USDA is working on environmental markets

Farm and Ranch July 5, 2010 You have heard of carbon trading markets, but now Undersecretary of Agriculture Harris Sherman says experts are working on creating environmental markets.

Sherman: “Where a farmer can take extra added steps to improve the environment and then to basically take that increment of improvement and be able to possibly trade it or sell it to another party that may need it.”

Sherman provides an example.

Sherman: “There may be a real estate developer that has an impact on wetlands and has the responsibility as part of his permit to offset that impact. Well, there may be opportunities for that developer to go to a farmer and actually pay a farmer for the farmer to develop a wetland, to create a wetland, to restore a wetland or enhance a wetland. That is not necessarily a direct government program it is third parties dealing with agricultural communities that need these type of improvements and they are willing to pay for. That is probably the clearest example, the area of wetland mitigation but this could be expanded to deal with a whole host of other environmental markets.”

Sherman says this is all a concept right now but there is an office working on it that is developing the protocols on how you would develop environmental markets.

Sherman: “We are hopeful that this will be a new dimension of adding to the income of ranchers and farmers.”

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.