The Future of Forestry in the Farm Bill

Farm Bill in Focus

Find out more about the briefings in this series below: The Process and Path Forward for Passing a Bipartisan Farm Bill Climate, Energy, and Economic Win-Wins in the Farm Bill Unlocking Rural Economies: Farm Bill Investments in Rural America The Future of Forestry in the Farm Bill Conservation Practices from Farms to Forests and Wetlands

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and U.S. Nature4Climate invite you to view a briefing on opportunities to advance climate-friendly forestry in this year’s Farm Bill. The forestry programs and incentives in the Farm Bill can provide greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits, as well as build resilience to climate impacts such as wildfire risk and extreme heat. At the same time, these programs generate jobs and present opportunities for innovation. 

During this briefing, panelists explained forestry-related programs in the Farm Bill and cover essential forestry topics, including wildfire management, innovative wood products, carbon markets, and urban forestry.

Highlights

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Natural climate solutions are essential to addressing climate change. Forestry has an outsized role in these solutions. Forests also provide many co-benefits, from water filtration and pest control to flood protection and food resources. Urban forests have the added benefit of improving public health and equity. Increased tree canopy coverage in cities reduces temperatures, mitigates the risk of heat-related illness and death, and improves mental health in underserved communities. The 2023 Farm Bill presents opportunities to leverage forest management as a natural climate solution, including by providing benefits and incentives to landowners to maintain working, healthy forests. The upcoming Farm Bill can encourage more equitable administration of forest conservation programs, with consideration of cost-share exemptions and match flexibility.

 

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.)

• Forests offer essential ecosystem services, from sequestering carbon to filtering water and providing habitats. These services must be protected as we begin to craft the 2023 Farm Bill.
• Forest landowners face immense financial burdens. Climate change has exacerbated these burdens.
• The 2023 Farm Bill should protect farmers’ access to assistance and insurance for climate-induced storm damage.
• A failure to invest in forest management risks deterring people from owning forests.

 

Lauren Cooper, Chief Conservation Officer, Sustainable Forestry Initiative; Founder, Forest Carbon and Climate Program at Michigan State University

• Forests provide many co-benefits, from water filtration and carbon sequestration to pest control, flood protection, and food resources.
• Natural climate solutions are essential to addressing climate change. Forestry has an outsized role in these solutions.
• The Forest Carbon and Climate Program has identified three major tactics through which forest managers and policymakers can leverage forest management as a nature-based solution.
• First, forest owners can increase and maintain their forestland. Forest coverage is in slow decline in the United States. Forest managers should avoid land conversion and deforestation and pursue reforestation and afforestation wherever possible. Policymakers, meanwhile, can bolster demand for working forests and minimize incentives for landowners to develop their forests.
• Second, forest managers can maintain and increase carbon stocks. Trees hold carbon for as long as they are in wood form. Tactics such as increasing forest resilience to threats like megafires and allowing trees to age will increase carbon storage. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier to forests, exacerbating the frequency and intensity of drought, pest infestation, and fires.
• Third, an increase in the use of sustainable wood as a substitute for building materials such as steel and concrete can increase carbon storage and reduce construction-related greenhouse gas emissions.
• The 2023 Farm Bill presents opportunities to leverage forest management as a natural climate solution. Such strategies include advancing forestry research; expanding and diversifying markets for forests and wood products; diversifying incentives for landowners to maintain their forests; and emphasizing equity and social justice within urban and community forestry. Coalition groups like the Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition and the Forest-Climate Working Group can serve as helpful resources.
• The new study, Climate-Smart Forestry: Promise and Risks for Forests, Society, and Climate, examines the role of forestry in climate mitigation and adaptation, and identifies areas where the practice has been underutilized.

 

Brendan Shane, Climate Director, Trust for Public Land

• The United States is experiencing both an increase in the number of extreme heat days and in the number of intense downpours.
• Urban forests can address both of these issues by providing shade, mitigating stormwater runoff, absorbing air pollutants, and sequestering carbon, according to a 2023 report by Climate Central. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has calculated that these ecosystem services account for billions of dollars in benefits.
• Urban forests have the added benefit of improving public health and equity. Increased tree canopy coverage in cities reduces temperatures, mitigates the risk of heat-related illness and death, and improves mental health in underserved communities.
• Historically redlined communities have half the tree canopy of “class A” communities. USFS has started to direct funding toward afforesting these underserved communities.
• Despite the benefits of trees, tree coverage continues to decline across the United States.
• The 2023 Farm Bill can create urban and community forestry programs, and empower existing ones. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117–169) provided $1.5 billion in funding for such programs, including the USFS’s Community Forest Program. Tools from American Forests and Trust for Public Land can help policymakers identify communities that lack tree coverage.

 

Freddie Davis, Rural Training and Research Center Director, The Federation of Southern Cooperatives

• The 2023 Farm Bill can provide benefits and incentives to landowners to maintain working, healthy forests.
• Federal programs that incentivize landowners to maintain their forestland already exist. The 2023 Farm Bill can bolster these programs, including through market incentives.
• Forest landowners who have an average holding of 40 acres or less have historically been underserved by federal programs. These forests face the highest risk of loss to development and deforestation. The upcoming Farm Bill could target these lands and offer tactics to landowners for maintaining them.
• Flagship programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) support on-the-ground forest management. These programs have funding to assist landowners with practices that promote healthy forests.
• As the population of forest managers in the United States has decreased, forest management expertise has disappeared. Programs under the 2018 Farm Bill have helped by providing technical assistance and training programs to forest owners. The new legislation can augment this funding, particularly for historically underserved groups.

 

Christine Cadigan, Executive Vice President, Carbon Origination, American Forest Foundation

• The next decade is the most critical for staying on a path to limiting global warming to 2°C (3.6°F). Natural climate solutions are essential to staying on this path.
• In the United States, more than half of all natural climate solution opportunities lie within forests. Forest management strategies are also among the most cost-effective natural climate solutions. However, these benefits are currently being heavily underutilized.
• Forests sequester about 15 percent of all carbon emissions in the United States. By leveraging the currently-underused benefits that forests provide, future policy could double that impact.
• Small, individually-owned parcels of forestland account for 39 percent of all forests in the United States. Yet less than one percent of forest carbon projects occur on lands of less than 5,000 acres. Barriers to entry, including high application costs, long-term monitoring needs, and lack of technical capacity, have prevented these landowners from taking advantage of forest carbon projects as they exist today.
• Market volatility presents high risks that family forest owners are not yet ready to assume responsibility for.
• One-time grants under the 2023 Farm Bill could catalyze projects that leverage opportunities through forest carbon markets.
• The Inflation Reduction Act provided unprecedented billions of dollars for forest conservation. The upcoming Farm Bill can protect this investment, including by funding the Landscape Scale Restoration Program under the USFS, and EQIP and CSP under NRCS.
• The upcoming Farm Bill can encourage more equitable administration of forest conservation programs, with consideration of cost-share exemptions and match flexibility.
• The Farm Bill must invest in partnerships and coalitions.
• The 2021 Rural Forest Markets Act (H.R.3790/S.1107), if reintroduced, could unlock private finance, and deliver that funding more equitably and holistically.

 

Q&A

 

Q: How does forest management differ across public and private lands? Between the two, what are the most important distinctions to understand?

Cooper

• Private forestlands cover a diverse scale of landowners who have different goals and different capacities to manage their land.

Shane           

• The Farm Bill process must engage both federal agencies and private landowners.

Davis

• One similarity is that there is a diversity in goals for landowners across both public and private forests that makes management policies difficult.

Cadigan

• Private landowners face highly complex ownership structures that can hinder decision-making.
• Small and private landowners face more difficulty than public land managers in accessing guidance and technical assistance.

 

Q: How does your work intersect with wildfire management, including pre-fire mitigation, dealing with active fires, and post-fire recovery?

Cooper

• Addressing and better preparing forests for wildfires can be a source of jobs. But people need training and to be compensated appropriately for the work. In general, it is important for the forest sector to consider how to attract a diverse group of people to the field of forest management.

Shane

• The Trust for Public Land is working on understanding how landowners can take wildfire risk into consideration in managing their forests.

Davis

• Prescribed burns are one of the best tools that forest owners can apply to mitigate wildfire risk. The Federation of Southern Cooperatives is working to expose private landowners to, and train them on, prescribed burning.

Cadigan

• The American Forest Foundation is considering how we can start to prepare forest managers who have less experience and familiarity with wildfires. This includes integrating wildfires into long-term planning for forest management.

 

Compiled by Nicole Pouy and edited for clarity and length. This is not a transcript.