Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Sunday, July 20, 2008

Farmers in the lead on climate change issue

By Barbara Lawton / lieutenant governor

During my years on a farm in southeastern Wisconsin, my parents taught their five children to live a life of careful conservation and land and water stewardship long before anyone we knew was talking about “going green.” This was simply representative of their Christian values, of a rural land ethic my father learned growing up on a farm himself, and it made for smart, long-term business decision-making.

Today, those lessons inform my work as lieutenant governor, and my Green Economy Agenda is designed to introduce people in their homes, businesses and public institutions such as schools to strategies to save and even make money while conserving energy. I traveled last week with leaders from the Farmer’s Union to introduce their Carbon Credit Program, bringing ongoing innovation to our all-important agricultural producers.

The torrential rains and flooding this past month made us see that global climate change affects us all already, but none more directly and immediately as the farmer. A recent federal scientific report deems it “very likely” that such weather extremes, a direct result of global climate change, will continue until we begin to reverse the trend and decrease carbon emissions significantly.

Farmers stand on the front line to drive that change with an innovative program that is straightforward: Farmers agree to implement approved environmentally-friendly practices — i.e. designating new acres as no-till, planting new trees or long-term grasses, or capturing methane in digesters. Then independent verifiers determine the number of tons of greenhouse gas emissions saved through each farmer’s efforts, and those tons are converted to “carbon contracts.”

Commodity prices have never been higher, but profits to farmers are low today with the high price of fertilizer and diesel fuel and a weak dollar abroad. Farmers’ participation in the Carbon Credit Program pays them to engage in sustainable practices on their land, helps capture carbon in the land and creates offsets for our manufacturing sector as it makes its own adaptations.

Businesses that join the Chicago Climate Exchange agree to a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions, and agree to reduce emissions every year. Should they exceed their caps, they must buy carbon contracts to offset excessive emissions. The Farmers Union program provides many of the contracts they purchase.

To put it more simply, farmers emit less, businesses buy the right to emit a little more, and the emissions even out today and go down overall every year.

To date, Farmers Union has sold more than $7.5 million in carbon credits nationwide through CCX and more than 3.5 million acres have been enrolled in the Farmers Union Carbon Credit Program.

The Farmers Union, under the smart leadership of Sue Bieltlich of Stoddard, Wis., offers Wisconsin farmers a way to seize their share of the growing green economy in a way that will leave a proud leagacy and healthy land to their heirs. Learn more by calling the WFU State Office at 1-800-272-5531 or visit www.wisconsinfarmersunion.com.

Barbara Lawton is Wisconsin lieutenant governor. More information is available at www.ltgov.wisconsin.gov.