Feds will spend $1 billion to spur farmers and ranchers to fight climate change
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend $1 billion on projects for farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to use practices that curb climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions or capture and store carbon, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Monday.

The investment comes after President Joe Biden called on U.S. farmers to lead the way in offsetting emissions and pledged to slash emissions from the agriculture sector in half by 2030. The sector accounts for more than 10% of U.S. emissions, according to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency. A range of public and private entities can apply for grants from $5 million to $100 million, the agency said, including state, local and tribal governments, nonprofits, small businesses and colleges.

For many U.S. farmers who have endured major losses from worsening floods, storms and droughts, addressing climate change has become a matter of survival. The United Nations' scientific panel on climate change has warned that humans must change the way they produce food and use land to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

"They've seen it, they feel it, and they've been hurt by it," Vilsack said on Monday at Lincoln University, a historically Black land-grant university in Jefferson City, Missouri.