Urging USDA Not to Support Factory Farm Biogas in IRA
Sent letter in response to USDA’s decision to support factory farm biogas in IRA
Nearly 200 groups sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) warning that nearly $2 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding intended to boost climate-smart agriculture could instead go to polluting factory farms.
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Groups, led by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Food & Water Watch, the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment, Friends of the Earth, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and the Southern Environmental Law Center, urged USDA not to further subsidize factory farms under the guise of climate action.
Opposition to Factory Farm Gas Funding and Practices in IRA
As the letter states, factory farming and the production of factory farm gas are costly industrial practices that “will exacerbate climate change, waste taxpayer dollars, and harm Indigenous peoples and environmental justice communities. This directly contradicts the intent of the Inflation Reduction Act …”
As the letter points out, “according to an analysis by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, just seven anaerobic digesters in California used nearly $2 million in EQIP funding — enough to support the average cost of 238 farms planting cover crops.”
What action has been taken? The letter was submitted to the USDA urging the agency to reconsider its recent decision to include several “conservation practices” that support factory farms and the proliferation of factory farm gas to its list of Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry practices that will be prioritized under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Why this is important: Funding under the Inflation Reduction Act should be reserved for true conservation practices that prioritize and advance sustainability, climate mitigation, and environmental protection — not factory farm practices that pollute our air and water, exacerbate the climate crisis, and harm animals in direct contradiction to the goals of the law. It is imperative that the USDA not use conservation funding to prop up an industry that will further entrench us in an unsustainable animal agricultural farming system.
Coalition: The Animal Legal Defense Fund, Food and Water Watch, the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment, Friends of the Earth, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and the Southern Environmental Law Center