US farmers are being asked to buy into “a voluntary, incentive-based and market-based system” of climate action, the US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has said to the IFA.

The IFA’s county chairs forum visited Washington DC for engagements with farm organisations and political representatives the week before last.

“Farmers wanted us to set up a programme that would allow farmers voluntarily to participate and to provide resources that would reduce the financial risk associated with the adoption of new practices,” Vilsack told the visiting Irish delegation.

“Currently, you’ve got to get big or get out. We’re trying to inject an alternative for small- and medium-sized farmers.”

About $40bn has been allocated for farming conservation measures through to 2026 under the US Inflation Reduction Bill. “We anticipate 60,000 farmers over 25m acres across all 50 states will participate.

“It also creates the opportunity for farmers to participate in eco-system service markets, established to pay for environmental benefits,” Vilsack said, listing four separate such markets, for carbon, for water, for wildlife and biodiversity, and for soil health.

“By virtue of our monitoring, measuring, verifying and reporting of the results, it puts farmers in a position to take advantage of these markets because they have a verifiable result they can market and sell.”

The meeting with Vilsack, who leads the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), was the key event of the IFA trip.

Vilsack, with over a decade in the hottest seat in US farming across two separate terms, devoted almost an hour to exchanges with the delegation of county chairs and national officers.

Beef imports

Meanwhile, the 120,000t quota for beef imports into the US is being almost completely used up by Brazil early in the year.

Asked about the prospect of a separate beef quota for the EU, Vilsack said: “In terms of trade between the US and the EU, our farmers don’t quite see it the way you all see it. Their perception, and I think there’s a bit of reality to how they feel, is that our market is quite open in many commodities.

“The EU market has the appearance of openness, but in reality, the implementation of the trading system results, in our view, in a fairly closed market.

“This is not a balanced relationship, when you look at dollars and cents, there is a large trading deficit.

“We keep asking for more openness and a better understanding of a science-based system, a rules-based system.

“I did take the step of opening up the beef market, in part because of requests from the Irish. We established a quota, and modifying would be extremely difficult politically. We’re looking at a way for creating greater equity within the quota, but I don’t think it’s likely that there will be an increase to the quota or an allocation to individual countries or the EU.”

IFA president Tim Cullinan raised the 2022 Dublin Declaration by over 1,000 scientists of the important role livestock production plays in society, and the related issue of biogenic methane and how it is accounted for in carbon measuring.

“It’s crucial that US producers are operating on the same page,” Vilsack replied. “Eventually, over time, a consensus (on carbon measurement) will be established. I don’t think we’re there yet; we still have work to do.”