How President Biden’s Climate Plan Will Affect Cover Crops

How President Biden’s Climate Plan Will Affect Cover Crops

During President Joe Biden's recent speech to Congress, he mentioned an important point about the climate plan that will affect the agricultural technology (agtech) sector. In his speech, he revealed paying farmers for planting cover crops that will help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Cover crops include Camelina, rye, buckwheat and several others. Yield10 Bioscience, an agtech company using gene discovery tools, has been doing field trial studies to boost seed and oil yield in the high-value cover crop Camelina sativa (Camelina). The company believes Camelina possesses significant potential as a winter cover crop. "Farmers planting cover crops, so they can reduce carbon dioxide in the air and get paid for doing it," said President Joe Biden in his speech to Congress. Cover crops are plants that are used to cover the soil instead of being harvested. They are able to store carbon while protecting the soil during off-seasons. This is often referred to as soil carbon sequestration and has been explored by both farmers and scientists to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions and generate more value by enriching the soil for future agricultural production. In addition to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, cover crops can make food production more sustainable