Page 135 - Inflation-Reduction-Act-Guidebook

Harnessing Nature-Based Solutions and

Climate-Smart Agriculture to Deliver

Economic, Climate, and Resilience

Benefits

Nature-based solutions—actions to protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural or modified
ecosystems to address societal challenges—offer tremendous opportunity in the fight against the
climate crisis. Nature-based solutions include a range of practices, such as protection and
conservation of natural areas, restoration of habitats, and sustainable management of farms,
fisheries, forests, or other resources. These practices have the dual benefit of mitigating climate
change by removing and sequestering carbon while making ecosystems, forests, and agricultural
land more resilient to climate impacts, including drought and wildfires. The Inflation Reduction
Act invests billions in nature-based solutions and climate-smart sustainable agriculture to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, encourage new economic activity in rural areas, and protect the
communities most vulnerable to wildfires, coastal floods, and other impacts of climate change.

Supporting Climate-Smart Agriculture and Rural

Economic Development

Our nation’s farmers and ranchers are responsible for harvesting much of the food and products
that we depend on, but they are particularly vulnerable to climate change, as droughts, extreme
rainfall events, and less predictable weather patterns can harm crop yields and livestock. These
impacts can reverberate in local rural economies and throughout the U.S. economy as a whole.

In Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” President Biden
recognized the important role that America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners can play
in combating the climate crisis and reducing emissions by sequestering carbon in soils, grasses,
trees, and other vegetation and sourcing sustainable bioproducts and fuels. The Inflation
Reduction provides $19 billion to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to support
farmers and ranchers in adopting and expanding climate-smart activities and systems.

The Inflation Reduction Act also includes billions to support economically distressed farm loan
borrowers, including those affected by pandemic-related market disruptions and climate-fueled
natural disasters, and agriculture producers who may have experienced discrimination in
USDA’s farm lending programs. These and other programs to provide financial and technical
assistance to underserved farmers and ranchers will boost rural economies and support farmers,
ranchers, and forest landowners who may have not benefited from USDA’s programs in the past.

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