Farm Bureau praises SEC ruling

The Securities and Exchange Commission has responded to American Farm Bureau Federation’s and Ohio Farm Bureau’s concerns and affirmed that regulations intended for Wall Street should not extend to America’s family farms.
The SEC voted recently on its final climate disclosure rule and removed the Scope 3 reporting requirement, which would have required public companies to report the greenhouse gas emissions of their supply chain.
“The SEC’s proposed rules would have been wildly burdensome and expensive, if not altogether impossible for many small and mid-sized farmers to comply with, as it would have required reporting of climate data at the local level,” said Adam Sharp, executive vice president of Ohio Farm Bureau. “We appreciate the attention the agency gave to our members as it considered the impacts the Scope 3 rule proposals would have had on Ohio farmers.”
Since the rule was first proposed two years ago, AFBF and OFBF led the charge for the removal of Scope 3. Farm Bureau members from across the country sent almost 20,000 messages to the SEC and Capitol Hill, sharing their perspectives of how Scope 3 reporting would affect their farms.
AFBF President Zippy Duvall said, “Farmers are committed to protecting the natural resources they’ve been entrusted with, and they continue to advance climate-smart agriculture, but they cannot afford to hire compliance officers just to handle SEC reporting requirements. This is especially true for small farms that would have likely been squeezed out of the supply chain.”
He said Farm Bureau members recognize the value of data collection and have contributed to responsible approaches to such efforts, including as a founding member of the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium and a leader in Field to Market. Both organizations work to empower farmers when it comes to on-farm data collection.