How Food Labeling Can Bolster the Role of Agriculture in Addressing the Climate Crisis

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a broad term that encompasses a wide range of farming practices and technologies that contribute to both GHG mitigation and adaptation objectives. Examples are wide-ranging and can include reducing tillage, planting cover crops, diversifying cropping systems, planting improved seeds, and producing more food using less resources. CSA offers a promising pathway to meet climate goals due its many benefits, including reducing emissions and sequestering carbon, enhancing resilience, and increasing productivity. 

USDA's Investments in Climate-Smart Commodities 

Many efforts are underway to promote the adoption of CSA activities—including the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s $3.1B investment in the “Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities” program. This program is intended to greatly increase the production of climate-smart food commodities, focused primarily on technologies and management practices that increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce GHG emissions. While USDA also encourages the development of markets to promote these commodities, the emphasis of these programs are focused more on increasing the supply of climate-smart commodities than on increasing demand.

Role of Certification Programs in Promoting Climate-Smart Practices

Several CSA labeling and certification programs have arisen in the last several years that attempt to signal to consumers that food is produced in a climate-smart way. If effective, they can increase demand for and sale of food produced using beneficial practices. The concept of codifying climate-smart claims on products has also started to resonate with the private sector, as food and beverage companies have begun to seek out certification schemes and labels as part of sustainability efforts and to boost sales. 

Challenges of CSA Labeling When Practice Outpaces Policy

The increasing interest in more climate-friendly products has led to a proliferation of climate-smart labeling claims that has outpaced the policy and regulatory environment. Companies and producers are making claims that are difficult for consumers to verify without specialized knowledge.   

A few of the terms used on product labels include:

• climate-smart
• low-carbon
• carbon neutral
• climate friendly
• climate positive
• raised using regenerative practices
• environmentally responsible

The proliferation of terminology makes it difficult for consumers to differentiate between legitimate, misleading, and at worse, knowingly false claims. Without clarity, there is a risk of creating confusion, undermining consumer trust, and frustrating proactive and environmentally conscious farmers who are striving to communicate the positive climate attributes of the crops they produce. Stronger standards would enhance transparency and trust in CSA labels, which is crucial to unlock the power that consumers have to address climate change with their purchasing choices. 

The Call for Labeling Transparency and Standards

The current landscape of CSA labels in the U.S. is through third-party certification and is completely voluntary. These labels vary quite a bit in terms of the rigor and cost of verification. Some are practice-based, meaning that they verify that climate-smart practices are being conducted, and others are outcomes-based, meaning that they are designed to measure a desired result such as soil health or soil carbon. Producers opt to pay for certification to use these CSA labels to substantiate the positive climate attributions of their farming systems but also to increase demand for their products. 

Notable Climate-Smart Certification Labels in the U.S. Market

A few of the most used and well documented labels in the US market include: 

• SCS Sustainably Grown (SCS Global Services)
• Regenerative Organic Certified (Regenerative Organic Alliance)
• Certified Regenerative (A Greener World)
• Certified Regenified (Regenified)
• Verified Land To Market (Savory Institute)
• Certified Naturally Grown (Certified Naturally Grown Organization). 

Many of the organizations managing these certifications note the importance of working closely with producers to develop CSA plans that are both achievable and sustainable, ensuring that the practices are tailored to their specific needs and regions. 

Efforts to Strengthen Climate-Smart Labeling Standards

Given the quantity and complexity of climate-smart labeling, there are several efforts that can increase consumer and producer confidence, ensure the rigor of climate-smart labeling standards, and add clarity. 

• Standardization and transparency: Establishing clear guidelines, standardized criteria, and verification processes that producers should use to make environmental and climate related claims on their products. The recent FSIS guidelines for meat and poultry products “strongly encourage establishments using environment-related claims to use third party certifiers” is a step in the right direction, but still does not define the attributes of environment-related claims such as “climate-smart” and only covers meat and poultry products. 
• Research on demand for climate-smart products: Ongoing research into what attributes consumers are seeking out, how consumers interpret different terminology, and consumer willingness to pay for these products can help better guide third party labels and certification schemes. This type of research can provide evidence to support the economic viability of CSA labeling, demonstrating whether consumers value and are willing to support sustainable agriculture through their purchase choices. For example, RTI conducted a national survey to measure consumer awareness, understanding, and willingness to pay to inform rulemaking for the recently revised “Product of USA” labeling claim. 
• Addressing traceability: Commodity buyers, aggregators, wholesalers, and processors are key players in the food system and value chain. For climate-smart commodities to scale up, they need to be traceable and kept separate from other types of commodities. There is an opportunity for the private and public sector to come together with strategies to facilitate separate distribution and marketing channels, learning from experiences with USDA Organic and other common food product labels.
• Continued support for producers: To further enhance climate-smart agriculture, continued support for producers in understanding and implementing climate-smart principles is essential. The USDA climate-smart commodities program is an impressive start, but there is a need to provide ongoing resources, education, and incentives that can empower farmers to adopt and sustain climate-smart practices.

Building a Sustainable Future with Climate-Smart Agriculture 

The added clarity from standards is crucial to limit false claims and greenwashing, ensuring that consumers can trust the labels to make more sustainable choices.  While policy clarity and transparency around climate-smart agriculture labeling definitions will not be easy to address, it remains a priority to bolster the role of agriculture in the climate crisis.  Our team of researchers and agriculture economists is proud to build on our experience working on sustainable agriculture and food systems to support these efforts that allow producers to differentiate their products in the market and create demand for improved products, thereby creating a virtuous cycle that would benefit the agriculture sector and our planet.