REIDSVILLE, N.C. — Small farmers like Beverly Bowen, owner of Blackwell’s farm in Rockingham County, are expecting big changes to come under the Biden administration and a new emphasis on sustainability.

“There will be change. And there will be programs put in place, and it’s very obvious,” Bowen says. “And I think there will be a commitment and an acknowledgment that there is global warming, which has been ignored under the last administration.”

Bowen is tied into two USDA conservation programs, and keeps her focus on sustainability. She’s expecting a new agricultural incentive agenda under the president-elect.

“It’s gonna cover a lot of the things farmers should be doing,” Bowen says. “Whether it’s cover crops, whether it’s no-till, sustainable agriculture, that is gonna be a major push.”

Dr. Gregory Goines, the chair of the natural resources and environmental department of N.C. A&T, agrees that global climate change is not a distant threat.

“There are a lot of human-related factors that we know are contributing to changes in our environment,” Goines says. “Such as increasing global greenhouse gases, acidification of the ocean, and this leads to severe weather storms, which ultimately impacts farming.”

He says any federal policies that allow farmers to produce more food, in a sustainable way, are going to beneficial.

“Farmers are actually, by and large, already good stewards of the land,” Goines says. “The issue is because of the increase of the population of the earth, how do we produce more food, do it environmentally sustainably, while producing the food at an affordable price?”

President-elect Joe Biden has already promised to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and has pledged to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

His climate policy also includes a $1.7 trillion investment in clean energy and green jobs.