According to USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture,  of this $395 billion, about half is from sales of crops, and half is from  livestock sales. USDA’s Climate Change Priorities Include Providing Better Information to Farmers and Generally Align with National Priorities

USDA’s climate change priorities include providing better information on  future climate conditions to help farmers in their decision making,  conducting research, and delivering decision support tools and technical  assistance to farmers. USDA’s Climate Change Priorities for Agriculture Generally Align with National Climate Change Priorities

National climate change priorities, as articulated by the Administration  and the USGCRP, are to promote mitigation actions, advance climate  science, develop tools and translate information, better predict future  climate conditions, and ensure that federal agencies are incorporating  climate change into agency programs and operations. USDA Has Engaged in Climate Change Efforts for Several Years

USDA’s climate efforts have consisted of research, conservation, and  energy programs. For example, the Third National Climate  Assessment provided information on possible future climate conditions  across nine regions in the United States under different greenhouse gas  emissions scenarios. USDA Is Not Using Its Strategic Planning and Reporting Process to Provide Information on Its Climate Change Efforts

Helping to make farms more resilient to climate change is part of one of  USDA’s four strategic goals, but the agency is not using its performance  planning and reporting process to provide information on how it intends to  accomplish this goal or the status of its efforts. According to GPRA, as  amended by the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, an agency’s  performance plan is supposed to explain how the agency will accomplish  its performance goals, and its performance reports are supposed to  review the extent to which performance goals have been met, and if the  performance goals are not met, explain why. When asked, USDA officials were uncertain as  to why this linkage was not included in the department’s performance  plan. Performance reports. USDA provided information on  its other measures for its strategic objectives. Performance measures. To address some of these  challenges, USDA is, among other things, developing tools that  summarize climate information and communicate research findings to  farmers. USDA Faces Challenges in Encouraging Farmers to Adapt to Climate Change and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sequester Carbon

As mentioned earlier, USDA is developing and delivering technical  assistance on climate change to farmers, and we found that the agency  faces challenges in these efforts. However, to provide additional help to farmers,  Another challenge USDA faces is the incentive structure that farmers  consider when making decisions. Also under  these standards, in addition to internal communications, management  should ensure that there are adequate means of communicating with, and  obtaining information from, external stakeholders that may have a  significant impact on the agency achieving its goals. Without information that is readily accessible to farmers on the  farm-level economic costs and returns of taking certain actions in  response to climate change, farmers may be reluctant to take climate  adaptation or mitigation actions. However, the agency does not have associated performance measures  that reflect the breadth of USDA efforts in the climate area. In addition, its  performance plans and performance reports do not provide adequate  information on how the agency planned to accomplish its goals or the  status of its efforts. Without a more robust performance measurement system, USDA will  have difficulty assessing its progress in meeting its strategic goal on  climate change and providing information to Congress and the public on  the status of its efforts. Farmers weigh the financial costs and returns of taking certain actions  carefully. USDA has  taken some steps in this area, but without communicating more  accessible information on the economic costs and returns to farmers of  taking certain adaptation or mitigation actions on their farms consistent  with federal internal control standards, farmers may be reluctant to take  certain actions. In addition, to provide relevant information to farmers, we recommend  that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Climate Change Program  Office to work with relevant USDA agencies to develop and provide  readily accessible information to farmers on the farm-level economic  costs and returns of taking certain actions in response to climate change. We also provided a copy to the U.S. Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Our objectives were to examine (1) U.S. Department of Agriculture’s  (USDA) priorities related to climate change and agricultural production  and how these align with national priorities; (2) the status of USDA’s  climate change efforts; and (3) the challenges, if any, USDA faces in  implementing its climate efforts and the steps it has taken to overcome  these challenges.
Why GAO Did This Study

In 2012, the United States produced about $395 billion in agricultural commodities, with about half of this revenue from crop sales and half from livestock. According to the Third National Climate Assessment, climate change has the potential to negatively affect agricultural productivity in the United States through warmer temperatures and an increase in weather extremes. In recent years, USDA has taken actions to help U.S. farmers adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
GAO was asked to review USDA's climate change efforts. This review examines (1) USDA's climate change priorities and how these align with national priorities, (2) the status of USDA's climate change efforts, and (3) the challenges USDA faces in implementing its climate efforts and the steps it has taken to overcome these challenges. To conduct this work, GAO analyzed USDA documents and data and interviewed USDA officials and other knowledgeable stakeholders, such as farmers and environmental groups.

What GAO Found

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) climate change priorities for agriculture include, among other things, providing better information to farmers on future climate conditions. These priorities generally align with national priorities set by the Administration, which include promoting actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, advancing climate science, developing tools for decision makers, and developing better projections of future climate conditions. USDA is engaged in research efforts aimed at better understanding climate change's impacts on agriculture and providing technical assistance to farmers. Through the use of existing conservation and energy programs, USDA aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester (store) carbon so it is not released, or is actively withdrawn, from the atmosphere.
Helping to make farmers more resilient to climate change is one of USDA's four strategic goals, but the agency is not using its performance planning and reporting process to provide information on how it intends to accomplish this goal or to assess the status of its efforts in this area. According to the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, as amended, an agency's performance plan is supposed to explain how the agency will accomplish its performance goals, and its performance reports are supposed to review the extent to which those goals have been met. However, USDA performance plans for recent years have not provided a link between the agency's climate efforts and performance goals, and its recent performance reports have not provided information on whether the agency was meeting its performance measures related to climate change. In addition, USDA performance measures do not capture the breadth of the agency's climate efforts. Agency officials told GAO that developing measures for the strategic goal on climate change was difficult. However, USDA has developed measures for other areas, such as conservation, where similar challenges existed. Without developing performance plans and reports that better reflect USDA's climate change efforts, USDA will have difficulty fully assessing its progress in meeting its climate change strategic goal and providing information on its progress to Congress and the public.
USDA faces challenges in encouraging farmers to take measures to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions. For example, USDA faces the challenge of turning the large amount of often technical climate research into readily understandable information. To address this challenge USDA is, among other things, developing tools that summarize climate information and communicate research findings to farmers in a more accessible format. USDA also faces a challenge related to the incentive structure that farmers consider when making decisions for their farms. Farmers weigh the financial costs and returns of taking certain actions, but USDA has not provided much information to farmers on the economic costs and returns of taking certain adaptation or emissions reduction actions, such as changing the extent to which they plow their fields. Under federal internal control standards, agencies are to ensure there are adequate means of communicating with external stakeholders when it may have a significant impact on the agency achieving its goals. Without information that is readily accessible to farmers on the farm-level economic costs and returns of taking certain actions in response to climate change, farmers may be reluctant to take these measures.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that USDA develop performance measures that better reflect the breadth of USDA climate change efforts and use its performance plans and reports to provide information on how the agency plans to achieve its goals and the status of its efforts. GAO also recommends that USDA develop and provide information to farmers on the economic costs and returns of taking certain actions in response to climate change. USDA concurred with these recommendations.