the Climate Hubs 

developed Grass-Cast to provide enhanced 

decision support to ranchers and grassland 

managers by estimating forage productivity 

during the growing season.

• FS’s FIA program has successfully led to 

practical tools for forest carbon assessment 

and monitoring climate change effects on 

forest species composition and abundance.

• NRCS’s Snow Survey and Water Supply 

Forecasting and Soil Climate Analysis 

Network data are used to manage water 

resources and plan for water shortages in the 

Western United States.

Managing competing research priorities will 

require a coordinated effort at the Department and 

agency levels. As described in Adaptation Action 

#3, translating experimental data into information 

and decision tools is a complex process that 

is required for the adoption of climate-smart 

practices and technologies. Evaluating the 

effectiveness, tradeoffs, and synergies of climatesmart practices will require a multidisciplinary 

systems approach.

USDA anticipates that existing organizational, 

administrative, and coordination capacity will 

rapidly and efficiently integrate many of the new 

research and development priorities outlined in 

this Plan. As described in Adaptation Actions 

#2 and #5, USDA will work through the Climate 

Hubs, extension, and other means to understand 

stakeholder needs and deploy new information, 

data, practices, tools, and technologies to private 

landowners and managers for implementation. 

Relationships with land-grant universities, 

technical service providers, and other cooperators 

will be leveraged to achieve this goal. Finally, 

USDA will use internal and interagency working 
24 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

groups and review of existing funding authorities 

to identify research opportunities and increase 

support where appropriate for climate-smart 

research activities.

Many ongoing USDA research projects with 

climate adaptation applications will continue into 

the foreseeable future, for example:

• ARS has numerous climate adaptation 

research projects throughout its crop, 

animal, natural resource, and food nutrition 

programs.

• FS activities to increase support for applied 

climate science to develop and evaluate 

practices and technologies, engage in the 

development and co-production of science, 

and use social science to identify adoption 

barriers will be initiated in FY 2022 and 

continue at least through FY 2026.

• NIFA will support new Artificial Intelligence 

Research Institutes focused on climate 

change in FY 2022 and continue to support 

climate science in the AFRI Sustainable 

Agricultural Systems (SAS) RFA.

• FSA’s evaluation of the soil benefits of the 

Conservation Reserve Program will undergo 

a significant expansion in FY 2021 and will 

continue for at least five years, with the 

potential to go beyond 15 years.

Existing monitoring efforts and those developed 

by USDA’s research agencies during adaptation 

planning will be used to track the outcomes of 

science implementation and adaptation actions. 

These efforts will consider the outcomes of 

focused listening sessions, adaptation case studies, 

dissemination and training workshops, new tools 

and tool improvements, research partnerships and 

measures like adoption rates, publications, data 

usage, fellowships, and funding levels.

Scope, Performance, and Resources

• OEEP coordinates USDA’s climate change 

activities, including execution of this 

Plan, through the monthly USDA Global 

Change Task Force (GCTF) and represents 

USDA to the interagency USGCRP. OCS 

provides Department-wide coordination 

of agricultural research, education, and 

extension needs.

• USDA’s research spans field-scale practices, 

whole-farm or forest systems, regional 

monitoring networks, and national-scale 

analysis and assessment.

• Coordination is generally a national 

headquarters activity, while primary research 

activities largely occur in the field to capture 

diversity in environmental conditions, 

production types, and management.

• USDA will continue its participation in 

the USGCRP’s Federal Adaptation and 

Resilience Group to ensure that climatedriven challenges are anticipated by new 

information, practices, technologies, and 

tools.

• Outside of the federal government, shared 

stewardship agreements between the FS 

and states will facilitate implementation of 

adaptive actions and support monitoring 

efforts.

• USDA agencies will increase consultations 

with Tribal communities to incorporate 

traditional ecological knowledge into 

climate-smart practices.

• Additional consultations with community 

colleges and minority-serving institutions 

will be used to make research opportunities 

under this effort widely accessible.

• International partnerships and dialogues 

allow USDA’s expertise to improve global 

outcomes beyond U.S. borders.

• USDA research agencies are already or 

planning to realign personnel time and 

resources towards USDA’s climate priorities. 

Additional investments would permit 

expansion of essential research efforts, 

climate-related program analysis, monitoring 

networks, and technology transfer.
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 25

5. Leverage the USDA Climate 

Hubs as a framework to support 

USDA Mission Areas in delivering climate adaptation science, 

technology, and tools 

The Climate Hubs provide necessary USDA 

infrastructure to deliver climate adaptation 

science, technology, and tools to USDA agencies 

who, through their missions, support farmers, 

ranchers, and forest landowners. The Hubs were 

established in 2014 with the aim to develop 

and deliver science-based information and 

technologies to enable producers and natural 

resource managers to make climate-smart 

decisions and minimize risk to their operations. 

In January 2020, the Hubs completed a five-year 

review to assess their effectiveness and provided 

recommendations to inform a new, forthcoming, 

strategic plan. Over a five-year period (2014-

2019), the Climate Hubs and partners hosted 

over 435 in-person workshops and training events 

and engaged over 16,000 stakeholders on critical 

climate issues and adaptation opportunities. 

The Hubs provided technical expertise through 

237 webinars, podcasts, and other digital 

communication reaching over 17,000 people, 

and developed more than 25 web-based decisionsupport tools, including Grass-Cast and AgRisk 

Viewer.

To integrate climate-smart agriculture and forestry 

in USDA’s mission, programs, operations, and 

management, USDA will take advantage of the 

Climate Hubs’ unique position to work across 

organizational boundaries and engage their 

expertise and awareness of regional priorities. The 

Climate Hubs and USDA Mission Areas will work 

together within the three Hubs workstreams:

Workstream 1: Science and Data Synthesis

• The Hubs will promote coordination and 

joint production of resources and tools 

between USDA science and program 

agencies.

• Hubs’ applied vulnerability assessments for 

fire, flood, drought, extreme temperatures, 

and hurricanes will be used to make 

recommendations to USDA Mission Areas 

to increase landscape and community 

resilience to extreme climate events.

• Using an adaptive management approach, 

the Climate Hubs plan, implement and 

monitor actions, analyze and synthesize 

results, and share their learning. USDA 

will use the Hubs’ regional expertise and 

awareness of climate-smart agriculture and 

forestry successes to inform Mission Area 

management and decision-making.

Workstream 2: Technology and Tool 

Development and Implementation Support

• The Climate Hubs will leverage their 

co-production model to produce tools 

relevant to USDA agencies that use existing 

technologies and data.

• To promote co-production of tools and 

resources with stakeholders, the Hubs will 

pass back local and regional knowledge 

and climate adaptation needs to ensure 

that USDA’s work is relevant and usable by 

farmers, ranchers, and landowners.

Workstream 3: Outreach, convening, and 

training

• The Hubs will provide a platform for USDA 

agencies to convene and work on common 

issues and expand their outreach.
26 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

• The Hubs will develop new partnerships and 

strengthen existing relationships with USDA 

agencies to enhance uptake of existing 

tools and jointly develop new products. 

Opportunities to partner with APHIS, FS, 

FSA, NRCS, RD, RMA, and other agencies 

will be sought.

• To build a practice of climate-thinking across 

USDA, the Hubs will integrate the best 

available science into messaging tools like 

research publications, gray literature, social 

and other media communications, and video 

and podcast products.

• To reach specific agency staff, the Climate 

Hubs will jointly develop and curate relevant 

educational modules, webinars, workshops, 

and trainings.

Scope, Performance, and Resources

• Resources to support the Hubs program are 

contained within the President’s FY 2022 

Discretionary Funding Request. These 

investments will allow the program to 

expand to meet growing demand from within 

and outside USDA.

• Indicators relevant to this action will include 

training or capacity building activities 

provided to USDA staff, an increase in intraagency research or program collaborations, 

and development of tools, resources, and 

research to support Mission Area objectives. 

The Hubs will continue to track webinars, 

trainings, and other interactions with the 

public.

• The Climate Hubs report on their progress 

through quarterly reports to the Executive 

Committee, newsletters, and annual reports.

• The Climate Hubs have built strong 

relationships with external partners from 

local to national scales and across sectors, 

providing opportunities for collaboration 

with NGOs and other stakeholder 

communities to develop adaptation resources 

and tools to enhance USDA activities.

• The Climate Hubs will share climate 

adaptation science, tools, and technologies 

through partnerships with other federal 

climate service networks including the 

RISAs, CASCs, and NIDIS DEWS. 

The Hubs can assess how to adapt these 

interagency efforts for USDA use to increase 

efficiency and avoid duplication of efforts.

IV. ENHANCING CLIMATE 

LITERACY IN USDA’S 

WORKFORCE 

A climate-informed and capable workforce 

underpins the success of the adaptation actions 

outlined in the sections above. Enhancing climate 

literacy across USDA’s workforce is an essential 

element of integrating climate preparedness 

into USDA’s mission, programs, operations, 

and management. USDA has nearly 100,000 

employees at more than 4,500 locations across 

the United States and abroad with a diverse 

range of roles, responsibilities, and backgrounds. 

To prepare USDA’s current and future workforce 

for the impacts of climate change, USDA will 

expand opportunities for education focused on 

how climate change affects the mission of the 

Department and its work. Core education and 

training should be accessible to staff at all levels in 

all locations.

Examples of ongoing activities to build climate 

literacy include:

• The Office of Property and Environmental 

Management’s (OPEM) Sustainable Practices 

team convenes working groups on Facilities, 

Sustainable Buildings, Green Purchasing, 

Fleet Management, and Real Property 

to discuss policies, goals, best practices, 

challenges, and progress in achieving 

sustainability and climate goals.

• OPEM also hosts events and issues a 

quarterly newsletter, The EnviroPost, to 

increase employee awareness of sustainability 

and climate issues by highlighting agency 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 27

successes, best practices, awards, and training 

opportunities.

• The CCRC, a joint online platform of FS 

R&D and FS Office of Sustainability and 

Climate (OSC), hosts a series of three 

modules on climate change and natural 

resource management. The modules cover 

basic climate change science and modeling, 

climate change effects on forests and 

grasslands, and responses to climate change.

• FS OSC hosts webinar series on topics 

related to its mission; its current series is 

focused on topics related to environmental 

justice, including Tribes and climate 

adaptation, water, air, and recreation.

• FS R&D and OSC, the Climate Hubs, and 

NRCS regularly host webinars and training 

at various technical levels on topics related 

to climate that are accessible to USDA staff.

To build on these existing efforts, USDA can:

• Form a climate literacy working group. 

Coordinated by the Climate Hubs, this group 

would survey USDA agencies and offices 

for prior and ongoing climate education 

activities, identify climate literacy training 

needs for staff, including environmental 

justice issues, and suggest how to use existing 

frameworks to enhance climate literacy. 

Recognizing the Climate Hubs’ intra-agency 

reach and experience in innovative and 

interactive methods to increase climate 

literacy, this working group will suggest how 

the Hubs can build climate capacity within 

USDA agencies, including how to reach 

regional and local offices.

• Expand information dissemination and 

training access. OEEP and the Climate 

Hubs will develop a sustainable strategy to 

disseminate climate science information 

from REE agencies, FS R&D, and USGCRP 

to relevant USDA staff. Building off the 

Climate Hubs’ social science insights on 

encouraging knowledge co-production, 

USDA can ensure information sharing and 

training is relevant, useful, and equitable. 

USDA can ensure access to and expand the 

CCRC modules described above to equip 

staff with an understanding and common 

vocabulary of climate change and adaptation 

and mitigation responses.

• Establish a USDA climate seminar series. 

OEEP will continue development of a 

yearlong, monthly seminar series that will 

be at a level accessible to a diverse audience 

of USDA staff and develops climate literacy 

with progressively complex topics. The 

series will be science-focused, for experts and 

non-experts, and will provide opportunities 

throughout to ask questions that help dispel 

misconceptions related to climate. Potential 

subjects include GHGs in agriculture, 

climate impacts on crop production and 

animal agriculture, and options for climate 

adaptation and mitigation.

• Consider early climate literacy development. 

Hiring, training, and maintaining a climate 

literate workforce can start with students 

before they become USDA staff. Working 

with land-grant and other university 

partners, NIFA will continue to play 

an important role funding training and 

education. With investments from NIFA 

and assistance from the Climate Hubs, youth 

organizations like 4–H could be supported 

to deliver early climate literacy and promote 

positive youth development. In addition, 

USDA could look for opportunities to 

develop climate-tracks within its Internship 

and Recent Graduates Programs.

Performance measures developed during agency 

and office-level adaptation planning should 

include workforce climate literacy targets. Current 

means of evaluating climate literacy include 

annual Sustainability Plans, OMB Scorecards for 

Efficient Federal Operations and Management, 

and, at the Forest Service, climate-related training 

can support progress towards Climate Scorecard 

elements. 
28 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

V. USDA ACTIONS FOR 

CLIMATE-READY SITES AND 

FACILITIES

USDA will continue to improve the climate 

resilience of sites, fleet, and facilities and 

implement its Departmental Regulations and 

Directives for sustainable and climate adaptive 

operations of sites, fleet, and facilities. OPEM is 

responsible for coordinating with agencies, setting 

annual strategic goals, developing actions, and 

measuring progress by creating agency scorecards 

for improvement.

Construct and Operate Climate-Ready Real 

Property

The Department implements Department of 

Homeland Security structural integrity guidance 

to prepare for increasingly frequent and intense 

natural hazards, such as extreme weather and 

wildfires. Recent vulnerability assessments indicate 

many FS dams are vulnerable to large storm events 

for which they were not originally designed. To 

enhance resilience, USDA will evaluate needs to 

increase capacities of spillways to handle extreme 

storm events.

USDA is raising its standards for design, 

construction, operation, and maintenance of 

facilities and infrastructure by applying climate 

adaptive technologies, increasing renewable 

energy use and equipment efficiencies to conserve 

energy, and reducing its GHG footprint. New 

buildings are performing 30 percent more energy 

efficiently than the industry standard and over 45 

percent of USDA-owned buildings 10,000 gross 

square feet and larger meet the Guiding Principles 

for Sustainable Federal Buildings. USDA uses 

third-party certification systems such as LEED 

or Green Globes to validate its green buildings. 

For construction materials, USDA prefers wood 

for new buildings due to its capacity for energy 

savings and ability to sequester carbon. Equipment 

performance is monitored throughout system 

lifecycles.

For leased buildings, USDA increasingly seeks out 

third-party certified green and ENERGY STAR 

facilities with access to public transit. However, 

USDA often leases facilities in remote and rural 

markets with limited options for green buildings. 

USDA will work to build climate adaptation, 

resilience, and sustainability awareness in these 

communities to achieve further facilities-related 

emissions reductions and climate resilience in 

the future. In new leases, USDA will follow the 

General Service Administration’s green leasing 

guidance. By requiring sustainable and resilient 

buildings in all new leases, the Department would 

increase availability of these sustainable and 

resilient buildings in remote and rural markets.

To raise facility performance levels nationwide in 

sustainability and resilience, USDA also plans to 

develop a Departmental Manual to guide staff to 

align sustainable and resilient facility operations 

with the USDA Departmental Regulations on 

Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable 

Operations.

USDA chooses locations for utility equipment 

and central data centers to improve operational 

resilience to flooding and rising sea levels. These 

centers feature direct digital controls, thermal aisle 

design, emergency power, and redundant cooling 

for continuity, lower operating costs, and higher 

capacities. 

Increase Facilities’ Energy and Water Resilience

USDA will take the following actions related 

to facilities energy and water management that 
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 29

enhance climate adaptation and resilience or have 

adaptation and resilience co-benefits:

• Increase onsite renewable energy capacity 

and installation of microgrids. The energy 

and power supply at many USDA facilities 

are susceptible to the increased frequency 

and severity of storms. Accordingly, USDA 

will work to increase onsite renewable energy 

capacity and install microgrids to improve 

resilience at its facilities. This may include 

transitioning from propane/diesel generators 

to mobile solar energy systems with battery 

backup at remote sites and installing solar 

panels to enable facilities to operate off-grid. 

Exploring the use of energy performance 

contracts to install solar energy equipment, 

geothermal energy systems, and microgrids 

at remote facilities to mitigate impacts from 

future storms will also be considered. These 

climate adaptation actions will reduce 

the cost of electricity and eliminate the 

dependence on unreliable and poor-quality 

power at remote sites.

• Improve the condition and resilience 

of government-owned infrastructure. 

USDA owns miles of aging overhead and 

underground electrical wiring, steam pipes, 

natural gas pipes, and domestic water 

and sewer lines, which are vulnerable to 

severe weather events. This infrastructure 

requires periodic maintenance to improve 

and maintain reliability, functionality, and 

resilience. To address this issue, agencies 

will implement actions that have co-benefits 

to climate adaptation and resilience. 

Specifically, agencies will perform leak tests 

on water systems that show inconsistent 

consumption or lack of integrity, conduct 

cost-effective maintenance and repair on 

equipment and infrastructure, and establish 

and maintain good communications with 

local utility providers.

• Switch fuel types, use dual fuel equipment, 

and reduce the carbon footprint of 

facilities. Dual fuel equipment is critical 

for USDA’s remote buildings that rely on 

heat from fossil fuels because interruptible 

natural gas supply requires secondary fuels 

as a backup, is subject to supply shortages, 

and can result in extremely high costs and 

damage to heating equipment. To address 

this issue, agencies will convert to dual fuel 

heating equipment, select secondary fuel 

types with the best GHG emission ratings, 

and convert heating equipment from fossil 

fuels to electric heat pumps that can be 

powered by solar panels.

Optimize Fleet Inventory and Efficiency

USDA is committed to maintaining an optimal 

fleet inventory and reducing its fleet’s carbon 

footprint for climate adaptation and resilience. 

This effort includes developing standardized 

acquisition strategies that identify and eliminate 

inefficient vehicles and replace them, with safer, 

more efficient vehicles that use less petroleum per 

mile, alternative fuels, and electric and hybridelectric vehicle technology. A focus on efficiency 

will encourage climate adaptation management 

actions and sustainable behaviors. Looking ahead, 

USDA plans to incorporate a standardized fleet 

replacement planning initiative to transition from 

primarily fossil fuel vehicles to a combination 

of biofuels, fully dedicated electric, and hybridelectric vehicles to reduce costs, improve fleet 

efficiency, and meet environmental goals. USDA 

will also identify locations to install biofuel, 

alternative fueling, and electric vehicle charging 

infrastructure to better support non-petroleum 

vehicles.

VI. USDA ACTIONS TO ENSURE 

A CLIMATE-READY SUPPLY OF 

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Through its Office of Contracting and 

Procurement (OCP), USDA supports E.O. 14008 

Sec. 206 and E.O. 14005 Ensuring the Future 

Is Made in All of America by All of America’s 

Workers, issued January 25, 2021. USDA is 
30 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

committed to adhering to the requirements of the 

Made in America Laws in making clean energy, 

energy efficiency, and clean energy procurement 

decisions. Consistent with applicable law, USDA 

is applying and enforcing the Davis-Bacon Act 

and prevailing wage and benefit requirements. 

USDA will stay vigilant should the Secretary 

of Labor take steps to update prevailing wage 

requirements or should the Federal Acquisition 

Regulatory Council develop regulatory 

amendments to promote increased contractor 

attention to climate adaptation and resilience 

with co-benefits of reduced carbon emissions and 

federal sustainability. Focusing on these adaptation 

areas can help prevent disruption of supplies and 

services for mission critical activities. Furthermore, 

USDA procurement leadership seeks to use 

contracting as a lever to promote protection of 

communities and ecosystems where USDA has 

a presence. Our efforts will focus on the effects 

of climate change while also building long-term 

resilience to evolving environmental conditions.

The Department has implemented policies 

and practices to purchase energy efficient, 

sustainable, and USDA-designated biobased 

products in compliance with requirements in 

the Federal Acquisition Regulation to support 

climate adaptation efforts. Energy efficiency 

contributes to climate adaptation by reducing 

peak energy demand as more energy is required 

for air conditioning and to address uncertainty 

in energy generation and use resulting from 

extreme weather events. USDA is committed 

to increasing the use of sustainability criteria in 

its purchasing. For example, USDA continues 

to use blanket purchase agreements that provide 

efficient electronic equipment that is registered 

with the Electronic Product Environmental 

Assessment Tool (EPEAT). Purchasing EPEATregistered equipment reduces GHG emissions, 

hazardous waste, and water pollutants over the life 

of the equipment. Procurement requirements to 

promote resilience apply to contracts for design, 

construction, operations, and maintenance. 

USDA selects materials made with post-consumer 

and pre-consumer recycled materials including 

carpet, gypsum board, ceiling tiles, millwork, 

furniture, and furnishings. In addition, the 

BioPreferred Program continues to support climate 

adaptation, working with CEQ, OMB’s Office of 

Federal Procurement Policy, and other federal 

agencies, to develop guidance for establishing 

annual biobased-only procurement targets.

The five critical areas where procurement 

processes are at risk due to acute or chronic 

climate change impacts are:

1. Facility upgrades. USDA facilities need 

modernization to improve energy efficiency 

and provide resilient infrastructure. 

Energy efficiency, water conservation, and 

sustainability are all considerations for new 

construction and modernization. To the 

extent possible, USDA will expand the Solar 

ARS program, which is based on a contract 

template that was developed to be customized 

for performance contracts and appropriate 

funds projects.

2. Forest Service infrastructure. Forest Service 

infrastructure is highly susceptible to climate 

change and large storm events, for which 

it was not originally designed. For dam 

infrastructure, actions to address this include 

an inventory assessment of dam spillway 

capacity and a spillway rehabilitation plan.

3. Puerto Rico infrastructure. Puerto Rico 

and its infrastructure are vulnerable to 

the impacts of climate change particularly 

increased frequency and severity of storms. 

At ARS Mayaguez and Isabela facilities, 

a project to install a microgrid has been 

developed but remains unfunded. It can be 

implemented with a performance contract 

with sufficient capital infusion. The microgrid 

would eliminate the dependence of the 

research program on the local electrical grid.
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 31

4. Growth of net-zero facilities. ARS has one 

net-zero electricity facility and another under 

construction that align with current budget 

priorities. In 2019 an Energy Conservation 

Measure at the Jornada Experimental Range 

in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was awarded an 

Energy and Water Management Award by 

the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy 

Management Program. A net-zero project 

carried out this year, at the Fort Collins 

Research Farm in Colorado, is complete and 

awaiting final connection. As energy is saved, 

environmental sustainability will improve 

due to decreasing GHG emissions and 

conservation of limited resources.

5. Forest restoration. Four Forest Restoration 

Initiative (4FRI) is accelerating a large-scale 

restoration program across 2 million acres 

in northern Arizona to improve forest and 

watershed health so forests are more resilient 

to climate change. 4FRI has embarked on an 

ambitious project to award a 20-year contract 

to provide forest restoration treatments on 

over 500,000 acres. Increased certainty of 

supply will help stimulate investment in 

restoration to reduce the impacts of climate 

change while supporting forest industries that 

strengthen local economies and conserving 

natural resources and aesthetic values.

VII. NEXT STEPS

Concurrent with the release of this plan, USDA 

will develop guidance for agencies and offices to 

prepare new climate adaptation plans in line with 

updated Departmental Regulation 1070-001 with 

the aim of completing these plans by spring 2022. 

Agencies and offices will identify how climate 

change is likely to affect their ability to achieve 

mission, operations, and program objectives. 

Through adaptation planning, they will develop, 

prioritize, implement, and evaluate actions to 

integrate climate risks into strategic planning and 

decision-making. Agencies and offices will identify 

alignment with the vulnerabilities identified in 

this Plan and how they might contribute to the 

vulnerability-specific and cross-cutting adaptation 

actions. This process will provide the opportunity 

to identify knowledge gaps or programmatic 

needs that can be addressed through coordination 

with OEEP, the Climate Hubs, and intra-agency 

collaborations.

To measure progress towards achieving climate 

adaptation goals, during adaptation plan 

formulation, USDA agencies and offices will 

develop metrics relevant to their missions and 

adaptation strategies. The Forest Service Climate 

Scorecard is one model internal to USDA that 

can be emulated for each agency’s unique needs. 

These agency-relevant frameworks will be used for 

measuring, sharing, and learning from adaptation 

successes and enable USDA to demonstrate how 

adaptation actions are making the Department 

and its stakeholders more resilient. Through 

iterative climate risk management, USDA will 

address emerging and future climate risks, adjust 

efforts and resources, and prepare American 

agriculture, forestry, and rural and urban 

communities to be resilient in a changing climate.
32 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

APPENDIX

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20250

DEPARTMENTAL REGULATION

NUMBER:

DR 1070-001

SUBJECT: U.S. Department of Agriculture Policy 

Statement on Climate Change Adaptation

DATE:

May 26, 2021

OPI: Office of the Secretary EXPIRATION DATE: 

May 26, 2026

1. PURPOSE

This Departmental Regulation (DR) provides guidance on the establishment and periodic 

revision of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Climate Change 

Adaptation Plan. It is consistent with guidance from the Council on Environmental Quality

(CEQ) for the implementation of Executive Order (E.O.) 14008, Executive Order on 

Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, issued on January 27, 2021.

Climate change poses a significant risk to the agriculture and forestry sectors and the 

communities that support and depend upon them. Through climate adaptation planning and 

implementation, USDA will identify how climate change is likely to affect its ability to 

achieve its mission, operations, and policy and program objectives. Climate change 

adaptation is a critical complement to mitigation; both are required to address the causes and 

consequences of climate change. Through climate adaptation planning, USDA will develop, 

prioritize, implement, and evaluate actions to minimize climate risks, and exploit new 

opportunities that climate change may bring. Climate adaptation planning and 

implementation should align with USDA efforts to ensure equity and environmental justice. 

By integrating climate change adaptation strategies into USDA’s programs and operations, 

USDA better ensures that taxpayer resources are invested wisely, and that USDA services 

and operations remain effective under current and future climate conditions. Through 

climate adaptation planning, USDA is taking a leadership role in ensuring the vision of a 

resilient, healthy, and prosperous Nation in the face of a changing climate.

2. ACTIONS ORDERED

This policy establishes the USDA directive to integrate climate change adaptation planning, 

implementing actions, and performance metrics into USDA programs, policies, and 

operations in accordance with executive orders and additional guidance from CEQ.

a. The Chief Economist, with the full support and participation of USDA Mission Areas, 

agencies, and staff offices, will:
ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE 33

2

(1) Develop a USDA Climate Change Adaptation Plan in accordance with E.O. 14008 

and CEQ guidance;

(2) Issue guidance in accordance with CEQ guidance to Mission Areas, agencies, and 

staff offices to complete or update their climate adaptation plans, as well as required 

interim deliverables; and

(3) Update the USDA Climate Change Adaptation Plan as appropriate and provide 

progress reports on the status of implementation efforts annually in accordance with 

CEQ guidance.

b. USDA Mission Area, agency, and staff office heads, in developing organization-specific 

contributions, will:

(1) Analyze how climate change may affect the ability of their organization to achieve

its mission and policy, program, and operational objectives and authorities to:

(a) Identify potential impacts of climate change on their organization’s areas of 

responsibility;

(b) Prioritize, implement, and integrate response actions into their Mission Area’s, 

agency’s, or staff office’s operation, contingent on the availability of resources;

(c) Continuously assess and improve the capacity to adapt to current and future 

changes in the climate; and

(d) Prepare contributions to the Department’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan.

(2) Identify, as appropriate, key performance measures to evaluate progress in climate 

change adaptation in the annual Departmental and Mission Area, agency, and staff 

office budget material, to include measures in the Summary of Budget and 

Performance section of the explanatory notes, submitted as part of the 

Congressional justification.

(a) Identify, to the extent possible, the costs associated with the accomplishment of 

Mission Area, agency, or staff office performance measures and provide 

accessible information to producers; and

(b) Identify returns to Mission Area, agency, or staff office end-users for climate 

adaptation actions in terms of a list of expected accomplishments.

(3) Identify, as part of the annual budget process, to the Office of Budget and Program 

Analysis (OBPA), areas where budget adjustments would be necessary to carry out 

actions identified under this DR;
34 ACTION PLAN FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

3

(4) Identify, as appropriate, for USDA’s Office of the General Counsel, areas where 

legal analysis is needed to carry out actions identified under this DR; and

(5) Identify the point of contact for and coordinate actions with the USDA’s Global 

Change Task Force, as appropriate.

c. USDA Mission Areas, agencies, and staff offices will integrate information that reflects 

the current understanding of global climate change and its projected impacts when 

undertaking long-term planning exercises, setting priorities for scientific research and 

investigations, developing performance metrics, and making decisions affecting Mission 

Area, agency, or staff office resources, programs, and operations.

3. EFFECTIVE DATE AND TERMINATION

a. The provisions of this DR are effective immediately and will remain in effect until 

superseded or revoked.

b. This policy supersedes and replaces DR 1070-001, U.S. Department of Agriculture 

(USDA) Policy Statement on Climate Change Adaptation, dated June 15, 2015.

/s/ THOMAS J. VILSACK

SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE