We believe, how­ev­er, that since agri­cul­ture is both a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change and one of the key solu­tions, it should be a major part of the Green New Deal. In a new report by Data for Progress, titled ​“Regen­er­a­tive Farm­ing and the Green New Deal,” we pro­pose address­ing cli­mate change, and the eco­nom­ic hard­ship faced by small farm­ers, by pro­vid­ing a sup­port­ive tran­si­tion from unhealthy soil prac­tices to regen­er­a­tive farm­ing systems.

Now with broad sup­port among demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls, the Green New Deal res­o­lu­tion high­lights the trans­for­ma­tion of ener­gy, trans­porta­tion, health care and employ­ment sys­tems in our coun­try, while briefly men­tion­ing food and agriculture.

Last year, Rep. Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez (D‑N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D‑Mass.) intro­duced a res­o­lu­tion to Con­gress call­ing for an ambi­tious re-imag­in­ing of the U.S. economy―one that would tack­le both cli­mate change and inequality.

Right now, soil health is declin­ing because inten­sive farm­ing prac­tices, includ­ing mono­cul­tures, deplete soil organ­ic mat­ter, destroy the bio­log­i­cal health of soil, and increase the soil’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to ero­sion. Con­cur­rent­ly, floods dis­perse prime top­soil from high­ly erodi­ble monocrop oper­a­tions while pes­ti­cides and com­mer­cial fer­til­iz­ers kill the ben­e­fi­cial insects and microor­gan­isms that cre­ate and sup­port healthy soils.

As the land is being degrad­ed, farm­ers increas­ing­ly feel the effects of unsus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices and cli­mate change. For exam­ple, many farm­ers in the Mid­west were unable to plant crops last year because of the floods. Farm debt has now reached lev­els not seen since 1980, and last year, Farm Aid’s hot­line call vol­ume increased 109% from 2017. Around 75% of the calls were because of nat­ur­al disasters.

It is esti­mat­ed that the total cost of ero­sion from agri­cul­ture in the U.S. is as high as $44 bil­lion per year. But the fact is, ​“soci­ety” is not the one being asked to make the tan­gi­ble change on the ground. The farm­ers are. In addi­tion, the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit to farm­ers of ero­sion con­trol is far less than the costs of soil ero­sion to soci­ety. If we are to resolve this dilem­ma, we can­not rely on the moral soci­ety ver­sus self-inter­est­ed farmer argu­ment and assume that con­ven­tion­al farm­ers do not also feel a deep sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty to care for the land. To make trans­for­ma­tion­al change in farm poli­cies, we must make this change eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble for farm­ers and assist them through the tran­si­tion by reward­ing farm­ers for eco­log­i­cal ser­vices and invest­ing in healthy soils train­ing for farmers.

The Data for Progress report argues that com­bat­ing soil ero­sion and restor­ing soil health through thought­ful and sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices can be eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable solu­tions to the cur­rent farm­ing mod­els. The top pro­pos­als include:

Tran­si­tion­ing from cur­rent crop insur­ance pro­grams, which incen­tivize unhealthy soil prac­tices, to basic farm income insur­ance pro­grams, which could make it eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble for farm­ers to tran­si­tion to regen­er­a­tive farm­ing systems.

Train­ing and incen­tiviz­ing farm­ers to tran­si­tion to regen­er­a­tive farm­ing through pro­grams such as Con­ser­va­tion Stew­ard Pro­grams (CSP) and the USDA’s Nation­al Resource Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice (NRCS), which teach­es farm­ers to build soil, sequester car­bon, and prac­tice regen­er­a­tive agriculture.

Right now, the gov­ern­ment incen­tivizes mono­cul­ture farms over diver­si­fied farm­ing sys­tems and active­ly does not sup­port farm­ers engaged, or who want to engage, in diver­si­fied farm­ing sys­tems. As a result, our cur­rent farm­ing meth­ods hurt soci­ety and cost Amer­i­cans their money.

With­out prop­er train­ing, these farm­ers are not ade­quate­ly pre­pared to make the nec­es­sary changes. And by not pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion, the U.S. gov­ern­ment direct­ly pre­vents pro­gres­sive farm­ing prac­tices in the areas that need it most. This lack of sup­port has con­se­quences: The per­va­sive soil ero­sion across the U.S. lim­its pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, kills microor­gan­isms, and costs Americans―especially farmers―their livelihoods.

Because we rely on our farm­ers to be on the fore­front of the fight to mit­i­gate cli­mate change, we need to find a way to make this change eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble for farm­ers. That’s exact­ly what a Green New Deal should be all about.