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Lindahl Reed, in partnership with climate-smart agriculture experts at Keystone Policy Center, JG Research and Evaluation, and MTN Consulting, was awarded a five-year contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Office of Energy and Environmental Policy, to provide technical support for the USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Learning Network (Learning Network).
USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities will support a diverse range of farmers, ranchers, and private forest landowners to expand markets for America’s climate-smart commodities, leverage the greenhouse gas benefits of climate-smart commodity production, and provide direct, meaningful benefits to production agriculture, including for small and underserved producers. Through this program, USDA will finance partnerships to support the production and marketing of climate-smart commodities via a set of pilot projects lasting one to five years.
Lindahl Reed’s contract with USDA calls for analysis of awarded pilot projects totaling more than $3 billion for advancing climate-smart practice adoption and market development, and for convening meetings of project participants to share lessons learned. The Learning Network will serve as the central learning and sharing platform for projects. Lindahl Reed and its partners will convene the projects multiple times each year to exchange facts and information. The award builds on the climate-smart agriculture market analysis work conducted by Lindahl Reed for the USDA since 2019.
Under this contract, Lindahl Reed and its partners will identify options and approaches for providing technical assistance to participating farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners; create opportunities for USDA and others to inform future approaches to generating new and expanded markets for climate-smart commodities; and provide a forum for discussion and learning regarding approaches to climate-smart agriculture and forestry program implementation.
“USDA is engaging with an unprecedented number of stakeholders across the agricultural food and forestry supply chains to learn how we can best create markets for climate smart products,” said Sarah Stokes Alexander, Vice President of the Keystone Policy Center. “We look forward to working with this diverse and impressive network of organizations and individuals from across the country to learn from one another and share the data that will be collected and evaluated by our partners JG Research and Evaluation, MTN Consulting and Lindahl Reed.”
“The investments being made by the USDA in the Learning Network represent an unprecedented emphasis on understanding how to mainstream climate-smart agricultural practices and their associated markets,” said Kristal Jones, one of the owners of JG Research and Evaluation. “The integrated data collection, monitoring, and evaluation framework that our team will support, working alongside Lindahl Reed, Keystone, and MTN Consulting, will provide important insight into the efficacy and scalability of innovative market practices.”
“Understanding the adoption and market development of climate-smart agriculture practices at scale is critical to advance transformational change in agriculture,” noted Meredith Niles, owner and lead scientist at MTN Consulting, and a leading scholar in understanding farmer adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices. “The investment from USDA in the practice adoption, market, and learning environment through these projects offers the potential to catalyze that transformation.”
“The agriculture sector represents one of the largest opportunities to achieve GHG reductions for the U.S. Finding ways for working farmers, ranchers, and forest owners to create and expand climate-smart agriculture markets is critical to achieving significant and sustained GHG emissions reductions,” said Nicole R Hough, Lindahl Reed’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “With deep industry insights of climate-smart agriculture markets, we are proud to continue our support of this important work and to be a trusted advisor to the USDA.”
Lindahl Reed provides program management, engineering and technical, and management services to federal, state, institutional, and commercial customers. We offer expertise in the health, energy, and environmental markets. Lindahl Reed was founded on the belief that we can advance a safer, healthier, and more resilient and sustainable world. Our solutions keep our homeland secure, make our communities healthier, increase energy resilience, and help to protect our environment. Lindahl Reed is an SBA-certified 8(a) participant, SDB, WOSB, and EDWOSB.
Keystone Policy Center (Keystone) is a women-led trusted nonprofit organization founded in 1975 to drive actionable, shared solutions to contentious policy challenges. Keystone is recognized by public, private, and civic-sector leaders throughout the United States for independent, collaborative problem-solving approaches that offer a proven blueprint for progress and collective impact.
JG Research and Evaluation (JGRE) is an applied social science research and evaluation firm, with the mission of building the research capacity of partner organizations and providing high-quality research products to support efforts to address important social problems. JGRE engages in a holistic approach to research and data management, utilizing a diverse suite of quantitative and qualitative methodological skills to support a wide variety of domestic and global clients.
MTN Consulting Owner and Lead Scientist of the woman-owned MTN Consulting, Dr. Meredith Niles is an internationally recognized scholar with more than 18 years of experience focused on agricultural climate change mitigation and adaptation, farmer adoption of best management practices, and policy design.
Effective March 1, 2025, Thomas J. Vilsack, former United States Secretary of Agriculture and Governor of Iowa, became the first Chief Executive Officer for the World Food Prize Foundation. In this new role, Governor Vilsack is focusing on expanding the Foundation’s global network, and will further position the Foundation as a leader in addressing global food and nutrition insecurity, continuing his lifetime of public service.
Shelby Coffey III is a distinguished journalist, media executive, and thought leader whose career has helped shape the landscape of American news and public discourse. Over several decades, Coffey has held some of the most influential roles in journalism, including serving as editor of the Los Angeles Times, executive vice president of ABC News, and deputy managing editor of The Washington Post. His editorial leadership extended to key roles as president of CNN Financial News, editor of the Dallas Times Herald, and U.S. News & World Report.
Jerry Steiner has spent 40 years involved in agriculture following growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm. He began his career with Monsanto, in multiple business leadership roles. From 2003-2013 he served as a member of the Executive team, as the company’s Executive Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Affairs. He led the company’s global Government, Public and Industry Affairs teams across the 70 countries where Monsanto conducts business. This experience got Jerry connected to the Keystones centers work in agriculture. Key among his responsibilities were shaping the company’s public policy and building partnerships aimed at helping farmers around the world produce more food, while conserving valuable resources like water and energy. Two unique partnership that developed under his leadership were drought tolerant corn with 5 African countries, CIMMYT and the Gates foundation, and a building a sustainable business model in Brazil with the value chain leading to significant multi-company investment and soybean varieties that can protected themselves.
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