“This carbon-trading is going to affect agriculture,” said Alan R. Mitchell, a rancher and energy program manager for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.

“If there's national legislation passed, it's going to say we have to balance the carbon,” he said. “For agriculture, that could be a pain in the rear or an opportunity.”

A task force of more than five dozen scientists, academics, consultants, farmers and U.S. Agriculture Department officials is meeting in Salt Lake City this week to discuss air-quality and agriculture, and to develop recommendations for the Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer. Mitchell is attending some sessions, as is Utah Agriculture Commissioner Leonard Blackham, a Moroni turkey farmer.

Topics include the air-quality impacts of animal feeding operations and range fires. The kinds of grasses planted, the frequency of planting and other practices can mean the difference between contributing to warming and profiting from the measures taken to stop it, noted Mitchell.

Debbie Reed, a consultant on how climate change legislation might affect farmers and ranchers, gave a primer Wednesday on the leading cap-and-trade measure pending in Congress, the Lieberman Warner bill. She urged the task force members to take a seat at the bargaining table so that agriculture enjoys some of the benefits of climate-change regulation, not just its costs.

“Agriculture needs to be able to participate in this market,” she said.

fahys@sltrib.com