Climate Change: USDA's Ongoing Efforts Can Be Enhanced with Better Metrics and More Relevant Information for Farmers
Published: 2014-09-16T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: In 2012, the United States produced about $395 billion in agricultural commodities, with about half of this revenue from crop sales and half from livestock. According to the Third National Climate Assessment, climate change has the potential to negatively affect agricultural productivity in the United States through warmer temperatures and an increase in weather extremes. In recent years, USDA has taken actions to help U.S. farmers adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
GAO was asked to review USDA's climate change efforts. This review examines (1) USDA's climate change priorities and how these align with national priorities, (2) the status of USDA's climate change efforts, and (3) the challenges USDA faces in implementing its climate efforts and the steps it has taken to overcome these challenges. To conduct this work, GAO analyzed USDA documents and data and interviewed USDA officials and other knowledgeable stakeholders, such as farmers and environmental groups.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) climate change priorities for agriculture include, among other things, providing better information to farmers on future climate conditions. These priorities generally align with national priorities set by the Administration, which include promoting actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, advancing climate science, developing tools for decision makers, and developing better projections of future climate conditions. USDA is engaged in research efforts aimed at better understanding climate change's impacts on agriculture and providing technical assistance to farmers. Through the use of existing conservation and energy programs, USDA aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester (store) carbon so it is not released, or is actively withdrawn, from the atmosphere.
Helping to make farmers more resilient to climate change is one of USDA's four strategic goals, but the agency is not using its performance planning and reporting process to provide information on how it intends to accomplish this goal or to assess the status of its efforts in this area. According to the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, as amended, an agency's performance plan is supposed to explain how the agency will accomplish its performance goals, and its performance reports are supposed to review the extent to which those goals have been met. However, USDA performance plans for recent years have not provided a link between the agency's climate efforts and performance goals, and its recent performance reports have not provided information on whether the agency was meeting its performance measures related to climate change. In addition, USDA performance measures do not capture the breadth of the agency's climate efforts. Agency officials told GAO that developing measures for the strategic goal on climate change was difficult. However, USDA has developed measures for other areas, such as conservation, where similar challenges existed. Without developing performance plans and reports that better reflect USDA's climate change efforts, USDA will have difficulty fully assessing its progress in meeting its climate change strategic goal and providing information on its progress to Congress and the public.
USDA faces challenges in encouraging farmers to take measures to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions. For example, USDA faces the challenge of turning the large amount of often technical climate research into readily understandable information. To address this challenge USDA is, among other things, developing tools that summarize climate information and communicate research findings to farmers in a more accessible format. USDA also faces a challenge related to the incentive structure that farmers consider when making decisions for their farms. Farmers weigh the financial costs and returns of taking certain actions, but USDA has not provided much information to farmers on the economic costs and returns of taking certain adaptation or emissions reduction actions, such as changing the extent to which they plow their fields. Under federal internal control standards, agencies are to ensure there are adequate means of communicating with external stakeholders when it may have a significant impact on the agency achieving its goals. Without information that is readily accessible to farmers on the farm-level economic costs and returns of taking certain actions in response to climate change, farmers may be reluctant to take these measures.
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO recommends that USDA develop performance measures that better reflect the breadth of USDA climate change efforts and use its performance plans and reports to provide information on how the agency plans to achieve its goals and the status of its efforts. GAO also recommends that USDA develop and provide information to farmers on the economic costs and returns of taking certain actions in response to climate change. USDA concurred with these recommendations.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The United States produced about $395 billion in agriculture commodities  in 2012, with about half of this revenue from crop sales and half from  livestock sales. Climate change could present numerous challenges to  U.S. agricultural production. According to the Third National Climate  Assessment, climate change and associated warmer temperatures will  place stress on crops and livestock and benefit weeds, diseases, and  insects that will threaten crops and livestock in the future. The Third  National Climate Assessment also projects there will be an increase in  weather extremes—droughts, heat waves, and heavy rain events—that  will also negatively affect U.S. agricultural productivity. For example,  heavy rain events are likely to reduce crop yields in some areas because  they can erode soil and deprive crops of the nutrients they need to grow.  The National Climate Assessment stated that climate disruptions to U.S.  agricultural production have increased in the past 40 years and are  projected to increase over the next 25 years. According to the  assessment, by midcentury and beyond, the impacts of climate change  will be increasingly negative on most crops and livestock.
In recent years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken  actions to begin to help American farmers adapt to climate change and  reduce greenhouse gas emissions.USDA included resilience to climate change as one of its strategic goals  for the first time, according to USDA officials. In June 2011, the Secretary  of Agriculture issued a departmental regulation that directed all USDA  agencies to integrate climate change adaptation planning into their  programs, policies, and operations. USDA also issued a Climate Change  Science Plan that called for improved understanding of the impacts of  climate change and development of knowledge and tools to enable  climate change adaptation and mitigation. Adaptation refers to  adjustments to natural or human systems in response to actual or  expected climate change, such as changing the types of crops planted in  a particular area or increasing the use of irrigation during droughts;  mitigation refers to actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such  as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, or sequester (store)  carbon so it is not released, or is actively withdrawn, from the  atmosphere. For example, when farmers do not plow their fields, a  practice known as no-till farming, more carbon is sequestered in the soil.
In its strategic plan for 2010-2015,  In 2013, we included the federal government’s fiscal exposure to climate  change on our High Risk List and noted that the federal government was  a provider of technical assistance to decision makers grappling with the  impacts of climate change. challenge of translating climate information so that it is useful to decision  makers.the Third National Climate Assessment has stated that increased  innovation will be needed to ensure that agricultural production can keep  pace with future climate change.
GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-13-283 (Washington, D.C.: February 2013).
You asked us to review USDA’s climate change efforts related to  agricultural production. This report examines (1) USDA’s priorities related  to climate change and agricultural production and how these align with  national priorities; (2) the status of USDA’s climate change efforts; and (3)  the challenges, if any, USDA faces in implementing its climate efforts and  the steps it has taken to overcome these challenges.
To describe USDA’s priorities related to climate change and U.S.  agricultural production and how these align with national priorities, we  analyzed USDA documents that describe the agency’s priorities in this  area. These documents include USDA’s 2010-2015 and 2014-2018  Strategic Plans, the agency’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan, its  Climate Change Science Plan, and Departmental Regulation 1070-001.  To identify national priorities regarding climate change and agricultural  production, we reviewed U.S. Global Change Research Program  (USGCRP) documents, executive orders, Interagency Climate Change  Adaptation Task Force progress reports, and the President’s Climate  Action Plan. We also analyzed budget data that USDA reports to the  Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its annual report to  Congress on climate change expenditures. To determine the status of  USDA’s climate change efforts, we analyzed documents that included  annual budget data, progress reports prepared by USDA, and annual  performance reports. We also examined the requirements under the  Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 and the  GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 for strategic plans, performance plans,  and performance reports. We focused on USDA’s key climate change  efforts, which we identified through discussions with USDA officials and  by examining budget information, which enabled us to determine where  USDA was devoting large amounts of funding. To determine the  challenges that USDA faces in implementing its climate efforts, we  reviewed documents on USDA’s efforts and reviewed our past work on  climate change. For all three objectives, we conducted interviews with a  range of officials, including USDA officials implementing climate programs  and stakeholders who were knowledgeable about USDA’s efforts. These  stakeholders included officials from farm groups and environmental  groups, farmers, and state and local officials. A more detailed description  of our objectives, scope, and methodology is presented in appendix I.
We conducted this performance audit from September 2013 to  September 2014 in accordance with generally accepted government  auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the  audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable  basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We  believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: The agricultural sector is a major part of the U.S. economy and has been  and will continue to be affected by climate change, according to the Third  National Climate Assessment. The assessment states that climate  change will likely cause an increase in temperature, rainfall intensity, and  extreme events in some areas, and extreme climate conditions, such as  sustained droughts and heat waves. USDA plays an important role in  addressing these potential impacts by using its resources to develop and  implement both mitigation and adaptation measures.
subsections: section_title: The U.S Agricultural Sector
paragraphs: The U.S. agricultural sector accounted for $395 billion in sales in 2012, up  33 percent from 2007. According to USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture,  of this $395 billion, about half is from sales of crops, and half is from  livestock sales. Between 2007 and 2012, crop sales increased nearly 48  percent, while livestock sales increased about 19 percent. Thirteen  states—California, Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, Illinois,  North Carolina, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and  Ohio—each had more than $10 billion in agricultural sales and together  accounted for about 62 percent of all agriculture sales in 2012. California  led the United States in agricultural sales in 2012, with about $43 billion,  or 11 percent, of the total U.S. agricultural sales. In recent years, there  has been a trend toward larger-scale farming operations. For example,  according to a 2013 USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) report,  between 1982 and 2007, for farms, the midpoint acreage for U.S.  cropland nearly doubled, from about 590 acres to about 1,100 acres.
Three important crops in terms of acreage planted and sales in the United  States are corn, soybeans, and wheat. In 2012, corn was harvested on  more than 94 million acres, and total sales for corn were about $67 billion.  Soybeans were harvested on more than 76 million acres, with sales of  about $39 billion, while there were about 49 million acres of all wheat  varieties, with sales of about $16 billion. Livestock sales represented  nearly half of agricultural sales in 2012, with poultry, cattle, milk, and pigs  the most sold commodities in this category. A breakdown of the  agricultural sector’s 2012 sales is shown in figure 1.
The United States is also a global supplier of food. In 2012, the United  States exported nearly $136 billion in agricultural products, or around 10  percent of total U.S. exports. The United States exports about 20 percent  of the corn grown domestically, is the leading exporter of soybeans, and  also is a leading exporter of wheat. In addition, the United States is the  largest producer of beef and poultry in the world.
section_title: Climate Change Impacts on the Agricultural Sector
paragraphs: According to the Third National Climate Assessment, climate change is  expected to increase disruptions to agriculture production in the future.  Increases in temperature, rainfall intensity, and extreme events in some  areas, and extreme climate conditions, such as sustained droughts and  heat waves, will likely have negative impacts on crop and livestock yields.  By the end of the century, the Third National Climate Assessment states  that average U.S. temperatures will increase between 3°F and 10°F, and  precipitation events will be more extreme, meaning that more rain will fall  during these events. In addition, changing climate conditions also will  likely affect the geographic distribution and severity of invasive pests,  diseases, and weeds. Table 1 shows the projected impacts of climate  change and how they could affect agricultural production in the United  States.
Both climate mitigation and adaptation options exist in the agricultural  sector. According to the Third National Climate Assessment, both of  these efforts are required to minimize the damage inflicted by climate  change in the United States and to adapt to the changes that already  have occurred or that will occur.
The agricultural sector emits about 6 percent of total U.S. greenhouse  gas emissions, but U.S. lands (mostly forestlands) sequester enough  carbon to offset 12 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. Sources  of these emissions include fuel consumption, fertilizer that can emit  nitrous oxide, and methane emissions from livestock. Farmers can  take certain mitigation actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and  sequester carbon. For example, farmers can use energy-efficient  buildings, vehicles, or farm equipment that runs on renewable energy,  rather than fossil fuels. In addition, farmers can implement mitigation  measures, such as no-till farming and precision agriculture. According to  a 2011 ERS report, adoption of precision agriculture can improve the  efficiency of input use and reduce environmental harm from the  overapplication of inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, which can  reduce nitrous oxide emissions. Through the digestive process,  livestock emit a considerable amount of methane, a greenhouse gas;  reducing these emissions is another mitigation strategy. According to  USDA officials, work is being done to alter the diet of cattle and to  improve manure management practices in an effort to reduce methane  emissions.
Farmers also can improve the resiliency of their operations, as shown in  table 2. For example, farmers can change the type of crop they plant to fit  the changing climate or change the timing of their planting in response to  a longer or shorter growing season. They can also shift to drought-, pest-,  or weed-resistant crop varieties to reduce climate change impacts. There  are also actions that address both mitigation and adaptation. For  example, farmers can choose no-till farming, which allows carbon to  remain in the soil and reduces fuel consumption (mitigation) while also  improving the capacity of soil to retain moisture to reduce stress on crops  during drought (adaptation).
section_title: USDA Agencies and Offices Involved in Climate Change
paragraphs: Several USDA agencies and offices are involved in climate change work.  USDA’s Climate Change Program Office, which coordinates all of the  department’s responses to climate change, leads a Global Change Task  Force. The task force includes representatives from 20 USDA agencies  and offices and works to coordinate climate activities by holding monthly  meetings to discuss climate-related opportunities and efforts across the  department. Table 3 provides information about the eight USDA agencies  and offices that are most heavily involved in the agency’s climate change  work.
In June 2011, the Secretary of Agriculture issued Departmental  Regulation 1070-001 that required USDA agencies to take climate  change into account when making long-term planning decisions and to   The resulting USDA  prepare climate adaptation plans by June 2012.adaptation plan contained individual adaptation plans for 12 of USDA’s  agencies, lays out the risks and vulnerabilities facing agency missions as  a result of climate change, and details the strategies for overcoming these  vulnerabilities.
As required by GPRA as amended by the GPRA Modernization Act of  2010, executive agencies are to complete strategic plans in which they  define their missions, establish results-oriented goals, and identify the  strategies that will be needed to achieve those goals. According to USDA  officials, beginning with its 2010-2015 Strategic Plan, USDA included  climate change as a part of one of its four strategic goals. Specifically, the  Strategic Plan states that USDA will ensure that farms are “conserved,  restored, and made more resilient to climate change.” An objective of  this strategic goal is to “lead efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate  change.” In April 2014, USDA released its 2014-2018 Strategic Plan that  includes the same four strategic goals established in the 2010-2015  strategic plan plus one additional strategic goal.
section_title: The Cooperative Extension System
paragraphs: USDA partners with the cooperative extension system to, among other  things, help deliver information to farmers on farm management practices.  The cooperative extension system is a partnership between land-grant  universities and USDA. Established by the Morrill Act of 1862, the land  grant university system is comprised of more than 100 colleges and  universities around the country. These institutions receive federal support  and are required to provide relevant information to the public through the  extension system. Faculty members at land-grant universities may have  dual appointments, meaning that in addition to teaching, they spend a  certain portion of their time on research and on extension work.
Established by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, the cooperative extension  system is a nationwide system used to disseminate information and  research developed at land-grant universities. The system is a network of  state and local offices that provide information to the public on a variety of  topics, including agriculture. USDA’s National Institute of Food and  Agriculture (NIFA) distributes federal funding for the extension service.  The extension service also receives state and county funding. According  to a June 2013 joint USDA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric  Administration (NOAA) report on the role of extension in climate  adaptation, climate-related research and extension efforts have existed  for decades.provide decision makers with information and tools, disseminated through  meetings, written publications, and internet websites, to increase climate  literacy.
section_title: USDA’s Climate Change Priorities Include Providing Better Information to Farmers and Generally Align with National Priorities
paragraphs: USDA’s climate change priorities include providing better information on  future climate conditions to help farmers in their decision making,  conducting research, and delivering decision support tools and technical  assistance to farmers. USDA’s adaptation efforts focus on research and  technical assistance, while its mitigation efforts also focus on reducing  greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon. USDA’s climate  adaptation and mitigation priorities generally align with national climate  priorities.
subsections: section_title: USDA’s Climate Change Priorities Include Providing Better Information on Future Climate Conditions to Farmers
paragraphs: USDA’s climate change priorities include providing better information to  farmers on current and potential impacts of climate change, which is  information that farmers need to make decisions. According to a USDA  official, there is a need to develop better forecasts for upcoming growing  seasons. These forecasts are generally 90-day forecasts, but farmers  also need accurate forecasts for 6 to 8 months out, because they order  their seeds for spring planting in the fall. Another USDA official we spoke  with told us that there is a need to provide farmers with longer-term  projections for as much as 20 to 60 years into the future that farmers can  use to help make large capital investment decisions, such as whether to  install an irrigation system or install a cooling system in a barn. A USDA  official told us that USDA itself does not engage in climate modeling, but  instead relies on some of the federal agencies with strong climate science  capabilities, such as NOAA, the National Science Foundation, and the  National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to help USDA officials  better understand the climate projections that are available and the  associated uncertainties for these projections. USDA officials told us that  through the USGCRP, USDA has been encouraging these agencies to  downscale modeling results so that they provide more localized and,  hence, more helpful information to farmers. According to USDA’s 2014  Budget Explanatory Notes for Congress, “Access to consistent and  detailed projections of climate change is a major area of uncertainty for  our programs and agencies.”
section_title: USDA Climate Change Adaptation Efforts Focus on Research and Developing Technical Assistance
paragraphs: According to USDA’s 2010 Climate Change Science Plan, the agency’s  adaptation efforts aim to improve the understanding of climate change  impacts on agriculture, develop adaptation practices, and deliver science- based information and tools to stakeholders. USDA officials told us that  about 80 percent of the agency’s climate research dollars are spent on  climate change adaptation. A 2013 Congressional Research Service  (CRS) report shows USDA’s funding for climate change research under  USGCRP has almost doubled from $63 million in fiscal year 2008 to $121  million in fiscal year 2010, but funding has remained relatively flat since.  In fiscal year 2013, total funding for USDA’s climate change research  programs was about $82 million, as shown in table 4.data on federal climate expenditures, research represents approximately   According to OMB  20 percent of USDA’s total climate change funding. According to USDA  officials, USDA does not have a line item in its budget that covers climate  change because many of the agency’s climate efforts involve programs  across several USDA agencies. However, USDA does compile a “climate  change crosscut,” which provides information on the money that various  USDA agencies spent on climate change activities and provides this  information to OMB.  For more information on USDA’s climate change  funding, see appendix II.
NIFA and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are the two USDA  agencies with the largest amount of climate change research funding.
NIFA. NIFA oversees a competitive grant program called the Agriculture  and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) that awards grants for research,  extension, and/or education activities. Grant money is also awarded for  “integrated” projects that incorporate two or more of these activities.  Some integrated projects, known as coordinated agricultural projects  (CAP), support large-scale projects that promote collaboration, open  communication and the exchange of information, and reduce duplication  of effort. In addition, NIFA funds “standard” grants on climate change  adaptation and mitigation in agriculture that consist of targeted research,  education, extension, or integrated projects.
To help communicate information to farmers, NIFA distributes funding to  the cooperative extension system. Extension disseminates science-based  information and decision support tools through meetings, written  publications, and via the internet. For example, the cooperative extension  system supports the eXtension website, which can be used to access  information and education resources on a wide range of topics from land- grant university staff and experts, such as entrepreneurship and growing  certain crops. In fiscal year 2013, NIFA provided approximately $296  million for agricultural extension at land-grant universities, or slightly less  than one quarter of NIFA’s total budget, to supplement state and county  funds for the extension system.
ARS. USDA’s principal in-house research agency, performs both basic  and applied research and presents the results through various sources,  including academic papers, fact sheets, and conference presentations.  Climate change research conducted by ARS takes place under the  National Resources and Sustainable Agricultural Systems program, one  of its four national research programs. In fiscal year 2013, ARS spent  about $38 million on climate change research, about 65 percent of which  went to adaptation research projects, according to an internal USDA  document. For example, ARS researchers are experimenting with  different crop varieties to show which of these can withstand drought or  higher temperatures.
ERS. ERS also devotes a smaller amount of research money to  developing information for decision makers on climate policy, such as  examining the costs and benefits of adapting to climate change. In  2012, ERS released a report that examined how farmers might adapt to  changing climate conditions to reduce the impact of changes in local  weather, resource conditions, and price signals. The study found that,  while changing climate conditions are uncertain, farmers have the  opportunity to adapt to weather, resource, and price changes by altering  crops and adjusting their production practices.
section_title: USDA’s Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Focus on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sequestering Carbon
paragraphs: In the area of climate change mitigation, USDA has set a goal for 2015 of  a 40 million metric ton reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the  agricultural sector compared with 2005 levels and an 80 million metric ton  increase in carbon sequestration compared with 2005. According to  USDA’s 2010-2015 Strategic Plan, USDA will work to achieve these goals  through its existing conservation and energy programs. Many of USDA’s  conservation programs are administered by the Natural Resources  Conservation Service (NRCS) and provide both technical and financial  assistance to farmers who voluntarily enroll in them. Under the  Conservation Technical Assistance program, for example, NRCS staff  work with farmers to develop and implement conservation plans. In  addition, NRCS administers programs that provide financial assistance to  encourage farmers to adopt conservation practices, such as the  Conservation Stewardship Program. USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA)  also administers conservation programs, such as the Conservation  Reserve Program, which provides financial assistance to farmers who  remove land from agricultural production and plant native vegetation on  the land. USDA’s conservation programs account for about 4 percent of  USDA’s budget—approximately $6.2 billion in fiscal year 2013—but the  agency does not report this funding to OMB as spending directly related  to climate change. USDA officials said they do not report the spending to  OMB as climate-related because the environmental benefits of these  programs are wide-ranging and not solely related to climate change. For  example, these conservation programs can help reduce erosion from  fields and provide habitat for wildlife, in addition to sequestering carbon  and improving soil health.
USDA officials told us that the agency’s research efforts also play a role  in promoting climate change mitigation, but these officials acknowledge  that research alone does not directly result in emissions reductions.  Several research efforts aim to quantify the reduction in greenhouse gas  emissions that occurs if farmers take certain actions. For example, ARS  has helped develop GRACEnet, a research program that estimates  greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration based on crops  planted and land management practices. According to a USDA official,  mitigation research represents about 15 percent of USDA’s total climate  change research spending.
Another mitigation goal involves increasing renewable energy generation  in rural communities. USDA has set a goal of more than doubling the  amount of renewable energy generation in rural communities from 1.5  billion kilowatt hours in 2009 to 3.1 billion kilowatt hours in 2015. For  example, Rural Development’s Rural Energy for America Program  (REAP) supports small energy generation projects by providing financial  assistance to farmers and rural business owners that institute renewable  energy systems, conduct energy audits, and make energy efficiency  improvements. According to OMB, REAP received about $3 million for  these efforts in fiscal year 2013. In total, Rural Development received  about $13 in fiscal year 2013 to support agency mitigation efforts,  according to OMB.
section_title: USDA’s Climate Change Priorities for Agriculture Generally Align with National Climate Change Priorities
paragraphs: National climate change priorities, as articulated by the Administration  and the USGCRP, are to promote mitigation actions, advance climate  science, develop tools and translate information, better predict future  climate conditions, and ensure that federal agencies are incorporating  climate change into agency programs and operations. The Administration  has set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by  2020 from 2005 levels. National climate change priorities aimed at  meeting economy-wide emissions targets and ensuring climate resiliency  are addressed in documents including the President’s Climate Action  Plan, the 2011 Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change  Adaptation Task Force, and Executive Orders 13514 and 13653. National  climate change priorities are also identified in the 10-year USGCRP  Research Plan. Table 5 shows climate-related priorities discussed in  these documents.
USDA’s climate change priorities for agriculture generally align with the  national priorities outlined in table 5. USDA officials said they rely on  NOAA and other USGCRP science agencies to develop better and more  localized climate projections to help farmers make management decisions  to adapt to weather variability and a changing climate. USDA also has  various adaptation and mitigation research efforts under way that are  intended to help understand the current and potential impacts of climate  change and develop information and tools for farmers. To help deliver  information to farmers, USDA will rely on the cooperative extension  system to translate climate information and NRCS staff to provide  technical assistance through conservation programs, such as the  Conservation Technical Assistance program. According to the USGCRP  2012-2021 Research Plan, USDA’s research and extension efforts,  conservation programs, and efforts to provide farmers with decision- making tools support USGCRP priorities on “multiple fronts.”
USDA has also developed a climate change adaptation plan. In  accordance with Executive Order 13514, USDA issued Departmental  Regulation 1070-001 in June 2011, which directed its agencies to develop  climate change adaptation plans. The June 2012 climate change  adaptation plan detailed how climate change is anticipated to affect  USDA operations and how USDA agencies will prepare and adapt to the  projected impacts. For example, FSA stated that threats associated with  climate change could make farmers become more reliant on financial and  disaster assistance programs administered by FSA. To address this  vulnerability, FSA’s strategy is to review existing policies and programs  and determine if they could be modified to encourage farmers to  undertake adaptation measures such as changing crop varieties,  diversifying crops, and increasing water-use efficiency.
section_title: USDA Climate Change Efforts Consist of Both Mature Programs and New Initiatives, but the Agency Is Not Tracking Progress Adequately
paragraphs: USDA’s climate efforts consist of both mature programs and newer  initiatives. USDA has been conducting climate change research and  implementing conservation programs for several years. Many of these  conservation programs were established prior to USDA’s more recent  focus on climate change. In more recent years, USDA has emphasized  the need to turn climate research into technical assistance for farmers. In  addition, USDA is working with other agencies to improve climate  projections. However, USDA is not using its performance planning or  reporting process to provide information on how it intends to accomplish  its strategic goal on climate change or to track its progress toward  meeting this goal.
subsections: section_title: USDA Has Engaged in Climate Change Efforts for Several Years
paragraphs: USDA’s climate efforts have consisted of research, conservation, and  energy programs.
Research: USDA has conducted climate change research since the early  1990s. These research efforts grew out of the Global Change Research  Act of 1990, which required the development of a research plan that  provides recommendations for collaboration to combine and interpret data  to, among other things, “produce information readily usable by  policymakers attempting to formulate effective strategies for preventing,  mitigating, and adapting to the effects of global change.” Both ARS and  NIFA and its predecessor organization at USDA, the Cooperative State  Research, Education, and Extension Service, have been involved in  climate change research since the 1990s.
ARS and NIFA still play major roles in USDA’s climate research efforts. In  fiscal year 2013, they accounted for $78 million of the $82 million (95  percent) of the monies that USDA spent on climate change research,  according to OMB data. ARS accounted for $38 million in research spending, with most of this research conducted under its Climate Change,  Soils, and Emissions Program. This program conducts research on four  components of climate change: (1) improving air quality; (2) reducing  greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon; (3) enabling  agriculture to adapt to climate change; and (4) enhancing soil health.  According to an internal ARS document, there were 32 ongoing research  projects in 2013 focused on climate mitigation at a cost of $13.7 million,  and 53 research projects focused on climate adaptation at a cost of $24.6  million. NIFA’s work on climate change is done through its Institute of  Bioenergy, Climate, and the Environment and, in fiscal year 2013, NIFA  accounted for about $40 million of USDA’s climate research spending.  According to NIFA officials, most of NIFA’s climate research is funded  through AFRI, the largest competitive grants program that NIFA  administers. One of the five challenge areas that AFRI is working on is to  “mitigate and adapt to climate change.”
Conservation: USDA also has several established conservation  programs administered by FSA and NRCS, many of which were  established prior to USDA’s more recent focus on climate change. Now  these conservation programs are being presented as not only helping to  conserve land, prevent erosion, or provide wildlife habitat, but also as  having the climate benefit of sequestering carbon and promoting soil  health. For example, FSA, and its predecessor agency, have  administered the Conservation Reserve Program since 1986 and, in fiscal  year 2013, about 27 million acres of land were conserved through this  program. FSA estimates that this effort results in a net reduction of 45  million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually through sequestration of  carbon dioxide and reduced fuel and fertilizer use by farmers. Similarly,  NRCS oversees a number of conservation programs, and an estimated  52.9 million acres were enrolled in these programs in fiscal year 2012.  NRCS’s focus on conservation goes back to the Dust Bowl of the  1930s.Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which provides financial and  technical assistance to farmers who implement conservation practices  and undertake conservation planning.
The largest of NRCS’s conservation programs is the  Energy: Another area where USDA has ongoing climate change  mitigation efforts involves energy. FSA, NIFA, NRCS, and Rural  Development have programs focusing on different aspects of energy,  including energy efficiency, renewable energy, and the production of  biofuels. Among these programs is Rural Development’s REAP program.  According to a March 2012 report on REAP, this program funded 5,733  renewable energy and energy-efficiency improvement projects since  2009.
section_title: Recent USDA Efforts Have Emphasized the Need to Turn Research Findings Into Technical Assistance for Farmers
paragraphs: In 2009, research program leaders at NIFA developed a new strategic  direction, which called for NIFA to support the creation of “innovative tools  for communication and education to provide information that people and  communities can use in their daily lives.” Subsequently, USDA’s Climate  Change Science Plan, released in 2010, emphasized the need for the  agency to develop tools to help farmers with both climate adaptation and  mitigation. Also, in 2010, NIFA issued a funding announcement under  AFRI’s climate change challenge area for projects focused on climate  research, education, or extension. The announcement also provided  funding for integrated projects, which combine research along with  education and/or extension activities. Among the projects funded under  this announcement were the four largest grants the agency had ever  awarded according to NIFA officials. NIFA provided $85 million in total  funding over a period of 5 years for these four integrated projects, known  as CAP grants. Each of these grants, now in their fourth year, involves  researchers across several universities. Table 6 provides more  information on these projects.
The four CAP grant projects are at various stages of turning research into  technical assistance for farmers, based on our review of materials and  conversations with leaders of these projects. Most of the grantees had  conducted outreach to farmers through conducting surveys or holding  webinars, but the grants varied in terms of their use of extension and  development of web-based tools to aid farmers in decision making. For  example, the Sustainable Corn CAP grant has cooperative extension  agents in nine Midwestern states in the Corn Belt who are responsible for  disseminating project information to farmers. This CAP grant recipient  also has partnered with another USDA grantee, Useful to Usable, to  communicate research to farmers; this joint effort has resulted in the  development of two web-based tools for farmers. One of these tools, the  Corn-Growing Degree Day tool, compares current weather conditions  with 30-year averages and helps farmers decide when to plant their  seeds. In contrast, university officials leading the PINEMAP and REACCH  CAP grants say their projects have been more focused on research so  far, but they are planning to produce tools for farmers in the final years of  funding. These university officials said that developing tools for farmers  takes time.
In 2013, NIFA awarded two CAP grants focused on livestock, with one  focused on dairy cattle, and one focused on beef cattle. These also were  5-year grants, consisting of about $10 million each. These livestock  grants focus on developing information for farmers on adaptation and  mitigation options. For example, the CAP grant project on beef cattle is  examining ways to reduce methane emissions by altering the animals’  diets. NIFA officials told us it was likely that when funding ran out for  these CAP grants and the four awarded in 2011, that future CAP grant  funding would be less.
A senior ARS official told us that ARS’s research on climate mitigation is  more mature than its climate adaptation efforts. This official said ARS was  more comfortable with making recommendations to farmers about how to  reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon in soil than with  providing information on how to adapt to climate change. He said that  ARS’s adaptation research had not progressed to the point where a  “decision tree” tool could be developed to guide farmers on adaptation  options. During our site visits to two ARS laboratories, we observed  growth chambers where ARS scientists were examining the impacts that  future climate conditions could have on crops to help identify crop types  that best withstand these conditions. One area where ARS has made  progress is on soil health techniques, such as using no-till farming.  According to ARS and NRCS officials, ARS research has been used by  NRCS to provide information to farmers on the benefits of healthy soil.
Like ARS, NRCS has also developed some climate change tools for  farmers in recent years. For example, NRCS has worked with Colorado  State University to develop COMET-FARM, a web-based tool used by  farmers to estimate the carbon footprint of their operations and to  determine likely impacts from certain actions in reducing their greenhouse  gas emissions or increasing sequestration. In 2012, NRCS launched a  campaign called Unlock the Secrets in the Soil to share information with  farmers on the benefits of healthy and productive soil. As part of this  effort, NRCS maintains a website with fact sheets, videos, and other  information on soil health.
In February 2014, USDA announced the establishment of seven regional  climate hubs and three subsidiary hubs to “deliver science-based,  practical information to farmers, ranchers” and “to support decision  making related to mitigation of, and adaptation to climate change.”  Figure 2 is an interactive map showing the regional climate hub locations.  (See app. IV for a printable, noninteractive version of fig. 2.) During the  first year of this effort, USDA officials expect the hubs to engage with  stakeholders, establish a website, conduct a climate risk assessment for  the hub’s region, and develop training for USDA staff. Several USDA  agencies will actively contribute to this effort, including ARS, NRCS, Rural  Development, and the Forest Service. USDA officials said they expect  NRCS staff and the cooperative extension service to help distribute  technical assistance from the hubs to farmers and other stakeholders in  the region. The climate hubs will also collaborate with other federal  agencies that have existing climate offices, such as NOAA, which has  regional climate partnerships that include Regional Integrated Sciences  and Assessments teams, Regional Climate Centers, and Regional  Climate Services Directors. These hubs will be located at existing ARS or  Forest Service facilities.
Interactive GraphicFigure 2: Location of USDA’s Regional Climate Hubs and Information on These RegionsInstructions: Move your cursor over the colored regions below for more information. For a printable, noninteractive version of this figure, see appendix IV.
Some USDA officials said that there was no substitute for the one-on-one  attention that farmers receive from extension or NRCS staff. However,  representatives from farm groups said that the cooperative extension  system is “not what it used to be” because both funding and staffing  levels have fallen in recent years. During our site visit to Iowa, a leading  agricultural state in crop and livestock production, a university official told  us that, until 2009, there had been an agricultural extension agent in each  of the 99 county extension offices, but there now are only about 30 such  individuals, each of whom covers multiple counties. According to USDA  officials leading the climate hubs effort, they have reached out to the  extension system by hosting a meeting with all of the land-grant  universities and sending a letter to states, urging them to take part in the  climate hub effort. USDA is also developing a memorandum of  understanding on this topic with the Association of Public and Land-Grant  Universities. However, there are very few extension specialists that  have a focus on climate change; we spoke to two climate change  extension specialists during our work, and one of these specialists told us  that he knew of only four such specialists in the United States. NRCS  officials said that they viewed the staff’s work in the hubs as an extension  of NRCS’ traditional work on conservation. These officials did, however,  acknowledge that there has been a decline in staffing levels in recent  years, which we reported on in a recent report.
With the reduced presence of the extension system, some stakeholders  told us that farmers are turning more to the private sector for information  on managing their farms. Certified crop advisers, who provide information to farmers on, among other things, seed selection, irrigation,  and fertilizer decisions, are one such source of information. The Useful to  Usable grant project is focused on delivering information to crop advisers  that can be shared with farmers. Some of these crop advisers are  independent, while others are employed by large agribusiness  companies.
section_title: Efforts Are Under Way to Improve Climate Change Projections, but They Are Generally at an Early Stage
paragraphs: One of the key pieces of information farmers need to make planting and  other decisions is reliable information on future climate projections. USDA  officials told us that farmers need projections that cover longer periods of  time so they can make longer-range and seasonal decisions, such as  what type of seed to buy for the upcoming planting season or whether to  purchase a certain piece of equipment. One of the ways that USDA and  NOAA are addressing the need for longer-term climate projections is  through participation in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and  Improvement Project (AgMIP) consortium, an international effort  established in 2010 to examine and improve globally integrated climate,  economic, and agricultural production models. A USDA official involved in  this effort told us that the AgMIP effort is at an early stage of  development. Currently, most climate models provide projections over  large geographical regions. For example, the Third National Climate  Assessment provided information on possible future climate conditions  across nine regions in the United States under different greenhouse gas  emissions scenarios. However, NOAA officials said that these were  scenarios and not forecasts because they do not include probabilities of  these occurring. Officials at USDA told us that they recognize farmers  need both localized information to make decisions and more information  on the likelihood that certain climate conditions will occur. The process of  refining larger-scale model results and arriving at a more local geographic  scale is known as downscaling. According to the National Research  Council, downscaling can be challenging, and additional evaluation of the  various downscaling methodologies is needed.
Currently, farmers can obtain more localized projections on weather and  drought conditions with shorter time frames from various sources.  NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center produces seasonal weather outlooks  that cover 90-day periods for both temperature and precipitation and  provide probabilities on whether conditions will be average, below  average, or above average. NOAA also leads the National Integrated  Drought Information System (NIDIS), which provides information on  current drought conditions and projections for future drought conditions  and communicates these on a regular basis. NIDIS is made up of  representatives from USDA, along with the Departments of Energy, the  Interior, and Transportation, and various other federal agencies.
section_title: USDA Is Not Using Its Strategic Planning and Reporting Process to Provide Information on Its Climate Change Efforts
paragraphs: Helping to make farms more resilient to climate change is part of one of  USDA’s four strategic goals, but the agency is not using its performance  planning and reporting process to provide information on how it intends to  accomplish this goal or the status of its efforts. Developing a strategic  plan and establishing performance measures is the first step in an  agency’s performance management process. According to GPRA, as  amended by the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, an agency’s  performance plan is supposed to explain how the agency will accomplish  its performance goals, and its performance reports are supposed to  review the extent to which performance goals have been met, and if the  performance goals are not met, explain why. We found shortcomings in  both of these documents that USDA had been preparing on an annual  basis:
Performance plans. In USDA’s performance plans for the years 2011,  2012, and 2013, there was only general information about its climate  change efforts, and there was no specific linkage between these efforts  and its performance goals and how these efforts would be used to  accomplish its goals. For example, in the 2013 USDA performance plan,  there is no explicit discussion on how ARS’s or NIFA’s research efforts  relate to climate change. When asked, USDA officials were uncertain as  to why this linkage was not included in the department’s performance  plan. GPRA requires that agencies use their performance plans to  describe how an agency’s performance goals contribute to the goals laid  out in its strategic plan. Without this information in its performance plans,  USDA is not providing a plan to the public on how it intends to  accomplish its goals.
Performance reports. In its performance reports for the years 2011,  2012, and 2013, USDA did not provide any information on whether it was  meeting its performance goals under its strategic objective to lead efforts  to mitigate and adapt to climate change. USDA provided information on  its other measures for its strategic objectives. USDA officials stated that  since climate efforts were largely excluded from the performance plan,  these efforts were excluded in the performance report. GPRA requires  that agencies use their performance reports to provide information on  whether they have achieved their performance goals. Without this  information, USDA cannot demonstrate whether its efforts have been  successful and whether changes need to be made to its programs to  address any unmet goals.
Performance measures. USDA does not have performance measures  in its 2014-2018 strategic plan for some of the adaptation practices, such  as no-till farming and the planting of cover crops, which the agency is  encouraging farmers to adopt. USDA officials in both ARS and NIFA told  us that it is difficult for them to track farm management practices.  However, USDA conducts several surveys of farmers, and its Agricultural  Resource Management Survey collects information on farm management  practices, including the use of no-till farming. Agency officials also said  that it has been difficult to develop performance measures for climate  change since it was first included as a strategic goal in the 2010-2015  strategic plan. Nonetheless, USDA has developed performance  measures to track progress for some of its other strategic objectives that  track acreage amounts where certain practices have been implemented  on public or private lands. USDA has a wide-ranging set of climate  efforts under way, but the performance measures that are part of its  strategic plan do not capture the breadth of its efforts. Without measures  to track progress on more of its climate efforts, USDA will not be able to  fully assess its progress in meeting its climate change strategic goal and  provide information to Congress and the public on its progress. See  appendix III for more information on the strategic goal, objectives, and  associated performance measures that are part of USDA’s strategic  plans for fiscal years 2010-2015 and fiscal years 2014-2018.
section_title: USDA Faces Challenges in Implementing Its Climate Change Efforts
paragraphs: USDA faces challenges in encouraging U.S. farmers to take measures to  mitigate and adapt to climate change. To address some of these  challenges, USDA is, among other things, developing tools that  summarize climate information and communicate research findings to  farmers. However, USDA does not provide farmers with information on  the costs and returns of taking climate change actions.
subsections: section_title: USDA Faces Challenges in Encouraging Farmers to Adapt to Climate Change and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sequester Carbon
paragraphs: As mentioned earlier, USDA is developing and delivering technical  assistance on climate change to farmers, and we found that the agency  faces challenges in these efforts. USDA officials we spoke with, as well  as researchers and representatives of environmental groups, said that  climate change is a very complex topic, and it is difficult to turn the large  amount of often technical research into readily understandable  information. Our 2009 report on climate change found that turning climate  data into information useful for making climate adaptation decisions was a  challenge facing federal, state, and local decision makers.
USDA officials acknowledge a need to develop climate projections at  geographic scales and time frames relevant to farmers. To accomplish  this goal, USDA officials said they must rely on other agencies and  researchers, such as NOAA, because USDA does not have the technical  capability to do this work. NOAA officials told us that providing climate  predictions covering a 5- to 10-year period is one of the largest unmet  needs in climate forecasting. Currently, it is difficult for climate modelers  to predict when certain key climate features will occur that can have major  influences on the climate on these time frames, such as El Niño/Southern  Oscillation events.NOAA is seeking to extend its climate forecasts beyond one year.  NOAA  officials also told us that climate models will always involve a degree of  uncertainty and that local cooperative extension staff need to be trained  on how to present information about this uncertainty in the models.
However, to provide additional help to farmers,  Another challenge USDA faces is the incentive structure that farmers  consider when making decisions. Officials at USDA, researchers, and  farmers we spoke with told us that farmers need incentives to take  climate adaptation or mitigation actions. For example, planting cover  crops has a financial cost for the farmer in the short-term in the form of  seed and planting costs, but the benefits of healthier soil may not be  realized for a few years. Similarly, an acre of land that is maintained in  perennial vegetative cover for conservation purposes is not available to a  farmer for revenue-generating crops, such as corn or soybeans.  USDA’s existing conservation programs provide payments to farmers who  take such conservation actions, but these payments are generally less  than the revenue the farmer would receive from growing and selling crops  on the land. Total acreage placed in the Conservation Reserve Program  has declined between 2007 and 2013 from about 37 million acres to  about 27 million acres, and one USDA official told us this was due in part  to higher market prices for corn. Also, farmers who have marginal  farmland have been able to convert it from grassland—which provides  conservation benefits and sequesters carbon—to revenue-generating  crops and qualify for crop insurance coverage offered by USDA, thus  lowering their financial risk. As some Iowa farmers told us, farmers  generally make decisions based on short-term economic incentives  because the farming industry is focused on producing commodities at the  lowest price. For example, if climate change measurably decreases yields  for farmers in the future, farmers may have an incentive to change their  practices.
There was also general agreement among university researchers that  climate change can be a polarizing topic in the agriculture community.  According to a USDA-funded survey of almost 4,800 farmers in the Corn  Belt, 66 percent believed that climate change was occurring and, of these  respondents, 41 percent believed that humans were at least partly  responsible. The authors of this research found that if farmers do not  believe climate change is happening or poses a threat, they may be less  likely to take adaptation or mitigation actions.
section_title: USDA Has Taken Steps to Address Challenges but Does Not Provide Farmers with Information on the Costs and Returns of Taking Climate Change Actions
paragraphs: USDA has taken several steps to address the challenges it faces. For  example, it is working to improve the information that can be provided to  farmers from climate models. USDA is also taking steps to deliver  information to farmers that is more accessible and easier to understand  and apply to their operations. According to USDA officials, the regional  climate hubs are intended to provide an avenue to deliver region-specific  information to farmers on climate change. In addition, in three of the large  CAP grant projects that USDA funded in 2011, farmers have been  surveyed or interviewed to get more information on their needs and to  better tailor the information provided to them to their needs. An official  with the Useful to Usable CAP grant project told us that the project has  used focus groups to gather information on the types of information that  the farm community needs on climate change. Another USDA project  maintains a website called AgroClimate, with weather forecast links and  other tools, including fact sheets on different farm management practices,  such as planting cover crops. University researchers we spoke with said  that an understanding of the farm community is critical in communicating  with farmers about climate change.
USDA reports have highlighted the importance of providing information to  farmers on the costs and returns of taking certain actions in response to  climate change. For example, USDA Technical Bulletin 1935 states that  there is a need for “risk-weighted” costs and benefits of taking adaptation  actions, but “few efforts have been made to develop such comprehensive  quantification efforts in the context of climate change.”officials at USDA, researchers, and farmers we spoke with, this   According to  information is important because farmers weigh the financial costs and  returns when making decisions about their farm operations. When we  asked USDA officials about the agency’s efforts to develop this  information, they highlighted a 2013 report that examined the financial  incentives necessary for farmers to adopt certain mitigation practices.  For example, the report provides estimated changes in costs, yield, and  revenue for farmers changing from conventional tillage to reduced tillage  for certain crops including corn and wheat. However, we found that the  report does not provide information on instances where crop yields  increased as a result of changes in practices, and we did not find  evidence of USDA efforts to make information in this 270-page technical  report more accessible to farmers. NRCS officials we spoke with did not  seem aware of the report, and the website for NRCS’s soil health  campaign provides general information on the benefits of healthy soil but  not on the farm-level costs to farmers or the demonstrated impact on crop  yields from having healthier soil. According to federal standards for  internal control, federal agencies are to record and communicate to  management and others who need it and in a form and within a time  frame that enables them to carry out their responsibilities. Also under  these standards, in addition to internal communications, management  should ensure that there are adequate means of communicating with, and  obtaining information from, external stakeholders that may have a  significant impact on the agency achieving its goals. NRCS officials said  they did not have information on the costs and returns of taking certain  actions in response to climate change and suggested that farmers might  get it from other farmers. They noted that this information is challenging to  develop because several variables can affect the costs and returns for a  particular farmer. In keeping with Technical Bulletin 1935, USDA has  taken some steps to develop estimates of costs and benefits of taking  actions in response to climate change, but if this information is not  distributed in an accessible format, its usefulness to farmers may be  limited. Without information that is readily accessible to farmers on the  farm-level economic costs and returns of taking certain actions in  response to climate change, farmers may be reluctant to take climate  adaptation or mitigation actions.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: USDA is taking several promising steps to begin to help farmers mitigate  and adapt to climate change. In recent years, USDA has increased  funding for its climate efforts, particularly in the area of research, and has  been working to help develop tools and useful information for farmers  such as the recent establishment of regional climate hubs.
The importance of climate change at USDA is reflected in the fact that  one of the agency’s four strategic goals focuses on climate change.  However, the agency does not have associated performance measures  that reflect the breadth of USDA efforts in the climate area. In addition, its  performance plans and performance reports do not provide adequate  information on how the agency planned to accomplish its goals or the  status of its efforts. By not using its performance plans to explain how it  will accomplish its goals in the area of climate change, USDA has not  provided Congress and the public with important information on its efforts.  Without a more robust performance measurement system, USDA will  have difficulty assessing its progress in meeting its strategic goal on  climate change and providing information to Congress and the public on  the status of its efforts.
Farmers weigh the financial costs and returns of taking certain actions  carefully. However, USDA has made few efforts to quantify the costs and  returns of taking certain actions that could help farmers make both short-  and long-term decisions in the face of a changing climate. USDA has  taken some steps in this area, but without communicating more  accessible information on the economic costs and returns to farmers of  taking certain adaptation or mitigation actions on their farms consistent  with federal internal control standards, farmers may be reluctant to take  certain actions.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: To better promote agency accountability, we recommend that the  Secretary of Agriculture direct the Climate Change Program Office and  the Office of Budget and Program Analysis to take the following three  actions:
Work with relevant USDA agencies to develop performance measures  that better reflect the breadth of USDA’s climate change efforts.
Ensure that the department’s annual performance plans explain how  agency actions will lead to the accomplishment of performance goals in  the area of climate change.
Use annual performance reports to provide information on the status of  agency efforts toward meeting its performance measures in the area of  climate change.
In addition, to provide relevant information to farmers, we recommend  that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Climate Change Program  Office to work with relevant USDA agencies to develop and provide  readily accessible information to farmers on the farm-level economic  costs and returns of taking certain actions in response to climate change.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to the Departments of Agriculture and  Commerce for review and comment.  We also provided a copy to the U.S.  Global Change Research Program for a technical review.  In its written  comments, reproduced in appendix V, the Department of Agriculture  agreed with our recommendations and said that the report reflects the  wide range of actions that the department is taking to address climate  change in the agriculture sector.  USDA also noted it has begun to  address some of these recommendations.  Specifically, the department is  conducting additional work to provide tools to farmers that assess the  costs and impacts of adopting technologies that help to mitigate climate  change.  The Departments of Agriculture and Commerce and the U.S.  Global Change Research Program also provided technical comments,  which we have incorporated as appropriate.
As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of  this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 14 days from the  report date.  At that time, we will send copies of this report to the  appropriate congressional committees, the Secretary of Agriculture, the  Secretary of Commerce, and other interested parties. In addition, the  report is available at no charge on the GAO website at  http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact  me at (202) 512-3841 or neumannj@gao.gov. Contact points for our  Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on  the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to  this report are listed in appendix VI.
section_title: Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
paragraphs: Our objectives were to examine (1) U.S. Department of Agriculture’s  (USDA) priorities related to climate change and agricultural production  and how these align with national priorities; (2) the status of USDA’s  climate change efforts; and (3) the challenges, if any, USDA faces in  implementing its climate efforts and the steps it has taken to overcome  these challenges.
To describe USDA’s priorities related to climate change and agricultural  production and how these align with national priorities, we analyzed  USDA documents that describe the agency’s priorities in this area. These  documents include USDA’s fiscal year 2010–2015 and fiscal year 2014- 2018 Strategic Plans, the agency’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan, its  Climate Change Science Plan, and Departmental Regulation 1070-001.  To identify national priorities regarding climate change and agricultural  production, we analyzed the U.S. Global Change Research Program 10- year strategic research plan, the Interagency Climate Change Task Force  2010 and 2011 progress reports, Executive Orders 13514 and 13653,  and the President’s Climate Action Plan. We also analyzed budget data  that USDA reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its  annual report to Congress on climate change expenditures. We also  interviewed officials responsible for climate change policy from USDA’s  Climate Change Program Office and other USDA agencies.
To determine the status of USDA’s climate change efforts, we analyzed  documents that included annual budget data, progress reports, and  annual performance reports. These included the budget data that USDA  reports to OMB. We focused on USDA’s key climate change efforts,  which we identified through discussions with USDA officials and by  examining budget information, which enabled us to determine where  USDA was devoting large amounts of funding. We also reviewed USDA’s  strategic plans for fiscal years 2010-2015 and fiscal years 2014-2018 and  the performance plans and performance reports for the years 2010, 2011,  2012, and 2013. We also examined the requirements under the  Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 and the  GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 for strategic plans, performance plans,  and performance reports. In addition, we reviewed progress reports that  had been prepared by various USDA agencies. For the six large  Coordinated Agriculture Project grants that had been funded by USDA’s  National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), we interviewed officials  that were leading these grants and USDA officials that were responsible  for overseeing five of these grants. We also interviewed officials that were  leading two standard grants that had been funded by NIFA.
To determine the challenges that USDA faces in implementing its climate  efforts and steps it has taken to overcome some of these challenges, we  reviewed key documents on USDA’s efforts and reviewed our past work  on climate change. These USDA documents included USDA’s Technical  Bulletin 1935 on climate change and various reports prepared by USDA  agencies. Our past work on climate change has identified several  potential challenges in implementing climate change efforts at the federal  and local level.
For all three objectives, we conducted interviews with a range of officials,  including USDA officials implementing climate programs, and  stakeholders who were knowledgeable about USDA’s efforts and the  challenges the agency faces. Specifically, we spoke with officials from 10  USDA agencies and had multiple conversations with officials from the  following USDA agencies because of their extensive involvement in  climate change work: Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Economic  Research Service, Farm Service Agency (FSA), NIFA, Natural Resources  Conservation Service (NRCS), and Rural Development. We also spoke  multiple times with officials from USDA’s Climate Change Program Office,  which is responsible for coordinating USDA’s climate efforts, and USDA’s  Office of Budget and Policy Analysis, which is responsible for USDA’s  preparation of budget estimates, legislative reports, and regulations, as  well as USDA’s strategic planning and reporting efforts. The stakeholders  we spoke with included officials from farm groups, environmental groups,  and an agribusiness company. We also spoke with farmers from Iowa  and Kentucky.
Finally, we conducted two site visits on this engagement. We visited  ARS’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, where we met  with ARS researchers that were examining the impacts that different  climate conditions could have on crops. We also toured the facilities  where this research is taking place. We conducted a site visit in Iowa,  where we spoke with a variety of officials, including USDA officials from  ARS, NRCS, FSA, and Rural Development. We also spoke with a variety  of officials at Iowa State University, including professors and extension  staff. In addition, we met with extension staff in a county office, visited a  corn and pig farm, and spoke with farmers that operated this farm. We  selected Iowa because it is a large agriculture producer; according to the  2012 National Census of Agriculture, Iowa was the largest producer of  corn and soybeans in the United States.
We conducted this performance audit from September 2013 to  September 2014 in accordance with generally accepted government  auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the  audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable  basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We  believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
section_title: Appendix II: Summary of USDA Climate Change Budget and Associated Programs
paragraphs: This appendix presents information on the U.S. Department of  Agriculture’s (USDA) budget and programs that are related to climate  change. According to USDA officials, USDA does not have a line item in  its budget that covers climate change because many of the agency’s  climate efforts involve programs across several USDA agencies.  However, USDA does compile a “climate change crosscut,” which  provides information on the money that various USDA agencies spent on  climate change activities. For the purposes of this report, we used budget  data that USDA reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)  for its annual report to Congress on climate expenditures. Table 7 below  is a summary of the amount these agencies spent on climate change  efforts, according to OMB, along with a summary of USDA programs  associated with this spending.
section_title: Appendix III: Information on USDA’s Strategic Objectives and Performance Goals
paragraphs: In this appendix, table 8 provides information on the objectives and  performance measures related to climate change that are part of the U.S.  Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) fiscal years (FY) 2010-2015 and  2014-2018 strategic plans. These underlie USDA’s second strategic goal  to “ensure our national forests and private working lands are conserved,  restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our  water resources.” Working lands include both farms and livestock  operations.
section_title: Appendix IV: Information on USDA’s Regional Climate Hubs (Corresponds to Fig. 2)
paragraphs: Appendix IV: Information on USDA’s Regional  Climate Hubs (Corresponds to   Fig. 2)
In this appendix, table 9 provides additional details on the U.S.  Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) regional climate hubs that are part of  the rollover information contained in interactive figure 2.
section_title: Appendix V: Comments from Department of Agriculture
section_title: Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
subsections: section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the individual named above, Anne K. Johnson (Assistant  Director), Cheryl Arvidson, Thomas Beall, Carol Bray, Kevin Bray,  Christine Broderick, Andrew Burton, Frederick K. Childers, Elizabeth  Curda, Scott Heacock, Richard P. Johnson, Leah Marshall, Susan Offutt,  Dan Royer, and Sarah Veale made key contributions to this report.