Study: Iowa farms to benefit from climate bill, others won't

Picking winners. From the Des Moines Register:

A new study making the rounds of Capitol Hill shows Iowa farms could potentially benefit from a cap-and-trade bill passed by the House to reduce carbon emissions.

However, the study shows many types of farms in other areas of the country are likely to lose money under the legislation.

The study was done by economists at Texas A&M University who analyzed the impact of government policies on representative farms around the country. The finding: Seventy-one of 98 model crop and livestock operations would see their cash reserves decline by 2016 under the House-passed cap-and-trade bill, even with the opportunity for farms to earn money from carbon credits. Virtually all rice, cotton, dairy and cattle farms modeled in the study stand to make little or nothing from the credits and would lose money under the bill.

On the other hand, most wheat farms and corn and soybean operations would gain. Seventeen of the 25 corn and soybean farms, including two sample farms in Iowa, would be winners under the bill.

The study has net cash reserves on a model 1,350-acre corn-and-soybean operation in Iowa going from $786,000 to $946,000 under the bill. For a 3,400-acre farm, net cash reserves jump from $1.8 million to $2.2 million....