• CERAWEEK 2025 | March 10-14, 2025
  • CERAWEEK
  • March 10 - 14, 2025

Bruce Knight

Strategic Conservation Solutions

Principal and Founder

Bruce Knight is a nationally recognized expert on conservation, agriculture and the environment, serving in the Bush Administration at USDA as Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the federal agency for conservation on private working agricultural lands, and as Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. In 2009, after leaving federal service at USDA, Knight founded his own consulting firm, Strategic Conservation Solutions, providing services to a range of clients in the agriculture, conservation and sustainability arena, including his work as the Lead Consultant to the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium. Drawing on his experience as a former association executive, lobbyist, regulator and Capitol Hill staffer, Knight has a broad understanding of how Washington works. Knight also brings firsthand knowledge of farming to his national policymaking credentials. A third-generation rancher and farmer and lifelong conservationist, Knight operates a diversified grain and cattle operation in South Dakota using no-till and rest rotation grazing systems. His farming and ranching background gives him the opportunity to practice stewardship and husbandry, providing firsthand knowledge of the interdependency of animal, plant and human health with the environment. Knight serves on the board of the Soil Health Institute and the Soil and Water Conservation Society.

Sessions With Bruce Knight

Tuesday, 10 March

  • 02:30pm - 03:20pm (CST) / -

    AgTech and GHG Emissions: New solutions
    Climate & Sustainability

    Agricultural technology and practices continue to evolve, resulting in lower GHG emissions in the field and the biofuels processing plant. Agriculture could be the source of significant GHG reductions with new, emerging technologies and policy-related incentives provided directly to growers. What are the key issues for on-farm GHG emissions? Can yields continue to increase without an increase in emissions? What are the likely new crops—energy crops or advanced conventional crops—to meet biofuels demand? What are the major potential sources and volume of GHG reductions in agriculture? How low can the carbon intensity of conventional crops/biofuels go? What are the barriers that prevent the uptake of technologies and practices and how can they be overcome?