Current Cochran Fellowship Focuses on Climate Change

ARLINGTON, VA – Last week, USA Rice hosted 17 Cochran Fellows from the partnerships for climate-smart commodities initiative for Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru.  This Cochran Fellowship, led by North Carolina State University (NC State), is providing training on U.S. policies regarding climate change, climate risk management, climate-smart agriculture, the economic impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas mitigation, and carbon markets.

The group, which will be touring around the U.S. for two weeks, had their first stop at USA Rice headquarters to hear about the U.S. rice industry’s sustainability efforts and success in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).  Julia Peebles, director of agriculture and sustainability policy with Ducks Unlimited, was on hand to talk about the recent partnership for climate-smart commodities grant and highlighted the various ways that ducks and rice go together.
 
“The Fellows were extremely engaged and asked dozens of questions ranging from how to incentivize farmers to adopt new conservation practices that are climate-smart to how the U.S. Farm Bill is developed,” said Jamison Cruce, USA Rice vice president of government affairs.  “They indicated that a lot of the climate change policies in their countries were still in their infancy so they were curious to hear about the successes and failures of the programs and practices we’ve tried here.”
 
While in Washington, DC, the Fellows are scheduled to meet with USDA’s climate change office, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and other U.S. cooperators before heading to Raleigh, North Carolina, for sessions with several NC State professors and a visit to the USDA Southeast Climate Hub.