The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) continues to remove landing page climate information, a task that began January 31, 2025.
According to an ABC report, internal emails by the agency instructed the removal of ‘climate change’ phrases from landing web pages.
Later, Fox News detailed how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also scrubbed its drop bar for environmental topics from its website.
The purge follows a number of executive orders by President Trump since his second term started on January 20, 2025.
This is not the first time for such a move, for Trump’s first term had also overseen climate data removal.
The president has also done away with Biden’s environmental agenda, including withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.
A previous opt-out had happened in 2016 but had waited till 2020 because of a 3-year processing wait. Biden had immediately rejoined the agreement during his term, as of 2021.
Agriculture and Climate
Despite the changes, USDA has loads of data linking agriculture and climate in previous press releases on the subject.
In a June 2024 release, for instance, the agency outlined a Reforestation Strategy and a Wildlife Crisis Strategy.
During that announcement, the federal administration had set aside $50 billion to help agricultural communities tackle climate issues.
Clean energy also got some widespread mention through biofuel projects, especially those based on corn, canola or soymeal.
On January 17, 2025, USDA issued a related order that tracks down the greenhouse gas emissions of growing biofuel crops. The order meant to quantify the least-emitting crops for biofuel and the most climate-friendly technologies to grow them.
As the climate information removal continues, some environmental data on USDA’s pages are still accessible, especially emission data. To learn more on the emissions part of climate and agriculture in the United States, scour through below statistics.
Statistics on U.S. Climate Information Concerning Agricultural Emissions
Almost all climate information in the United States relates to emissions, if not climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that the agriculture sector is a net sink of 12% of American greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions. This means forests and land change help absorb harmful gas escaping from industries.
However, the agriculture sector emits almost an equal amount of greenhouse gases as it absorbs. In 2022, the sector represented 11% of national emissions, per EPA’s data. This included 6.343 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, among other gases. Direct emissions from the sector stood at 9.4% of the federal total. By 2021, agricultural carbon dioxide emissions had upped to 44.7 million tonnes while nitrogen oxide had risen to 312.6 million tonnes.
Has GHG emissions in agriculture increased?
As years go by, GhG from agriculture has been increasing at a rate of 8% per year, between 1990 and 2019. However, the total greenhouse gases from all sectors in the U.S. fell by 2.3% between 1990 and 2021.
What activities harm climate in U.S.’ agriculture?
Manure application, fertilizer use and the cultivation of legumes that fix nitrogen into the soil account for 75% of nitrogen oxide.