§6702 Study of global climate change, agriculture, and forestry

Summary

The Secretary must study how global climate change affects farming and forests. The study must look at how higher temperatures and more carbon dioxide together affect important crops, how stronger or more frequent storms hurt crops, how changes in water patterns affect yields, the economic impact of more droughts in the South, Midwest, and Plains, and how warmer weather changes pest problems. If needed, the Secretary must do more work on ways to limit harm. That follow-up work must check whether crop varieties can be bred to tolerate climate change, how long breeding would take and how it would affect farmers’ income, whether current breeding programs can make these new varieties, and whether crops can be made tolerant to climate stress and other problems like drought, pests, and salt. The Secretary must also study methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbons from tropical and temperate forests: measure these emissions, see how they affect climate and how climate change may change the emissions, and find forest management steps that might reduce them. Final reports on the farming study and the forest study must be sent within 3 and 6 years, respectively, after November 28, 1990, to the House Committees on Agriculture and on Science, Space, and Technology, and to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. The Secretary must also send yearly interim reports to those same committees with recommendations to reduce harm and adapt to climate change.