Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday trumpeted the Biden administration’s grants for climate-smart farming at an event in Pennsylvania, underlining Democrats’ public relations push in the battleground state.
The $3 billion grant program has enrolled more than 14,000 farmers through a variety of projects and sponsors, Vilsack said, encouraging producers to use practices that cut down on carbon emissions.
“This is a pivotal moment,” Vilsack said, noting small farms look for ways to endure in an industry continually leaning toward industrial-sized operations. “It’s time to have a system that works for everyone.”
The program, called Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, includes 135 projects across the country producing an array of commodities such as beef, milk, soybeans and other crops, as well as timber. The Department of Agriculture launched it in 2022 and immediately faced Republican criticism that Vilsack was thwarting congressional oversight.