Sunset from the International Space Station (NASA)
It is challenging to summarize the experience and outcomes of attending COP26 as delegates representing Solutions from the Land (SfL). SfL focuses on land-based solutions to global challenges.
Our team carried the message that agriculture, livestock production, and forest health offer solutions to mitigate methane emissions. Farmers Ray Gaesser, Lois Wright Morton, Fred Yoder and AG Kawamura, ranchers Pat and Sharon O’Toole, and SfL President Ernie Shea attended the COP26 over two weeks’ time.
We were told that past COPs agendas had hardly let agriculture, let alone animal agriculture, get their foot in the door. Deforestation was the only lens through which forestry was viewed. Pat said his fellow Board members who attended past COP meetings told him, “You better get somebody from livestock to go because you’re really being demonized.”
It didn’t take very long to realize that demonization of agriculture and forestry is a potential issue that we all need to be paying attention to.
Pat observed that the COP process has been really naive in its view of production agriculture and its ability to create solutions. “Chilling” is the word that Pat used to describe this view. “The conversations at COP26 did not indicate an understanding of the need for success in balancing production and conservation in the context of overall strategy,” O’Toole observed.
It was obvious that that meat production, rice production, and farmers in general were characterized in a negative way. The people who have gone to these COP meetings over the last years from all over the world say it’s only now that agricultural producers are recognized. Only now are agriculturalists having an ability to participate. Our team strongly conveyed the message that we from ag need to have a seat at the table.
Our path was made easier when United States Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack showed strong support for ag when he, along with Fred Yoder presented at the U.S. Pavilion. Vilsack was very proactive in his support of agricultural production. This helped set the stage for the positive message carried by our team to focus on solutions, not agendas.
Here certainly was a feeling that there’s a lot of agendas about food production. Consumers have a very high level of concern without a very high understanding of production. Pat O’Toole said, “Luckily our family comes from a community of people who have been working on resilience in natural resources for over 30 years. We have example after example. On our landscape, a wetland that was created went from less than 40 species of birds to around 130.
“A trout passage program that made the entire watershed passable for trout from the main river to the heads of every tributary demonstrates agricultural resilience in terms of more efficient irrigation. This shows the vision of how we work together and use both our own initiative and programs from the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture to come up with solutions.”
Solutions include working with organizations which share SfL’s values. Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV) promotes “Healthy Habitat, Wildlife, and Communities.”
“The IWJV’s conservation delivery program brings people together to address complex challenges with broad-scale benefits for fish and wildlife, ranching and economic livelihood, and maintenance of the western way of life.” (IWJV.org)
Pat is the long-time President of the Family Farm Alliance, which advocates for irrigators. Their mission is to “Protect Water for Western Agriculture.”
“The Alliance is a powerful advocate before the government for family farmers, ranchers, irrigation districts, and allied industries in 17 Western states to ensure the availability of reliable, affordable irrigation water needed to produce the world’s food, fiber, and fuel.” (familyfarmalliance.org).
Partnerships in agriculture and forestry management hold a key to enhancing our landscape and atmosphere.
Earth’s atmosphere from space (NASA)
migratory ducks on wet meadow at Ladder Ranch
Ladder Ranch
