Climate Change

Climate change in the 2015 federal budget and Farm Bill

This blog was originally published on RuralClimateNetwork.org.

Climate hubs: A step forward

It’s a big week in the agriculture world. Just days before Obama signed the new Farm Bill into law, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the locations of seven regional hubs for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

We deserve more than this bad Farm Bill

Was it just exhaustion from two-plus years of negotiations that finally produced the Farm Bill that is expected to be signed by the President this week? Or, was it the sense that “it could have been a lot worse” when compared with a mean-spirited, destructive Farm Bill passed by the House of Representatives last year.

Rural Climate Network expands

The second Rural Climate Network newsletter was released last week, featuring updates on how rural America is responding to the climate challenge.

Last day at the 9th WTO Ministerial: Food security hangs in the balance

IATP's Shefali Sharma is reporting from the 9th WTO Ministerial in Bali, Indonesia. 2 p.m., Bali, Indonesia

Climate change hits home

In the past week, we have had a terrible reminder of what’s at stake in our work with the horrific typhoon hitting the Philippines.

A rural response to climate change: Introducing the Rural Climate Network

The annual global climate talks are underway this week in Warsaw, Poland. The agenda for the 19th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 19) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as the climate talks are formally called, includes discussions on “issues relating to agriculture” with climate change adaptation identified, appropriately, as a primary focus.

U.S. insurance industry needs to step up on climate change

Farmers and the insurance industry have one thing in common: they are both on the front lines of climate change. So far, the U.S. insurance industry has been slow to respond to climate induced risk and is well behind its European counterparts who are outspoken leaders for climate action.

Farm Bill ignores climate change—mostly

In all of the discussions and proposals associated with the current Farm Bill debate, climate change has gotten little official recognition (although we have pointed out that from IATP’s perspective, the singular focus on crop insurance is clear evidence that climate change is the primary concern of farmers and agriculture s

Agricultural nanotechnology and the future of food

Nanotechnology, a group of techniques for manufacturing and manipulating sub-molecular sized materials, is being applied to agriculture, food processing and food packaging. This webinar will discuss the effect of nanomaterials on soil health and the food chain.