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Focus Areas

Farmers and ranchers are facing increasing droughts, extreme weather events, and a changing climate. AGree focuses on developing policy recommendations and tools to help farmers be economically and agronomically productive in the face of increasing weather variability.

Our Approach

AGree brings together a diverse group of food and agriculture sector experts to advance three key priorities:

  1. Building federal policies to support farmers’ adoption of agricultural conservation practices that can reduce production risk, increase farm profitability, and improve environmental outcomes.
  2. Ensuring that federal climate policy and actions by the Executive Branch are positioning farmers to be part of the solution to climate change, while creating opportunities for companies to support strategies that are pro-climate and pro-farmer.
  3. Commissioning research and tools that demonstrate the connection between conservation practices, reduced agricultural risk, and improved financial and environmental performance. Our work is relevant for farmers, financial institutions, and policymakers.

Our Focus Areas

AGree’s focus areas represent a systems approach to supporting widespread adoption of conservation practices on U.S. working lands. We are building the business case for conservation adoption through federal policy change, risk management options, and financial tools.

Agriculture Data

Our efforts in agriculture data focus on research pilots and legislation that work with farmers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to demonstrate the value of sharing and analyzing properly protected farmer data.

Climate Policy Research

Robust, targeted research and science are fundamental to U.S. food and agriculture’s response to climate change. We encourage USDA and Congress to broaden the scope of federal and private investment in agriculture and climate mitigation through analysis, research, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Crop Insurance

AGree advocates for changes to the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) that acknowledge the risk-reducing benefits of conservation practices and eliminate barriers to conservation. We also facilitate the development of new crop insurance products that help farmers cover the risk of adopting new conservation practices.

Diversified Farming Systems

We work to expand risk management options, financial tools, and technical assistance offerings for farmers seeking to diversify their operations.

Technical Assistance

Comprehensive and accessible technical assistance is critical to helping producers improve their economic and ecological outcomes. Based on AGree's intitial technical assistance work, Meridian has launched a comprehensive effort to assess the technical assistance landscape and provide recommendations to address the need for skilled, comprehensive, and accessible technical assistance nationally through a grant funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. AGree remains engaged in this important effort in an advisory capacity.

Past Initiatives

The original AGree initiative brought together a diverse group of food and agriculture leaders to develop consensus recommendations for seven priority areas: Food & Nutrition; Immigration Reform; International Development; Local Food; Next Generation; Research and Innovation; and Working Landscapes. 

Coalitions

AGree’s multi-stakeholder coalitions use research, farmer experience, and on-the-ground results from pilot programs to develop concrete policy recommendations that will drive the adoption of conservation practices on U.S. working lands.

People