ESG Nightmare: The Targeting of Farmers and Ranchers in America’s Heartland

The following article is sponsored by Consumers’ Research and authored by Will Hild, its executive director.

As Congress continues to negotiate the overdue Farm Bill, climate activists and money managers with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) agendas seek to reshape the Farm Bill reauthorization into an ideological weapon against everyday Americans. The same unelected elites who have used ESG to cripple America’s financial and energy sectors are now targeting our farmers and ranchers.

It’s not hard to see where ESG extremists want to take this.

In the Netherlands, the government required farmers to cut emissions by up to 70 percent and reduce livestock by a third overall, telling them that “there is not a future for all” farmers. More than 3,000 were forced to sell their land or stop farming.

When Sri Lanka’s president forced farmers to transition to lower-yielding organic fertilizers as part his ESG goals, a food crisis leading to national bankruptcy and riots ensued, driving the government from power.

Now activists and the Biden administration’s Democratic allies in Congress have signaled their intent to impose ESG on America’s agricultural sector by hijacking the 2024 Farm Bill and transforming it into a climate bill. Environmental group Ceres advocates forcing farmers and ranchers into submission by linking compliance with access to crop insurance, a sledgehammer that it euphemistically calls an “incentive.”

Net zero policies and ESG requirements would increase farmer’s costs by at least 25 percent, according to a report from the Buckeye Institute. ESG would attach carbon costs to every agricultural process. Fertilizer costs would jump by 27 percent, the report cites as an example, while grain drying would rise by 38 percent. Overall, 22 percent of American farming families’ expenses would go toward carbon reduction taxes. These higher food production costs will translate into American families paying an additional $1,300 per year, on average, to put food on the table. Injecting ESG into the Farm Bill could also lead food companies to drop domestic suppliers in favor of foreign producers that are not subject to U.S. rules.

In short, ESG threatens to kill American farms and end family legacies in the heartland. It would also erode rural America’s tax base and undermine our nation’s food security. That’s why Consumers’ Research sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to keep the “Farm” in the Farm Bill and toss the ESG.

Congress must ensure the final Farm Bill explicitly rejects the fertilizer mandates that have wreaked havoc in other countries, or electrification directives that would impose crushing capital investment costs on farmers. Language in the legislation should specifically prohibit bureaucrats from extending CAFE standards to heavy trucks and farm equipment. Congress should draw lessons from the disastrously poor performance of government EV programs and avoid the inclusion of schemes designed to incentivize farmers to adopt costly and unproven technology.

The Farm Bill is also an opportunity for Congress to prevent activists from using the legal system to force food producers into arbitrary net zero ESG commitments. Simply put, Americans cannot afford to allow the same ESG regime currently infecting corporate boardrooms to gain purchase on family farms. Congress must ensure that ESG and net zero climate initiatives are rejected.