Farm Bill in Focus

Find out more about the briefings in this series below: The Process and Path Forward for Passing a Bipartisan Farm Bill Climate, Energy, and Economic Win-Wins in the Farm Bill Unlocking Rural Economies: Farm Bill Investments in Rural America The Future of Forestry in the Farm Bill Conservation Practices from Farms to Forests and Wetlands

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to watch a briefing on Farm Bill policies and programs that help farmers, ranchers, small businesses, and rural communities drive down greenhouse gas emissions, generate jobs, and stimulate the economy. Rural communities face numerous challenges, such as high energy costs, low investments in climate-resilient infrastructure, and increasingly severe weather. The Farm Bill plays an important role in helping rural America develop strong economies and build climate resilience and mitigation.

During this briefing, panelists discussed how Congress can bolster key programs in the rural development and energy titles of the Farm Bill, such as the Rural Energy Savings Program, Rural Energy for America Program, and water and wastewater technical assistance programs. These provisions help rural communities improve energy efficiency, access electrification retrofits, upgrade water systems, and build out broadband capabilities.

Highlights

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The rural development title of the Farm Bill provides clean water, housing, utilities, and business assistance to rural communities. The Farm Bill provides a significant source of financing for technical assistance programs in each of these areas. Federal investments have an important role in supporting rural cooperative businesses. Examples include the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Rural Cooperative Development Grant Program (RCDG), the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), and the Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP). Policies targeted at rural communities must be flexible to fully address and support each community’s diversity. Policies should allow for people on the ground to provide for their communities in the best ways possible. Tribes need to be trusted and recognized as capable of participating in projects and programs. The Farm Bill needs to take down barriers that prevent tribes from managing multiple projects and receiving appropriations for programs directly.

 

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), House Assistant Democratic Leader

• Rural communities are facing numerous challenges, including rising costs. Rural communities need investment to provide accessible and affordable broadband, healthcare, and education to their residents.
• Programs such as the Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP) create jobs and save families money. They are important to building an equitable and sustainable future.
• Reauthorizing and improving RESP in the 2023 Farm Bill is key to helping rural electric cooperatives and rural consumers.

 

Aaliyah Nedd, Director of Government Relations, National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA)

• The Farm Bill authorizes both domestic and international food assistance and other programs that NCBA CLUSA helps implement.
• Cooperatives (co-ops) are democratically-owned and governed businesses hinging on the principle of one member, one vote. They were initially formed to address market and government failures.
• Co-ops have a large impact on rural communities, with roles that include providing food, electricity, broadband, affordable home and business ownership, and various forms of financial assistance.
• 9 million farmers and ranchers are members of co-ops, and dairy co-ops produce 85 percent of the milk in the United States.
• Federal investments have an important role in supporting rural co-ops. Examples include the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Rural Cooperative Development Grant Program (RCDG) and the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP).
• The RCDG is the only federal program dedicated to co-op development. It allows non-profits to provide businesses with assistance and training. It promotes job creation and local economic growth in rural areas.
• The REAP provides significant investments in efficient and affordable energy to small businesses in rural areas through USDA loans. It also encourages businesses to future-proof themselves by adopting clean energy.
• Rural communities are diverse, both economically and racially and ethnically. Policy has often overlooked rural diversity, and the Farm Bill must be equitable for rural communities.
• Policies targeted at rural communities must be flexible to fully address and support each community’s diversity. Policies should allow for people on the ground to provide for their communities in the best ways possible.
• Rural communities can gain or lose in the knowledge-based economy. Communities must have access to data and know how to put it to use.

 

Gary Stooksbury, Chief Executive Officer, Aiken Electric Cooperative, Inc

• Aiken Electric serves 51,000 accounts across nine counties in western South Carolina and has successfully accessed and leveraged USDA funding and financing programs provided by the Farm Bill.
• RESP finances programs such as Help My House in South Carolina. The program, jointly operated by several electric co-ops, provides consistent, affordable, and convenient installation of energy efficiency improvements. It provides loans that are tied to meters rather than to homeowners, which allows it to be more accessible. In its pilot, Help My House averaged $1,157 in annual energy savings across 100 houses.
• Aiken Electric has weatherized 419 homes and provided $4.3 million in loans, and the Help My House program as a whole has weatherized 1,031 homes and provided $10.3 million in loans using RESP funding.
• Aiken Electric also provides broadband access in rural areas of South Carolina in collaboration with other companies such as Carolina Connect.
• Federal grants have assisted Aiken in providing wi-fi to school districts and rural counties.
• At this point, Aiken is about 70 percent complete in providing not-for-profit broadband in rural South Carolina and is expected to fully cover its service territory by December 31, 2023. This broadband work provides more than 420 jobs.

 

Ted Stiger, Chief External Affairs and Policy Officer, Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP)

• RCAP was founded by Congress in the 1970s when the Environmental Protection Agency was created. When amendments were made to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in 1972 to create what is now known at the Clean Water Act, Congress decided that rural communities would benefit from assistance to meet these new regulations. Now, RCAP is a national network of nonprofit organizations and primarily serves communities with a population below 10,000. RCAP has provided technical assistance for the past 50 years.
• RCAP is primarily staffed by community members with backgrounds in providing technical assistance. The Farm Bill’s rural development title provides a significant source of financing for these technical assistance programs.
• RCAP has served over three million people and more than 1,650 communities across every state and in four U.S. territories. It has conducted 639 trainings and assisted communities in leveraging over $690 million in infrastructure funding.
• The Farm Bill is a Swiss Army knife for rural America. The rural development title is used to provide clean water, housing, utilities, and business assistance to rural communities. RCAP specifically assists communities in achieving clean and safe drinking water, addressing public health concerns, and building resilience.
• RCAP technical assistance starts with pre-pre-planning to help communities build governance structures, hire staff, and develop budgets for projects. This is followed by pre-planning work to help communities get the resources they need, such as mapping services, procurement services, and assistance with writing funding applications. Project development follows, with RCAP helping the community apply for funding via the USDA RDApply online portal. RCAP also assists communities in meeting other requirements, getting necessary permits, and implementing the project.
• The USDA’s Water and Wastewater Technical Assistance Program and similar programs for energy and broadband are authorized in the Farm Bill’s rural development title. Farm Bill reauthorization needs to be flexible because the problems that rural communities face are local and can differ.

 

Duane Sherman Sr., former Chairman and CEO, Hoopa Valley Tribe

• The Hoopa Valley Reservation experiences 60 percent unemployment. This is a chicken-or-egg situation where investing in education causes members of the tribe to seek higher-paid opportunities outside of the reservation. Tribes suffer from brain drain.
• State assistance is not necessarily tailored to the needs of tribes. For example, California installed electric vehicle charging stations in the community, but people who live on the Hoopa Valley Reservation are not able to afford electric vehicles and there are issues with connecting these charging stations to the power grid.
• The nutritional value of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which supplements the diets of low-income elderly persons, needs to be examined. The foods provided are high-sugar and have high-fructose corn syrup unlike healthy, traditional foods. Native American communities suffer from higher mortality rates, including a high rate of diabetes.
• The Farm Bill has to account for the specific issues that affect Native Americans, as well as the specific issues that affect some tribes and not others. The Hoopa Reservation still does not have broadband, therefore online learning tools, including those widely relied on during the COVID-19 pandemic, cannot be used on the reservation, which led to a drop in test scores.
• The Farm Bill could support the development of technical expertise in infrastructure such as broadband within tribal communities, as a form of long-term investment in those communities.
• The relationships between federal offices and Native American communities need to be improved. The Departments of Commerce and Labor, which tend to have good relationships with tribes, can serve as models. The USDA could benefit from an office of Native American Affairs, staffed with people who understand tribal governments and recognize the diversity in tribes.
• Tribes need to be trusted and recognized as capable of participating in projects and programs. The Farm Bill needs to take down barriers that prevent tribes from managing multiple projects and receiving appropriations for programs directly.
• Food Distribution Assistance Programs should look to expand coverage to weekends and address a loss of cooking knowledge in Native American communities.
• The Forest Service has a cooperative education program in California that focuses on socio-economic needs and recruits Native Americans from Northern California Reservations. Programs like this, which develop out-of-the-box solutions and bring in expert knowledge as a resource, should be encouraged.
• Tribes should have a place at the table and a voice.

Q&A

 

Q: What are examples of how rural development programs have increased job opportunities in rural communities, especially in unexpected ways?

Nedd:

• The Rural Cooperative Development Grant Program has a limited amount of funds, but it is being used to do innovative work in protecting small businesses and protecting community institutions that are seeing their owners retire.
• The RCDG has helped create 3,500 new jobs, 300 new co-ops, and saved 5,000 jobs in addition to doing outreach to entrepreneurs and driving innovation.

Stooksbury:

• Getting into the broadband business was a big opportunity for the rural workforce.

Stiger:

• The water workforce is an aging and retiring workforce, especially in rural areas. Rural areas need to retain their workforce to fill these positions.
• RCAP has been able to help communities recruit new workers thanks to programs that help prospective candidates pass classes rather than having to go to college.
• The post-pandemic trend of remote work has also seen many people move back to rural areas.
• Partnerships with schools have helped find talent in rural areas.

Sherman:

• It is important to look outside of the box and look locally.
• For example, the federal government spent $1.8 billion in California to assist in recovery from the Dixie Fire, the largest fire in California’s recorded history. But it was hard for local organizations to access the funding and bring the money into the local economy because of various rules, including on required experience and bonding capacity.
• 17 tribes have worked with nonprofits and private companies to be prepared to bid for these projects in the future so that the money can remain local.
• In an example of out-of-the-box solutions, the state created a public-private collaborative to establish a non-profit mill to process the remaining trees after the Dixie Fire. The wood is sold at cost to local families to help them rebuild homes. This saved money and cut costs.

 

Q: What are the opportunities for rural organizations to build partnerships with academic institutions?

Stiger:

• RCAP has worked with community colleges in the past. RCAP looks for a local community college to build a workforce nearby.
• Partnerships with land-grant institutions and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) also exist.
• USDA supports agriculture research through the Agricultural Research Service.

Nedd:

• In the cooperative world, the RCDG program is often implemented by universities—this can be seen at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Illinois.

Sherman

• Universities like California State University Chico and California Polytechnic University Humboldt have programs to train firefighters using the traditional Native American methods of forest management such as the reintroduction of fire as a tool.

 

Q: What are your thoughts on how the barriers to accessing USDA programs can be lowered?

Stooksbury:

• We need to cut out red tape. We have to examine what it takes to get the money to the end user and reduce the time it takes to implement projects
• The need is tremendous with the broadband program, so examining how to increase access faster would have a positive impact.

Stiger:

• When applying for federal funding, there is a lot of upfront work required without any guarantee of getting money.
• Legislators should examine whether a common application can be implemented or whether much shorter applications could be submitted first to gauge if a full application would be funded.
• It should not take a team of consultants to help people apply for USDA funds. Smaller communities do not have teams of grant writers, so lawmakers need to examine how to increase accessibility.
• In many cases, grants have the same requirements regardless of the amount of money allocated to a community. Adjusting this could benefit rural communities.

Sherman:

• If there was one standard process to apply to USDA programs through one portal, the process could be simplified.
• As a tribal administrator speaking from experience, the amount of time that is needed to apply for federal funding is not necessarily worth it.
• Program administrators do not always understand the needs of the communities, and small amounts of money are treated more seriously than they need to be.

Nedd:

• We need to eliminate redundancies in communications between communities and either states or the federal government.
• Matching requirements for funding can be hard to meet, so increased flexibility can make getting through the grant process easier.

 

Compiled by Parthav Easwar and edited for clarity and length. This is not a transcript.