February 28th, 2019
By Lori Sallet
American Farmland Trust Congratulates Maine For Becoming the Twenty-Second State to Join the US Climate Alliance
WASHINGTON, D.C. – American Farmland Trust, the organization behind the national movement No Farms No Food®, congratulates the state of Maine and Governor Janet Mills on the announcement today to join the US Climate Alliance. AFT is a USCA Impact Partner and has committed to helping USCA states fulfill their Natural and Working Lands Challenge. AFT supports member states in developing policies and programs to increase carbon sequestration and reduce GHG on farmland and ranchland to ensure agriculture realizes its potential as an essential element of state plans to combat climate change by 2020.
By becoming the twenty-second state to join the USCA, Governor Mills commits to: 1) implement policies that advance the goals of the Paris Agreement, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emission by at least 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025; 2) track and report progress to the global community in appropriate settings, including when the world convenes to take stock of the Paris Agreement; and 3) accelerate new and existing policies to reduce carbon pollution and promote clean energy deployment at the state and federal level.
AFT’s president and CEO, John Piotti, former Maine House majority leader Farmers Combat Climate Change initiative is helping farmers and ranchers harness the great promise offered by agricultural lands to be a part of the solution and create resilience to the impacts of climate change.
“The US Climate Alliance leadership is critical to the U.S. effort to address the real and urgent need to mitigate the impacts and adapt as a society to climate change. When the administration announced its intent to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, the USCA and members states stepped in to fill the gap,” said Piotti.
He continues, “We look forward to working with Maine as we have worked with the other member states to reduce current emissions from farm and ranch operations, sequester carbon on agricultural lands and prevent higher future emissions by protecting farmland and promoting compact growth, proved out in AFT studies in New York and California.”
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American Farmland Trust is the only national organization that takes a holistic approach to agriculture, focusing on the land itself, the agricultural practices used on that land, and the farmers and ranchers who do the work. AFT launched the conservation agriculture movement and continues to raise public awareness through our No Farms, No Food message. Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 6.5 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on millions of additional acres, and supported thousands of farm families.