Stay Informed

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced in March that it would not include Scope 3 reporting requirements in its final Climate Disclosure Rule, which would have required public companies to report the greenhouse gas emissions of their supply chain.

“Scope 3” emissions are the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by a publicly traded company but that contribute to its supply chain. Emissions data from farms and ranches of all sizes would have been included because they are part of that supply chain.

“This is a huge win for agriculture and we’re grateful the SEC listened to our concerns,” said Randy Kron, INFB president. “In the original SEC rule proposed, farmers would have been required to track every single move they made that impacted greenhouse gas emissions. That means every time we run our combines, use fertilizer, sell a bushel of corn or any of the many other things farmers do every day as part of our jobs, we would have to report.”

Onerous reporting requirements would have disqualified many small, family-owned farms from doing business with public companies, or companies that supply public companies, leading to more consolidation in agriculture. This all comes after the just-released 2022 Census of Agriculture data showing the number of U.S. farms has declined nearly 7% since 2017.

“Farmers are committed to protecting the natural resources they’ve been entrusted with,” Kron said. “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.”

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 on how Scope 3 reporting would detrimentally affect their farms.

“This win is a testament to our members and their willingness to take action,” Kron added. “That grassroots advocacy turned into a major victory, and I’m proud of all the work we did to prevent Scope 3 reporting from entering this final rule.”