Washington, D.C., April 21, 2009— John (Jay) Winthrop, Jr., Chairman of American Farmland Trust (AFT), participated in an Earth Day roundtable and press conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Chairman Waxman (D-CA), Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN). The press conference took place today in the Rayburn Room of the
U.S. Capitol where the Congressional leaders focused attention on their efforts to craft legislation in the year ahead. Next year, on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, “we’ll celebrate passage of [climate] legislation,” Rep. Pelosi promised. “AFT is committed to maximizing greenhouse gas reductions by maximizing agriculture’s role,” said Winthrop, Jr. American Farmland Trust, National Farmers Union, and National Association of Wheat Growers were invited to attend along with representatives from the environment, business, labor and religious sectors.

Jay Winthrop’s statement is below:

“Agriculture is an essential part of any climate change solution. American agriculture is the single largest manager and user of land and water resources in the country. According to the U.S. EPA, agriculture and forestry management practices can sequester up to 20 percent of current U.S. greenhouse gasses (GHG’s). EPA also tells us that agriculture and forestry are the most cost effective, readily available ways to reduce and mitigate carbon emissions. Thus agriculture cannot only hasten the accomplishment of our ultimate goal of reducing man-made emissions, but they can do so while reducing the overall cost of a climate change system.

“These real, credible and verifiable ways to reduce and mitigate carbon emissions also provide an opportunity for farmers and ranchers to improve the environment, develop new revenue streams, and help deal with climate change—a classic “win/win” situation. What is critical to making all this work is ensuring that the system is designed to be flexible enough so that large numbers of farmers and ranchers can access it—a system that allows producers to provide carbon offsets is useless if the standards and methodologies are too stringent and overly burdensome, resulting in no projects being offered. One final and important consideration: many of these same climate change related practices provide additional environmental benefits such as improved water quality and wildlife habitat.

“American Farmland Trust is committed to help combat climate change and help Congress pass legislation to do so. We believe that the science tells us that we as a nation must act, but we also believe that by facing this challenge and combating climate change, farmers and ranchers will find new opportunities to provide environmental goods and service and receive new streams of income from them.”

Without comprehensive climate change legislation, EPA will be forced to address GHG’s via Clean Air Act regulations. “As a better approach, AFT supports a cap-and-trade system with a robust offset market that includes agriculture. The challenge to agriculture is to recognize this legislative opportunity and to come forward with effective, workable policies. It’s become quite clear the federal government intends to regulate these issues if agriculture does not participate in legislation solutions,” added Jimmy Daukas, Managing Director of AFT’s Agriculture & Environment Campaign.

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