USDA Has Canceled Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities

The USDA, under the current Administration, has canceled the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. In our region, this $32-million initiative was poised to enhance the productivity, health, resilience and carbon-storage capacity of New England’s forests. Its impact would have directly supported forest landowners — both large and small — as well as loggers, foresters, and the growing mass timber sector.

New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) is now exploring opportunities to continue this work through the USDA’s alternative “Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP)” program, though details remain unclear at this time.

We extend our deep thanks to the landowners and partners who helped bring this work to life. Your collaboration, vision, and commitment laid a powerful foundation. Our efforts to strengthen forests and rural communities continue, and we’re actively exploring new opportunities to move this work forward.

Update | June 11, 2025

NEFF is now actively pursuing opportunities to continue this work through the USDA’s alternative AMP program. To apply, NEFF’s expert staffers significantly modified our original Climate-Smart Commodities project proposal for use with the AMP program, and NEFF submitted the application just last week.

This NEFF AMP project will align with the forestry practices and improved forest management outcomes as defined under NEFF’s original Climate-Smart Commodities award, with a focus on supporting long-term forest health, ecological integrity, and timber productivity. The updated project will focus on incentives for commercial timber producers, and on forging a strong connection between timber producers and the project developers, architects, builders and investors that drive the demand for building with wood. This work will include a focus on housing and increasing the use of mass timber as a structural building material, through connecting supply chains and better linking producers with consumers of wood.

While all landowners will still be eligible and encouraged to enroll and receive incentives, the specialized landowner outreach and engagement programs for small landowners and Tribal Nations will no longer be funded through this grant given new parameters from USDA.

We anticipate a decision on our application this summer and, as always, extend our deep thanks to the landowners and partners working to strengthen the health and productivity of our forests and the rural communities that depend on them.

A Steady NEFF Looks to the Future

As times change and the ground shifts beneath us, forests remain constant. So too does NEFF. Our mission stands clear and strong: to conserve forestland and advance Exemplary Forestry to help the people of New England sustain their way of life, protect forest wildlife habitat and ecosystem services, and mitigate and adapt to climate change. In all that we do, let’s remember that NEFF operates in a world where it takes a white pine two years to grow a cone.

In this context, NEFF’s climate, forestry and bioeconomy programs will continue to work for the forest and the people who depend on it, across our six-state region. In this work, we will continue to innovate, implement, partner and lead. We will continue to work for the future of our region and the health of our lands.

NEFF’s programs will focus on four major areas as we look to the period ahead.

Taking Climate-Smart Forestry to Scale

NEFF is continuing our work with commercial forestland owners and partners to advance the implementation of climate-smart forestry in Maine without sacrificing wood supply or profitability. The Forest Carbon for Commercial Landowners (FCCL) Initiative would go a long way toward achieving our 30 Percent Solution, which can provide nearly one-third of the reduction in energy-related CO2 emissions — meaning, emissions from fossil-fuel combustion — New England needs by 2050.

Advance Protection of Late-Successional and Old-Growth Forests

In 2024, Dr. John Hagan and his organization Our Climate Common discovered there are approximately 148,000 combined acres of late-successional (meaning more than 150 years old) and old-growth forests in Maine. NEFF is working with landowners, environmental partners, Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Service, the USFS, and conservation organizations to conserve these ecologically valuable and carbon-rich forestlands in ways that also support continued harvesting on other lands to provide the wood products we need for a sustainable bioeconomy.

Bringing Exemplary Forestry to All NEFF Community Forests

Over the past decade, NEFF has brought forward Exemplary Forestry as a landscape-scale management approach that prioritizes forests’ long-term health and outlines the highest standards of sustainability to achieve three key goals: enhancing the role forests can play to mitigate climate change, improving wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and growing and harvesting more sustainably produced wood. To advance understanding and implementation of these standards, NEFF is reviewing and updating the management of our Community Forests’ combined 40,000 acres to bring them into full compliance with these standards. In this way, these properties will serve as Exemplary Forestry demonstration sites for private landowners and land trusts across New England (and beyond).

Expand the Wood-Based Regional Bioeconomy

Building a strong and sustainable economy means transitioning away from non-renewable and carbon intensive materials — like plastic, concrete and steel — to a bioeconomy that uses renewable, biological, and low-carbon resources like wood to produce goods, energy and services. NEFF’s Bioeconomy Initiative continues to help grow New England’s bioeconomy by building demand for wood building materials among developers, architects, investors, and affordable housing agencies; supporting pilot demonstration projects that utilize emerging wood technologies from sustainably managed forests; and building the climate-smart wood sourcing systems needed to define and verify high quality, marketable carbon credits.

Through these programs, NEFF and New England hold a crucial opportunity to deliver an ecologically and climate-positive future for generations to come.