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About 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. The Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden signed into law in 2023 set aside more than $20 billion to reduce those emissions. That included money for research into new, more climate-friendly crops and practices and to help farmers transition to them. In April, President Trump canceled that portion of the funding, calling it a scam. Now, researchers are scrambling to find money to complete their work. KUNC's Rae Solomon reports from Colorado.
RAE SOLOMON, BYLINE: A hundred thirty miles east of Denver, you're deep in small town grain-growing country - maybe the last place you'd expect cutting-edge scientific research. And yet, here's ag scientist Jerry Hatfield, with his lasers and sensors rigged up on a couple of trailer beds in a sorghum field in Haxtun, Colorado.
JERRY HATFIELD: These instruments that measure water, CO2, everything else.
SOLOMON: It looks like a mini radio tower with metal boxes and devices, a skirt of tangled cables.
HATFIELD: They're so sensitive that I would have picked you all up on the measurement because you're all breathing out there.
(LAUGHTER)
SOLOMON: He's addressing the crowd gathered for a research field day at this farm, presenting his $32 million study on camelina. It's an alternative crop used in sustainable jet fuel that can help farmers adapt to climate change.
HATFIELD: And one of the things that we've begun to see as we analyze the data is that camelina is an extremely water-efficient crop.
SOLOMON: His work was funded through a $3 billion Biden-era program for climate-smart agriculture. It was on top of a bigger $20 billion push for sustainable farming practices. But in April, President Trump terminated the program, and now Hatfield's research and a lot of other climate-related ag science is at risk.
RICHA PATEL: That research being unavailable is a real setback for helping us figure out how agriculture can better respond.
SOLOMON: Richa Patel is with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. She says the research was filling a big knowledge gap.
PATEL: How the climate-smart practices actually affects the climate, right? How much carbon is sequestered. How much greenhouse gas reductions. A lot of science that we just are still working on.
SOLOMON: In a press release, USDA officials criticized the grant program funding the research as a slush fund, part of the green new scam, saying it doesn't help farmers. They restructured it to prioritize direct payments to farmers. The agency declined to comment. But for farmers like Roy Pfaltzgraff, who owns the Haxtun farm, that calculation doesn't add up.
ROY PFALTZGRAFF: That knowledge and that data is going to farmers, and it's supporting us in a way that no one else currently is.
SOLOMON: Pfaltzgraff says the research is more valuable to him than any cash. The science informs how he manages his land - which crops to plant, how to harvest them - to keep ahead of intensifying drought as the climate warms.
PFALTZGRAFF: How do you assign a dollar value to that? It's like the value of knowing that changes everything from now on.
SOLOMON: Ag scientists are now scrambling to find alternative funding. Jerry Hatfield reapplied under the reworked USDA program. He hasn't heard back yet. But the growing season - data season - is well underway, so he's been donating his time since April.
HATFIELD: It's now a labor of love (laughter) in terms of what I've been doing.
SOLOMON: He says he'll probably continue through the fall, but he's going to hit a limit.
HATFIELD: You know, we can't afford to go on with all this intensive equipment. Well, I mean, if they terminate and say, we're not going on, what do we do?
SOLOMON: Hatfield says his work could help farmers and the climate. He just needs to find the money to complete his research.
For NPR News, I'm Rae Solomon in Haxtun, Colorado.
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