Food & Agriculture

. Create zero waste initiatives and infrastructure for end users, including consumer, grocery and hospitality food steams.

. Set food loss and waste reduction targets and create systematic measurement procedures.

. Create incentives for farms and businesses to generate a low carbon footprint, including waste to energy/zero waste goals.

. Create financial responsibility for food waste on food retailers and producers.

. Create a cost-of-production price support system, food and energy security reserves, and conservation program with full planting flexibility to avoid wasteful overproduction.

. Create incentives and connections for farmers to donate surplus food to emergency food providers.

. Mandate food retailers send surplus food to community and emergency food programs.

. Require all federal contracts for food services of $10,000 or more, or for use of federal property for private events, to donate excess wholesome food to nonprofits for food-assistance programs.

. Incentivize markets for food that does not meet current cosmetic standards.

. Create government procurement policies to purchase cosmetically-nonconforming food.

. Standardize and improve date labeling to reduce waste.

. Invest in consumer awareness to increase skills to reduce household food waste.

. Track and report food waste throughout the supply chain.

. Invest in packing, tracking, and storage innovation.

. Incorporate environmental sustainability into dietary guidelines.

. Reorient agricultural priorities from producing high quantities to producing healthy foods.

. Create programs to encourage restaurants and other food operations to promote plant-forward, climate-friendly menus using behavioral science.

. Create training & support programs for new and transitioning farmers to increase specialty crop (fruit, vegetable, legume) production.

. Restrict marketing of unhealthy, unsustainable foods.

. Fund advertising campaigns, like Meatless Mondays, to educate the public on the climate change impacts of their food choices, and create programs to market healthy, sustainable diets.

. Incentivize growing plant-based foods and create environmentally sustainable production systems.

. Create financial incentive programs to develop and market meat substitutes.

. Create an excise tax on animal meat to reflect the health and environmental costs.

. Stop subsidizing meat, dairy, fish, and eggs, and invest in vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains for human consumption.

. Create funding programs to help large consumers (such as municipalities, schools, and corporations) shift to healthy, plant-based offerings.

. Provide grants to animal agricultural operations to convert entirely to plant-based foods.

. Require all government procurement policies to reduce animal products and shift to sustainable, healthy diets.

. Public food programs should avoid purchase of higher carbon footprint and ultra processed foods.

. Mandate high sustainability and ethical standards, developed by animal rights activists, farmers & supermarkets, for meat sold in supermarkets.

. Support research and development to improve the availability and healthfulness of plant‐based foods while minimizing environmental impacts.

. Provide tax credits for sustainable agroforestry, combining forest and agriculture.

. Establish policy and financial support for carbon sequestration in soils, such as incorporating farm organic waste into soil, low or no tillage, nitrogen-fixing cover crops, replacement of annuals with perennial crops and pastures, agroforestry, establishing buffer strips, and keeping some farmland with natural vegetation.

. Expand sustainable farming and soil practices to 70% of agricultural land by 2050.

. Increase financial incentives, conservation programs, research, and training to encourage organic and regenerative farming and perennial agriculture practices that protect soil health, water quality, biodiversity and pollinator habitats.

. Support farmers transitioning away from chemical farming.

. Outlaw synthetic fertilizers and mandate regenerative agriculture.

. Strengthen regulation to prevent environmental degradation from pesticides and runoff.

. Tax the use of toxic pesticides and herbicides.

. Create a comprehensive soil health program with enforceable, detailed benchmarks that require all food, agriculture and land management agencies to evaluate and improve soil health.

. Resolve insurance conflicts with cover crop use.

. Increase public research funding for non-GMO seeds, breeds, and farming methods.

. Provide incentives for food assistance customers to shop at stores that conform to stocking standards for agroecologically produced food.

. Provide favorable loans for specialized equipment for regenerative practices.

. Increase funding for research into soil health and carbon sequestration.

. Establish a carbon farming tax credit.

. Help factory farm contract growers regain their independence and transition to climate-friendly, soil carbon-enhancing practices.

. Enforce the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule in order to ensure organic standards are met and not corrupted by large-scale producers.

. Implement enhanced procedures to track organic imports and ensure that imported products fully comply with U.S. organic standards.

. Change supermarket stocking standards in food assistance programs to encourage agroecologically produced food.

. Create agroecology food standards in food assistance programs that include workers' rights, regional agriculture, and local sourcing.

. Prioritize public procurement of agroecologically produced, local food.

. Increase farm-to-food bank tax credits, farm-to-school reimbursement rates and other financial incentives for more local dairy and protein donations and procurement channels.

. Make agricultural subsidies conditional upon regenerative agricultural practices.

. Require all recipients of government support to implement rigorous, cost-effective conservation, GHG reduction, and carbon sequestration practices, with significant investment in technical assistance to help farmers.

. Reform the federal crop insurance program to reward stewardship practices and make real, measurable conservation a condition of eligibility for premium subsidies.

. International funding should link programs to improve agricultural production with forest or other ecosystem protection.

. Promote use of perennial crops, trees, long-lived vines, shrubs and herbs, such as bananas, avocados, breadfruit, coconut, and brazil nuts.

. Phase out Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

. End subsidies for industrial animal agriculture and animal feed monocultures, and invest in regenerative agriculture feed grains.

. Block market consolidation and end mandatory payments to trade associations (checkoffs).

. Require corporations to pay the true environmental and social costs of industrial farms and confined animal feeding operations.

. Support pasture-based animal husbandry for poultry and pigs.

. Provide incentives and government support to develop compounds to reduce methane emissions from plant-eating animals.

. Support the development of seaweeds, such as Asparagopsis taxiformis, as a feed for plant-eating animals to reduce methane.

. Increase animal productivity through improved food quality, breeding, and healthcare.

. Regulate use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in animal agriculture.

. Ensure policies support 100% grazing for herbivores.

. Establish a payment program for adoption of non-digester dairy and livestock methane management including pasture based, open air, composting and other methods.

. Cease building new or expanded waste lagoons for confined animal feeding operations.

. Establish advanced rotational grazing management on 50% of grazing lands by 2030, and 100% by 2040.

. Place a moratorium on new and expanding large CAFOs.

. Provide a voluntary buyout for farmers who want to transition out of operating a CAFO.

. Establish mandatory tracking and public reporting of emissions from livestock and poultry industries.

. Establish mandatory targets for greenhouse gas reductions from the animal agriculture sector.

. Encourage black carbon mitigation, including support for clean-burning cookstoves and fuels, as part of official development assistance.

. Help developing nations establish thriving markets for clean and efficient cooking solutions.

. Require farmers to adopt emissions-reducing rice management policies, including drawing down water levels during the growing season to reduce the growth of methane-producing bacteria, or planting rice initially into dry rather than flooded land, and incentivize farmers to plant lower-methane rice varieties.

. Create market incentives for multistrata agroforestry that layers planting from tree canopies to undercrops.

. Mandate community-wide food and organic material waste bins in curbside municipal waste collection.

. Create financial incentives to make collection of organics cheaper than trash disposal.

. Mandate source-separation of organic waste by businesses.

. Incentivize businesses to implement food waste prevention techniques.

. Create financial incentives for local composting, so the transport of materials doesn’t reduce the climate benefits of composting.

. Subsidize creation of composting facilities and programs through grants, loans, and other financial mechanisms.

. Mandate rates of food scrap diversion from landfill.

. Require commercial producers of organic waste (grocery stores and food processing facilities) to divert organic waste to composting facilities.

. Ban organic materials from landfills.

. Prohibit the sale of certain pesticides to protect bees and birds, including clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, dinotefuran, acetamiprid, thiacloprid, nithiazine, or fipronil.

. Shift subsidies from fertilizers to support higher nitrogen use efficiency.

. Impose stricter standards for the maximum contaminant limit (MCL) for pesticide/fertilizer residues in water, regularly test all water sources, disclose results publicly, and impose fines on chemical manufacturers, not farmers, when there are violations.

. Expand voluntary water and soil conservation projects and nutrient reduction programs.

. Regulate the emissions from fertilizer manufacturing once viable, low-carbon technologies are available.

. Create small-scale irrigation and water conservation systems to help farmers cope with rainfall variability caused by climate change.

. Provide financial and technical assistance for the installation of terraces and natural stormwater infrastructure to combat loss of soil and erosion.

. Support international women farmers by ensuring equal legal rights to own land and access training and financial support, such as microcredit.

. Promote practices that enhance biodiversity in agricultural systems, such as riparian buffer strips and flower field margins, and protecting remaining intact ecosystems.

. Fund the restoration of pollinator habitats.

. Make agricultural subsidies conditional upon increasing ‘ecological focus areas’ with forests, meadows and rewilding as percentage of farmed land.

. Overhaul fishery subsidies to reduce overfishing.

. Establish fishing quotas and allocate shares among fishers.

. Manage aquaculture facility siting to minimize environmental impacts.

. Protect fisheries and waterways through improved enforcement of policies and utilization of regenerative ocean farming, such as with oysters and mussels.

. Support fisheries and small fishers by supporting research, technical assistance and federal support parallel to that of agriculture producers.

. Improve productivity and environmental performance of aquaculture.

. Develop and implement new technologies to reduce disease and need for antibiotics in aquaculture, including advanced diagnostics, vaccines, dietary supplements, feed alternatives, and genetic improvements.

. Require best management practices in aquaculture, such as reducing water exchange and seepage, increasing recirculation, improving sanitation, and not stocking fish too densely.

. Create incentives for selective breeding for improved fish growth rates.