From The Desk of Rattan Lal
Soil Health Act and The Farm Bill 2024
30th June 2023
Implementation of environment policy act is a historical tradition in the U.S.A. Existing Acts and Resolution in favor of environmental improvement include:
- The Clean Water (CWA) of 1965 (P.L. 89-234) is designed to regulate discharge of pollutants into the waters of U.S.A. and establish quality standards for surface waters,
- Clean Air Act (CAA, 42 U.S.C. 7401) was authorized by U.S. EPA in 1970 to establish National Air Quality standards to protect public health and environment,
- The Agriculture Resilience Act is aimed at giving farmers the tools they need to become net-zero by 2040.
However, clean water and air can only be achieved if soils of agro-ecosystems are healthy to scrub out pollutants. Furthermore, achieving net-zero emissions from agriculture is a good start but agriculture must become negative emission technology (NET). Transformation of agroecosystems is needed to become an effective solution to global warming and other environmental issues. Thus, agro-ecosystems must be a major sink for atmosphere CO2 and drastically reduce emission of CH4 and NO2. For this innovative and a win-win-win solution, there is an urgency to implement Soil Health Act (SHA) which compliments the existing three Acts. The objective is to empower farmers and land managers to adopt site-specific best management practices through payments for ecosystem services at the flat rate of $50/acre per year. The SHA will be in accord with the Senate Soil Protection Resolution 440 of 2008 and is needed to transform agriculture as a nature-positive industry.
Sincerely,
Rattan Lal
Columbus, Ohio