Team,

Today, Secretary Vilsack is making a historic announcement: We are investing $2.8 billion through our Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities effort to help farmers, ranchers, forest landowners and our partners drive solutions to combat climate change. These projects are looking at ways to build and expand market opportunities for American commodities produced using climate-smart practices through pilot projects, positioning American producers as global leaders in climate-smart agricultural production. Based on unprecedented demand and the potential for meaningful opportunities to benefit producers, we’ve almost tripled the investment from the $1 billion the secretary announced in February.

Secretary Vilsack will be speaking today at 11:00 EDT about these projects at usda.gov/live, and if you have the time, I hope you will consider watching.

Through this first set of selections, which are still tentative as we negotiate final agreements with partners, we’re investing in 70 projects that touch every state, Puerto Rico and tribal lands. These projects are conservatively estimated to reach more than 50,000 producers and impact around 25 million acres of working lands. And they will make a difference: Our economists estimate that over their lifespan, these projects will sequester upwards of 50 million metric tons of carbon, or the equivalent of taking 10 million gasoline-powered cars off the road for a year.

You all know that our farmers, ranchers and forest landowners are on the front lines of climate change. At the same time, they are uniquely positioned to deliver climate solutions by implementing climate-smart production practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon. These projects are one of the ways we’re doing this, and I’m proud that employees across FPAC will be there to help them meet the moment. I know you will have questions on implementation, and we will provide you more as we finalize these agreements. This is a big deal, and the work you do will make it happen.

I encourage you to watch this video about the work USDA is doing—the work YOU are doing—to help our farmers, ranchers and forest landowners build resilience in their operations and develop new ways to drive climate-smart production.

I am proud of this work, and I hope you are too.

Robert Bonnie
Under Secretary
Farm Production and Conservation