The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted on its final climate disclosure removal and removed the Scope 3 reporting requirement on March 6, which would have required public companies, including pig farmers, to report the greenhouse gas emissions of their supply chain.
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) has been leading the charge for the removal of Scope 3 since the rule was first proposed two years ago. Farm Bureau members sent almost 20,000 messages to the SEC and Capitol Hill, sharing their perspectives of how Scope 3 reporting would affect their farms.
“AFBF thanks SEC Chair Gary Gensler and his staff for their diligence in researching the unintended consequences of an overreaching Scope 3 requirement,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said in a release. “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.”
The organization said it recognizes the value of data collection and has actively contributed to responsible approaches to such efforts. The pork industry has been actively recording data on the farm for years.
Duane Stateler, Ohio pork producer and vice president of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), says he is pleased the Scope 3 reporting requirement has been put off for now.
“I don’t think this is the right time,” Stateler says. “I’m glad they took a step back to get more information about how this will impact everyone.”
There’s no question the amount of paperwork and regulatory hoops farmers have to go through already is significant.
Stateler doesn’t think anyone has a good handle yet on what carbon markets are going to be and what that reality will look like in the future.
“I’m not sure where this will go in the future, but now is not the time to add these extra requirements,” Stateler says. “Let’s make sure to take it one step at a time before we do something that will have such a far-reaching impact. Let’s make sure we understand the situation better before we do something and later realize it was not the right step to take.”
