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 work in agriculture data focuses 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.

Crop Insurance

We advance policy improvements to the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP)  that 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.

Agricultural Finance

We develop and pilot financial tools that demonstrate the risk-reducing benefits of conservation practice adoption. We encourage the agricultural financial system to incorporate the benefits of conservation practice adoption into investment and lending practices.

Diversified Systems

We work to expand risk management options, financial tools, and technical assistance offerings for diversified operations, small and young farmers, and farmers of color. 

USDA Conservation Programs

We advocate for expanding and improving existing USDA conservation programs to exponentially increase adoption of conservation practices on working lands.

Ag-Climate Research

We encourage USDA and Congress to broaden the scope of federal and private investment in agricultural and climate mitigation research, including monitoring, reporting, and verification methodologies.

Original AGree Policy Recommendations

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.

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