A coalition of farm and environmental groups said USDA should use a carbon bank to test concepts for carbon markets, encourage carbon-friendly farming practices and ensure farmers benefit from carbon credit trading.

The Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA) released a set of recommendations to USDA that also emphasized the need to maintain current Commodity Credit Corporation spending, with any outlays for a carbon bank to be added to existing programs, not as a replacement.

The group advocated a series of pilot projects that would, among other things, develop metrics for determining the permanence of various carbon-friendly farming practices.

FACA is an unusual alliance. It includes both mainstream agricultural groups like the American Farm Bureau Federation and National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and large environmental organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and The Nature Conservancy.