PES & Soil Health Working Group Closes
Members Critique Power Push to Use Ecosystem Services as a Market Solution for Pre-existing Shortfalls
The last PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services) and Soil Health Working Group meeting finally addressed what had been unspoken - the increasingly clear power dynamic tailoring the development of new programmatic solutions in agriculture addressing climate challenges to the interests of Big $$. Despite the final decision away from outcome-based solutions, the final report seemingly read to satisfy the interests of private investors. These private investors may still glean lessons from the process and continue to push for market-based solutions that are sound, viable, and regenerative while also addressing the complex issues within the agricultural sector. Didi Pershouse, a VT Healthy Soils Coalition member, offered an initial critique that eventually led to several working group members expressing similar concerns.
Public Comment to the PES WG
Caroline Gordon for Rural Vermont 1/10/23
After 3 years of PES and Soil Health Working Group process a question arose for Rural Vermont. In how far was the PES WG process aware of/ and influenced by Wall Street interests around developing new market assets through monetizing ecosystem services? Throughout the process, the Small Farmer stakeholder group, that Rural Vermont is part of, was advocating for the PES WG process to be a democratic one that is farmer-led. We celebrate that advocacy effort in the unison approach towards improving the Conservation Stewardship Program, an idea that emerged from our group. Before the PES WG closes today, I want to flag that there was a strong continuous push towards establishing a new outcome based solution and that it’s questionable, while not explicit, in how far that push has been informed by private investor networks with access to large capital from international markets like RAIS, the Regenerative Food Network and others. Another indicator for the predominant macroeconomic framework projected often by the PES WG was demonstrated in the way farmer participation was facilitated. Rural Vermont recommended to “Facilitate a Participatory Decision-Making Process with Farmers” in May 2021, submitted with support form Cat Buxton, the White River NRCD, CLF, CAFS and Cedar Mountain Farm. That initiative was not discussed by the PES WG but reduced to a survey that measured the farmers’ “willingness to accept” - a terminology used in the capitalizing nature context. Following the farmers survey around WTA, program development options did not aim to meet that minimum bar of what farmers seek to gain from a PES program. When the PES WG decided against the approach to develop a new outcome based program the farmer input was not helpful anymore. I echo Didi Pershouse who flagged earlier today eloquently how that power dynamic towards market solutions is now being reflected in this critical draft final report and it is a huge relief that the group has been able to address that so constructively today.
While the PES WG will be more or less resolved now, I want to encourage all of us to be more aware about the context of private investors seeking to develop trillions of dollars in assets by capitalizing on nature and how that affects Vermont, our public interests, and those on the ground. Moving forward please join Rural Vermont in dialogue with lawmakers to share what you learned about the complexities and difficulties surrounding agricultural programming, for example surrounding cost share agreements (and so much more), and seek to keep this discourse a public one so that any policy decisions can be farmer-led. I know that most of the working group members entered this process with an open mind, like Didi, Jill, Maddie and Scott shared, they didn’t see a pre-set understanding of what PES means. Along those lines, research like the report from NEED (Coleman, A.F., Machado, M.R. (2022). Ecosystem Services in Working Lands Practice and Policy in the U.S. Northeast: Successes, Challenges, and
Opportunities for Producers and Extension (1st ed). Kansas City: Extension Foundation. ISBN: 978-1 955687-11-9.), about Ecosystem Services in the working lands across the northeast has identified over 1,300 existing programs that benefit ecosystem services that are outside of the commodifying nature context that could be understood as PES programs for that reason - even though they are practice based.
Before I close, I’m excited to share that:
Very soon the qualitative analysis of farmer participation that the Conservation Districts organized with support from UVM and others will be released. Retrospect that documentation will support to advance CSP and the broader effort to take farmers' expertise seriously in addressing other pre-existing shortfalls of existing programs at the root moving forward.
Join Rural Vermont during a NOFA-NH panel discussion on January 18th at around the concerns raised today: Food and Climate Panel: Carbon Market Pitfalls & Better Strategies for Regenerative Organic Farming Practices — Rural Vermont