Farmers and ranchers will benefit in the long run from climate change according to USDA Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who spoke in front of the Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), which will lower the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by many companies by requiring carbon credit tradeoffs, has passed in the House and is currently in the Senate.

Carbon credits are credits that can be purchased to offset carbon pollution. Renewable energy projects will generate carbon credits, which can then be sold to carbon producers. Without these credits, many renewable energy projects are not economical. The credits make renewable energy projects possible and the renewable energy is then consumed instead of carbon producing energy.

ACES will allow polluters to be given enough carbon credits to make their company carbon neutral at first. Extra credits will be sold in an auction. For example, if an oil refinery must run more to meet demand, the refinery must either emit less carbon, or buy more credits. Each year the amount of credits that are given out by the government decreases, and more are sold via auction. Eventually, this encourages companies to implement new technology to decrease their carbon output because it won't be economical to keep buying more credits. Companies also have incentive to reduce their carbon output because the government distributed credits can be sold to other companies.

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Vilsack said, "In the short term, the economic benefits to agriculture from cap and trade legislation will likely outweigh the costs. In the long term, the economic benefits from offsets markets easily trump increased input costs from cap and trade legislation."

The amount of money that farmers and ranchers will have to spend to buy extra credits should not make a big impact in the long run. USDA says that by 2020, a wheat producer might see increased input costs of $.80 per acre.

On the other hand, farmers could get breaks by implementing no-till practices and decreasing the amount of carbon they emit and earn upwards of $6.40 per acre by selling their excess credits.

We expect to see more "green" farming practices such as no-till in the near future.

- Colvin