Advancing Agroforestry in the Midwest: Hudson Demonstration Farm

CLICK TO READ ARTICLE'S KEY POINTS
  • Agroforestry, which involves integrating trees into agriculture, is a vital solution to climate change. Trees’ deep roots help manage water, sequester carbon, and mitigate the impacts of extreme weather, making them powerful allies in adapting to and mitigating climate change.
  • Demonstration farms play a crucial role in educating farmers and the public about agroforestry. They serve as practical examples, helping people understand how agroforestry works and learn all the benefits of regenerative farming.
  • The are several barriers to agroforestry adoption, including land access, upfront investments, and a lack of experienced practitioners. Addressing these obstacles is essential to encourage more farmers to embrace agroforestry practices.
  • Policy support, particularly through USDA programs and the Farm Bill, is essential for scaling up agroforestry adoption. We need policy changes that recognize agroforestry’s role in addressing climate change and offer financial incentives for its implementation.
  • Despite the challenges posed by climate change, agroforestry is a transformative practice that can positively impact biodiversity, habitat restoration, and rural communities, offering a brighter and more stable future for agriculture and the environment.

Most people have no idea what agroforestry is. And they especially don’t know what it looks like. Displaying agroforestry on demonstration farms allows people to understand how trees fit into farm landscapes.

As the Director of Demonstration Farms at the Savanna Institute, a nonprofit organization working to lay the groundwork for widespread agroforestry in the Midwest, I help people better understand what agroforestry is, as well as the multiple benefits it can provide to farmers. Demonstration farms can serve as a blueprint for how the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s programs and policy initiatives, like the 2023 Farm Bill, could support the expansion of agroforestry plantings.

Agroforestry 101

Agroforestry has a lot of definitions, but simply put, it’s the integration of trees into agriculture. By this definition, agroforestry has been practiced for thousands of years, and in thousands of different ways, across the world. A few key practices are especially promising for the Midwestern United States, such as alley cropping (rows of trees growing within rows of crops) and windbreaks (rows of trees planted along the edges of fields to reduce wind, pesticide drift and soil erosion).

So much of our country’s landscape now is foreign to what it looked like 30 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and 300 years ago. All the amazing soil that we have here in the heartland is because of the prairies and savannas that were here. This history is extremely important, because while ‘agroforestry’ can be seen as a set of USDA practices, it’s way more than that. It’s generations of people that have been working with trees up to the present day. So, agroforestry is not only directly related to what happened in the past, but it directly informs what will happen in the future.

Agroforestry’s Role in Preparing for Climate Change

As we’re entering this time of uncertain weather patterns, farmers sometimes have no rain at all. Other times, an incredible amount of water comes onto farm landscapes all at once. Trees can play an important role in navigating this challenge. The amazing thing about trees is they have deep root systems that allow water to spread out and sink in. The perennial roots of tree crops allow them to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather while also sequestering greenhouse gases and reducing climate change directly.

Because of the powerful role that trees can play on farm landscapes, agroforestry has everything to do with climate change. Trees are some of our most powerful allies we have when it comes to adapting and mitigating a changing climate. There’s nothing more efficient than a tree when it comes to storing carbon at deep levels of soil where we need to hold it in place. And what makes trees even more exciting is they can be productive. We can put trees on landscapes in a way that is doing something for climate change, but also adding value to farmlands, either through conservation or through the production of new crops.

Drought and Planning

I have seen first-hand the impacts a changing climate is already having on farmers. Through my work at the Savanna Institute, I manage the Hudson Demonstration Farm, a privately owned, 120-acre farm in central Illinois that serves as an agroforestry demonstration site through an innovative 50-year lease agreement with the landowner. Agroforestry is being established on all of the 120 acres, in combination with corn, soybeans, and other common Midwestern crops. In 2023, a severe drought created challenges for our agroforestry work, as well as for the alley crop farmer’s soybean production. 

Even though farms in Central Illinois are seeing the driest soil we’ve had since the eighties, the trees we planted here are doing just fine, and even trees that were planted as recently as last year seem to be doing reasonably well thanks to deeper roots that can access moisture farther down in the soil. The crops that are struggling most with the drought are annual crops, like the corn and soybeans that are grown across much of Illinois and the Midwest. However, growing trees close to these annual crops can actually help them access water too, by drawing up moisture higher in the soil profile where shorter crop roots can access it. 

While this drought has led to challenges, it has also provided an opportunity to demonstrate how to farm in an increasingly chaotic climate. The future of agriculture is happening right now on these demonstration farms. As the weather gets more extreme, farmers will be forced to do things differently. 

On-Farm Education

For agroforestry to gain broader acceptance, it is important for it to be highly visible. Demonstration farms can play a powerful role in bringing people out to learn more about agroforestry. 

The Savanna Institute utilizes Hudson Farm, along with its broader network of demonstration farms throughout the Midwest, to conduct education and outreach for greater agroforestry adoption. This includes field days, private tours, research, an agroforestry apprenticeship program, and a new video series about the farms.

This education is very important, because agroforestry requires the thoughtful management of multiple systems at once, such as tree crops in combination with grains, vegetables, or livestock. This offers the potential for “overyielding” – achieving productivity above 100% due to multiple crops in the same space – but it also increases the number of things that can go wrong. Our demonstration farms help us find ways to co-exist, while also providing opportunities to document and learn from our mistakes, so others don’t make the same mistakes again. 

One of the reasons why I’m drawn to this work is because we are showing that the corn and soybean production with large tractors guided by GPS and increasingly advanced technology can exist alongside the use of trees. The future of agriculture is to do both. Both of these things CAN happen at the same time. 

Costs and Barriers

Why isn’t agroforestry more common in the Midwest? A number of significant barriers stand in the way. Land access for aspiring agroforesters, either through land ownership or a favorable long-term lease, remains out of reach for many. Because tree crops usually require significant up-front capital and labor investment with no immediate payback, providing financial mechanisms to fund agroforestry establishment is a primary need. A shortage of nursery stock for preferred agroforestry crops, as well as a lack of farmers with sufficient agroforestry management experience, also represent limiting factors. 

For example, if a farmer is planting a chestnut tree, that tree is not going to produce its first chestnuts for around five years, and they’re not going to come into full production until around their twelfth year. This means that farmers are required to make a significant investment of time, labor, and money before those trees start to produce, which can be really hard when operating farms on tight margins. In Midwest agriculture, we’re usually focused on short-term economics instead of long-term economics, and that can be a barrier for some farmers.

Another barrier is that there simply are not a lot of people doing agroforestry. A person might be the only one in their community that’s planting tree crops or doing agroforestry on their farm, and that can get really lonely after a while. Hopefully as we spread the word about agroforestry, this will become less of a barrier for agroforestry adopters. 

USDA Support for Agroforestry

While some of these barriers can be addressed by organizations like the Savanna Institute, others require innovation by policymakers or financial institutions. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be a powerful change agent in scaling up widespread implementation of agroforestry, and a number of USDA programs are already supporting its adoption. Through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), landowners can access cost share funding for the cost of planting trees, as well as the loss of income from taking land out of annual production. 

Indeed, at the Hudson Demonstration Farm, the USDA helped pay for every tree that was planted. At Hudson, the NRCS’ Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) supports the establishment and maintenance of the windbreak and pollinator plantings while the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) supports three different types of alley cropping. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) can also help pay for costs associated with Agroforestry establishment. EQIP is a particularly powerful program for people that may not have commodity crop land, including specialty crop growers or livestock producers who want to establish agroforestry.

SUPPORTING FARMERS The USDA can be a powerful change agent in scaling up widespread implementation of agroforestry, with programs like the Conservation Reserve Program, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program helping farmers with the establishment and maintenance of practices like alley cropping and windbreaks. Photos by Alita Films.

Another USDA effort, the Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities program, is pulling together people working in agroforestry into regional hubs that allow us to scale agroforestry where they are located and deploy it throughout the United States. Led by The Nature Conservancy in collaboration with multiple partners, this five-year grant establishes six regional hubs in the eastern US and Hawaii. Agroforestry currently represents less than 2% of U.S. agriculture. This project aims to create 30,000 acres of new agroforestry plantings over the next five years.

In 2023, Congress has the opportunity to expand the USDA’s support for agroforestry through the Farm Bill, legislation that touches the life of every single person in the US, whether we know it or not. When it comes to agroforestry, there is a major opportunity to put in place a transformative Farm Bill, providing opportunities to tweak some existing programs to make them more friendly to agroforestry, while also providing additional funding for agroforestry research, technical assistance, and adoption. It is vital that we let policy makers know that agroforestry is important to us, that it is a climate change solution, that it is an economic opportunity, and that historic investment will help accelerate that adoption even faster.

Returning to Agroforestry

Despite dealing with the consequences of climate collapse on a daily basis, I am still hopeful about the future. As a parent, I sometimes feel that having children and planting trees is part of the same work: fostering a better, brighter, more stable future. A few years back, I was out working on an agroforestry farm and heard a bobwhite quail call from the windbreak. I started weeping, right there in the field, because I hadn’t heard that sound since I was a child. Through planting trees, that farm had built a habitat for a bird that no longer existed in the area and they came back.  Being able to watch the land change, regenerate, and diversify thanks to agroforestry fills me with the same emotions as watching my children grow. 

I think that trees have the opportunity to bring people back to the land, to farms, to their communities and rural areas, and to places where they feel like they can be hopeful and that they can build their lives around that. And while planting a tree is simple, it’s the first step in that transformation.


Additional Resources

Download project fact sheet
(includes pathways for scaling)

Learn more about the Savanna Institute

Soil Health Success: Herriman Farm Highlights Economic & Environmental Benefits of Soil Health Management

Adapted from American Farmland Trusts’ Herriman Farms Soil Health Case Study.

CLICK TO READ ARTICLE'S KEY POINTS
  • After facing setbacks from a flood and poor crop yields, Scotty Herriman who farms 2,000 acres in Oklahoma, learned about the benefits of soil health practices and received support through USDA’s NRCS to transition away from conventional methods.
  • The soil health methods he implemented, including no-till, cover crops, and enhanced nutrient management, led to increased yields, reduced erosion, and lowered greenhouse gas emissions:
  • A partial budget analysis showed that soil health practices increased Scotty’s net income by $4 per acre annually, with a 7% ROI. He also experienced yield increases, boosting soybean yield by 5 bushels per acre and corn yield by 40 bushels per acre.
  • Various programs, like EQIP and CIG, support farmers in adopting soil health practices, improving financial and environmental outcomes. Federal Farm Bill programs and initiatives like the Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities can further promote these practices.
  • Scotty’s experience emphasizes the learning curve and importance of sharing success stories to encourage informed conservation decisions in agriculture.

Scotty Herriman farms 2,000 acres near South Coffeyville, Oklahoma, with his wife, Jo. They grow corn and soybeans, and occasionally grain sorghum (milo) and wheat. After a historic flood in 2007 resulted in only 13 profitable acres, followed by a poor crop yield in 2008, it became clear to Scotty that he needed to change the way he farms his land.

Scotty heard about other farmers who had had success with practices like no-till farming  – which is planting agricultural crops without any plowing or tillage. A visit to his local USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) field office in 2010 finally changed Scotty’s mind. He learned he could use assistance through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to switch to no-till. Just like that, decades of conventional farming went out the window. “We switched overnight,” Scotty said.

In recent years, more and more farmers in the U.S. have been adopting farming practices that provide multiple benefits for the farmer, the environment, and our climate. These strategies go by many names – regenerative agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, conservation agriculture – but they all refer to a suite of farming practices that improve soil health. This, in turn, sustainably improves farm productivity, enhances the resilience of land to drought and flooding, and provides a number of environmental benefits, including cleaner drinking water, increased carbon storage in the soil, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

BENEFITS OF NO-TILL FARMING

“No-till farming protects the soil from excessive erosion, reduces soil aeration from tillage, allows organic matter to accumulate and improves the overall health of the soil. Switching can also help you reduce input costs and, thus, boost your bottom-line profits. It is part of an integrated effort to conserve the nation’s natural resources.”

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS)

From Adversity to Achievement: Scotty’s Experience with No-till, Cover Crops, and Enhanced Nutrient Management

In 2010 Scotty adopted no-till soybeans and reduced-tillage corn. While this has led to some increased use of herbicide, adopting no-till has saved Scotty time, reduced equipment maintenance costs, and has led to significant positive changes in his soil. For example, Scotty sees that root channels from prior year plantings run deeper into the ground, which improve soil infiltration and create a more stable and resilient soil structure. Scotty has also seen higher quality crop stands that are less stressed by drought and pests due to increased crop vigor.

With the goal of reducing herbicide use, Scotty adopted cover crops, primarily cereal rye in 2016. Cover crops are sown when a primary cash crop is not present, as an alternative to fallow, or bare soil. Cover crops have been shown to slow soil erosion, improve soil health, enhance the availability of water, smother weeds, and help control pests. They also increase the total amount of photosynthesis that takes carbon from the atmosphere, which can increase the amount of carbon added to the soil every year. While planting cover crops has led to only a slight reduction in Scotty’s herbicide use, he has observed that they leave a mulch layer an inch thick on top of his soil, which he believes has increased soil moisture retention – making his land more resilient to drought. “A couple of years ago I noticed things started to come on stronger,” Scotty says. “I won’t say we were penalized those first 2 years, but it was after that 2-year period the yields were coming on strong. Weather patterns were the same, water intake was good, so after just a little period of questions and small doubts, that 3-year window everyone talked about opened up and crops have been improving ever since.”

In 2016, Scotty also modified his nutrient management practices. He now ensures that the amount of nitrogen applied to agricultural fields by synthetic fertilizers does not exceed the amount the plants can absorb and minimizes unwanted losses by switching from dry to a split application of a liquid fertilizer blend. This reduces excess nitrogen from being released to the atmosphere in the form of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It also prevents nutrient pollution in rivers and lakes, which can reduce the quality of drinking water and cause algal blooms and dead zones. While his nutrient costs increased, the modeled estimates for losses of nitrogen and phosphorus on his land dropped substantially as a result of the no-till, cover crops, and nutrient management practices Scotty employed. 

Soil Health Management Benefits Farmers, Climate, and the Environment

To better understand the financial impact implementation of these practices had on Scotty’s operation, American Farmland Trust and the Oklahoma Conservation Commission worked together to conduct partial budget analysis to analyze the marginal benefits and costs of adopting cover crops, strip-till corn, no-till soybeans, and nutrient management changes on the 350 acres of Scotty Herriman’s 2,000-acre farm where all of the practices were adopted. The analysis used a combination of published machinery and material cost estimates and farmer-provided data to estimate the cost of operations, on average, before and after soil health practice adoption. The analysis was limited to only those income and cost variables affected by the adoption of these practices. 

The results of the study highlighted the win-win nature of these solutions – they can be good for farmers, and are certainly beneficial for our climate and the environment as a whole. The analysis found that Scotty’s net income increased by $4 per acre per year after he adopted the soil health practices described earlier, for a net increase of $1,402 a year – a 7% return on investment. Scotty attributes 25% of his corn and soybean yield increases since 2010 to his adoption of soil health practices, thus accounting for a benefit of $28 per acre each year. Scotty’s average annual soybean yield has increased overall by 5 bushels an acre, and his corn yield has increased by 40 bushels an acre. Scotty says he also knows he’ll realize tangible assets of no-till during his farming career. In 2014 he saw 260-bushel dryland corn and he’s hit several years of 200+ bushel corn since switching to no-till. He entered a yield contest and won it four times in 6 years with his dryland no-till corn. This is what he shares with critics, that he implemented no-till and it works.

While Scotty’s herbicide costs have increased by $7 per acre per year, his machinery costs have decreased by $32 per acre per year since his adoption of no-till and strip-till thanks to fewer mechanical issues, less overall machinery maintenance costs, less fuel needed, and increased time savings. 

As a result of the combined soil health practices, erosion has decreased by 1 ton per acre per year, as estimated by USDA’s Nutrient Tracking Tool (NTT), worth $713 per year across the study area based on the $1.18/ton value of soil nutrients no longer running off, and Scotty’s estimated $300 a year in reduced mechanical erosion repair costs. In addition to the economic benefits Scotty has experienced, he has noticed benefits to his soil structure and biota. Scotty has observed less soil compaction, an increase in earthworm activity, and higher levels of soil organic matter. 

To estimate the water quality and climate benefits of these soil health practices, researchers used NTT and COMET-Farm tools on a 60-acre, representative field. Scotty’s use of cover crops, strip-till, no-till, and nutrient management reduced nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment losses by 73%, 22%, and 86%, respectively, as estimated by NTT. Further, his combined soil health practices resulted in a 54% reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions as estimated by the COMET-Farm Tool, corresponding to taking 3.9 cars off the road.  While this may seem like a small number, there is enormous potential for scaling these benefits – especially considering the 396 million acres of cropland in the U.S.

USDA Cropland (USDA & Esri 2022). Feature layer by SEGS_GPO, licensed under the US EPA Data Licensing Agreement for public use.

Support is Available to Help Farmers Like Scotty Herriman Adopt Soil Health Management Practices

A number of federal and state programs are available to help farmers like Scotty Herriman adopt soil health practices – many of which are supported by the federal Farm Bill. To aid his transition to no-till, Scotty received support through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which provides financial and technical assistance to farmers to help them integrate conservation farming practices into their lands. When Scotty planted cover crops on his land, he partnered with Oklahoma State University, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission and the NRCS Conservation Innovation Grants Program (CIG), which worked with him to study the influence cover crops had on soybean and corn productivity. Scotty also receives $5 per acre/year from the USDA Risk Management Agency Cover Crop Program to support continued implementation of cover crops. The financial assistance Scotty received from these programs was not factored into the cost-benefit analysis conducted by American Farmland Trust, indicating the benefits of soil health practices outweigh the costs even without federal assistance. 

Farm Bill agriculture programs, coupled with new efforts like the Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities, can play a key role in scaling up adoption of these practices nationwide – not only by providing financial and technical assistance to farmers, but also supporting the research, data collection, reporting and verification necessary to continue improving our understanding of the benefits of soil health management.

Closing Thoughts

Herriman Farms has benefited from soil health practices, but Scotty recognizes the challenges that come with getting started. “It’s a learning curve. Learning how to work in harmony with the weather, resisting the urge to break out the plow when things didn’t go exactly how I envisioned, and timing the planting windows to get the most benefit of moisture while staying ahead of weeds,” he said to emphasize the effort required to forge the right soil health management system. Scotty believes in the importance of sharing his story to help others make informed decisions about conservation practices. He celebrates his healthy soil and looks forward to the lasting benefits of his hard work.


Additional Resources

Notes:

All values are in 2020 dollars.

• Prices used: Corn: $4.30/bu, Soybeans: $11.15/bu (USDA NASS, Feb 2021, Crop Values: 2020 Summary); Nitrogen: $0.34/lb, Phosphate: $0.39/lb (ISU Extension and Outreach, Jan 2021, Ag Decision Maker: Estimated Costs of Crop Production in Iowa).

• Value of decreased erosion ($1.18/ton) is based on estimated N & P content of the soil (2.32 lbs N/ton, 1 lb P/ton) and fertilizer prices (USDA NRCS, May 2010, Final Benefit-Cost Analysis for the EQIP) and Scotty’s estimate of reduced mechanical erosion repair costs.

• Return on Investment is the ratio of Annual Total Change in Net Income to Annual Total Decreased Net Income, as a percent. 

For information about:

(1) study methodology, see farmland.org/soilhealthcasestudies
(2) USDA’s NTT, see ntt.tiaer.tarleton.edu/; and 
(3) USDA’s COMET-Farm Tool, see comet-farm.com

This material is based on work supported by a USDA NRCS CIG grant (NR183A750008G008) and a grant from the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. Scotty received $5/ac/yr through the USDA Risk Management Agency Cover Crop Program (2016–present). This is not included in the analysis because cost-share is temporary and not received by all.

Mad Island: Fire Restores Prairie on the Texas Gulf Coast

To restore the prairie, you have to burn it.


A juvenile alligator peeking out from the water in the marsh.
The truck slows as we approach another pool of water. We scan the water’s surface carefully and it doesn’t take long to find what we’re seeking. A pair of beady eyes pokes out. And another. Baby alligators.

Soon we realize the small reptiles are scattered throughout the pond, including one sunning itself on a log. And while I’ve always found adult crocodilians to be somewhat unnerving, these little ones are cute. We watch as they bob around the water, disappearing for a few seconds, only to pop up for a curious glance our way.

“Every trip here becomes a gator safari,” says Steven Goertz, prescribed fire coordinator for The Nature Conservancy in Texas, and manager of the site we’re visiting.

A juvenile alligator peeks out from the marsh. © Kenny Braun / TNC

Goertz is giving me and colleague Claire Everett a tour of the Clive Runnells Family Mad Island Marsh, a Nature Conservancy preserve on the Texas Gulf Coast. And indeed, we’ve seen a lot of alligators. Big ones, small ones, ones that “cannonball” into the water at our approach and ones that sit along the bank and watch us with indifference.

But the alligators are a side attraction; we’re here to look at the influence of fire. Fire shapes nearly every aspect of the grassland and marsh ahead of us. But unlike the gators, the signs of fire are difficult for me to see.

I live on the edge of the Rockies, where you can see traces of fire on the forest for years afterwards. The charred trees of the famous 1988 fire in Yellowstone National Park are visible to any visitor.

Here, the grasses wave in the breeze, as if it has always been this way. As if this is a pristine, untouched landscape. Goertz is here to show us a different story.

This is a picture of Clive Runnells Mad Islands Marsh Preserve at sunrise.
Clive Runnells Family Mad Island Marsh Preserve. © Kenny Braun / TNC

A Brief History of Mad Island

My eyes kept looking up; as a naturalist, I had a lot to watch. Various species of herons, waders, ibis – singly and in flocks – lifted from the waters as we drove past. White-tailed deer trotted along the meadows and gar gulped air in the freshwater channels. In the bay, bottlenose dolphins offered quick glimpses as they surfaced.

Traveling along one wetland, we see a swimming flock of fulvous whistling ducks, a flushing flock of mottled ducks and a white-tailed hawk. Three lifer birds in a quarter mile.

This is a heading that says "It’s a wildlife paradise but it’s not untouched nature. It’s taken decades of research, hard work and direct management to restore Mad Island."

The Texas Gulf Coast prairies and marsh once consisted of 9 million acres. By the 20th century, much of that landscape had been developed, with just 2 percent of native habitat remaining.

Just 2 percent of native Texas Gulf Coast prairies remained by the 20th century. © Kenny Braun / TNC

The establishment of the Clive Runnells Family Mad Island Marsh Preserve began in 1989, when Clive Runnells II donated more than 3,000 acres of coastal wetlands and upland prairies to TNC. The land is directly adjacent to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Mad Island Wildlife Management Area, which TNC helped establish with a 5,700-acre donation.

In 1993, TNC added 3,900 acres to the preserve with critical support from the North American Wetlands Conservation Council, as well as the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Dow Chemical, US Environmental Protection Agency, Trull Foundation and Communities Foundation of Texas.

For the first couple of decades of the preserve’s existence, much of the conservation effort focused on restoring wetlands for waterfowl and other wildlife. The area was well-known for its importance to migratory birds, sitting at the confluence of two principal North American migration routes. For years, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center had operated a bird banding station on the preserve to study the patterns and behavior of migratory birds. These efforts are now carried on by collaborations between Texas A&M University and University of Maryland.  

But there was also a recognition that, for this landscape to naturally function as marsh and prairie, other restoration was needed.

And Goertz realized early on that to achieve that resilience would require the use of fire.

A prescribed burn at Mad Island Marsh. © Ernest Love / Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

From Raggedy to Awesome

Another flock of ducks circles overhead and I strain my eyes to identify them. My eyes continue to look up. Goertz is urging me to look down.

He’s scrunched over, brushing his hands through the plants at our feet. From the road, this looks like a sea of grass. Up close, a rich diversity of native plant species is revealed.

With the global threats impacting lands and waters, conservationists often speak of the need of rapid, large-scale solutions. The Nature Conservancy, for instance, has ambitious goals that will lead to global change. But ultimately, those goals have to touch down on the ground, in places like this. Goertz has to think about the management of thousands of acres. And sometimes, he’s looking at plants right beneath his feet.

TNC’s Steven Goertz shows author Matt Miller native prairie plants at Mad Island. © Claire Everett / TNC

When TNC acquired this property, many parts were, as Goertz puts it, “raggedy.” The ranch had been heavily grazed by cattle for decades. Brush had encroached on the prairie, reducing its diversity and its importance to wildlife.

This is a heading that says "Even on this scale, restoration can seem an overwhelming task. Removing this stand of brush, that patch of invasive species, the work could stretch out for years. Decades. But harnessing a natural process – one that has shaped grasslands for millennia – could offer faster results.”

“I’ve put all my eggs in the fire basket, and it’s made all the difference,” says Goertz.

TNC has been using prescribed fire on its lands for decades. Staff know how to coordinate a safe, controlled burn that achieves the desired ecological results. Working with partners, Goertz continues conducting fires at Mad Island.

Still, this land had not seen fire to this extent for a long time. So it needs some additional help.

The Spaces Between

After Mad Island was burned, some of the changes were quickly apparent. Other changes would escape the notice of a casual visitor; that’s why Goertz is often bent down, examining plants at the square-foot level.

“Prescribed fire isn’t just about clearing brush,” he says. “It certainly does that. But what’s really interesting is what happens in the interspaces, the ground left open by the burning. The fire increases solar contact with the soil. So much comes up in the spaces between. You get quality and quantity of native plants in ways I wasn’t expecting.”

This heading says "To give natural processes a boost, Goertz and other staff began collecting seeds from the prairie plants that grew after the burn. They then reseeded by hand in other parts of the project."

“First, you’d see circles of plants coming up around where we broadcast the seed,” says Goertz. “By year two or three, you see seed dispersion. That’s when it gets really exciting.”

© Kenny Braun / TNC

Lately, the seed collection has intensified. Staff use a street sweeper-style harvester to pull seeds off native plants and dump them in a bin. Last season, 900 pounds were harvested off 16 acres.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to increase that harvest,” says Goertz. “We can then use them on our own restoration sites or share them with other conservation projects.”

The prescribed burning is an annual effort, and one that seemingly occupies Goertz’s thoughts most hours of the day. As we walk through the grass, he’s constantly pointing. He’s showing me those little changes in topography, clumps of plants, how those plants have responded to fire.

“This place looks flat, but there’s a lot of landscape diversity here,” he says. “You see that when you’re out here, the little depressions and rises in the landscape.”

The marsh at Clive Runnells Family Mad Island Marsh Preserve. © Kenny Braun / TNC

The result of that attention to detail, that passion for the land, is everywhere around me. I can’t see signs of the fire. I can see swaying prairie grass, the birds lifting off out of the marshes, the deer trotting ahead of us. To my eyes, it looks perfect, but I know it’s not pristine.

“I can’t do a perfect replication of the native prairie,” says Goertz. “That’s not the goal. I want it to function in a resilient state. What we are finding is that when we burn at this scale, diversity is embedded in the whole system. There’s a ‘Field of Dreams’ aspect to this. Burn it, and the diversity comes.”


This article was originally published in Cool Green Science, a blog by The Nature Conservancy, on June 18, 2023 and updated on June 26, 2023.

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Growing Solutions and Resilience to Climate Change with Biochar: A Natural Climate Solution in the Soil Health Toolbox

This image is a summary of the article, stating that biochar has a lot of potential as a natural climate solution.
Logo for American Farmland Trust

There is no silver bullet to improving soil health and mitigating climate change, but biochar has potential to be a widespread and powerful tool in the soil health and climate-smart toolbox. Managing soils with charred biomass has been practiced for centuries, originating with indigenous people who created the Terra Preta soils of the Amazon Basin. The creation of biochar from organic materials and its application to sandy, acidic, weathered tropical soils improved soil water holding capacity, pH, nutrient retention, structure, and crop yields, while also adding stable carbon.

Today, biochars are created from pyrolysis of organic waste feedstocks (like woody or crop residues) and can be co-composted with other organic materials, combined with fertilizers, or treated post-production to produce specific physical and chemical properties in the final biochar amendment. 

Scientific consensus on the benefits of biochar soil amendments

Building on the traditional practice, research in the last 20 years has produced over 20,000 peer-reviewed publications investigating the benefits of diverse biochars on agricultural soils around the world. There are complex interactions among soil type, biochar type, crop, management, and weather as well as on-going efforts to expand decision support to match the right biochar with the right soil. From a convening of stakeholders and experts in March 2022 (Biochar Convening Summary), there was broad consensus on the benefits of biochar soil amendments, including:

Scroll through the eight data cards below:

Showing the potential of biochar as a natural climate solution.
Wheat growth increased on soils amended with 8 tons of biochar per acre (right) compared to unamended soil (left) near Spokane, Washington.
By Kristin Trippe, USDA ARS

Quantifying climate mitigation potential of biochar

Biochars have been proposed as a natural climate solution. Pyrogenic Carbon Capture and Storage (PyCCS; Schmidt et al. 2019) is the thermochemical conversion of feedstocks into pyrolyzed materials that are 100s to 1000s of times more stable. Without pyrolysis, the feedstocks would be burned or decomposed faster, releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere. 

One commonly cited estimate of the global maximum potential of biochar to sequester carbon is 1.8 Gt CO2e per year (Woolf et al. 2010), potentially mitigating around 10% of global GHG emissions from agrifood systems. Complete life cycle analysis evaluates the impact of biochar amendments on GHG emissions and should include a comparison of emissions from non-pyrolyzed feedstocks and the impact of biochar production, transportation, and application in agricultural systems, which could define when  the carbon drawdown period begins (Amonette et al. 2021 ). Biochars can also be by-products of a sustainable bioenergy industry, reducing net GHG emissions from the energy sector. Adaptation and resilience co-benefits of biochar should be included in any climate impact assessment. 

Barriers to biochar adoption

Centuries of practice and decades of research have not translated into widespread adoption of biochar in today’s agricultural production systems. A recent paper from American Farmland Trust, National Center for Appropriate Technology, and US Biochar Initiative outlined recommendations for stakeholders and policymakers to scale up a biochar industry through coordinated research and outreach. Some barriers to implementation of biochar as an agricultural soil amendment have included:

  • Lack of education and awareness of the potential for biochars to provide climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation benefits 
  • Decision support tools for management of appropriate biochars on specific soils and production systems 
  • Availability of local, sustainable, affordable biochar products.

Breaking down barriers

American Farmland Trust (AFT) and our partners are working to reduce barriers to biochar adoption. AFT, in collaboration with policy and industry leaders, researchers, and innovative farmers, is addressing barriers to adoption of biochar as a natural climate solution through the following efforts:


Learn more about Biochar production in the United States:

Innovative Biocrust Restoration Technique Offers Hope in Warming Climate

When you mention biological soil crusts (also known as biocrusts) to Dr. Sasha Reed, her eyes light up and a smile widens across her face. For the last 15 years, this U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) biogeochemist has been on the ground and in the lab studying these soil communities that, while small, have big potential to sustain ecosystems as our planet warms. Now, thanks to increasing focus on dryland restoration and climate change science, there are new opportunities to scale up nature-based solutions with federal funding from programs like America the Beautiful.

If you close your eyes and picture a desert landscape, you might see sparse trees or shrubs and then lots of open areas of sand among the plants. While these areas look barren, they are actually filled with life in the form of soil surface communities called biocrusts. Biocrusts are the desert’s skin—a community of lichens, mosses and cyanobacteria that live on the soil surface in places where soils are exposed to the sun. Although the organisms are small, biocrusts are estimated to cover 12 percent of Earth’s land surface and can be found on all seven continents.

These complex communities play an astonishingly important role in sustaining desert ecosystems and in protecting human health. However, until recently, they have been sorely underappreciated. A growing climate crisis for Earth’s drylands and exciting research revelations are intersecting to shine a new light on the importance of biocrusts.

Dr. Reed – along with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Northern Arizona University and Rim to Rim Restoration – leads one of the world’s largest-scale cultivations of whole biocrust communities. With funding from a Wildlife Conservation Society grant, through their Climate Adaptation Fund, and with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the team is working toward a scientific breakthrough that will benefit dryland communities around the globe.

Homebase for the project is the Canyonlands Research Center (CRC) headquartered at TNC’s Dugout Ranch near Canyonlands National Park in southeast Utah. The CRC is a collaboration of academic institutions, land managers, and state and federal research agencies working together on climate science and sustainable land management solutions. With powerful partnerships, the cutting-edge CRC research facility attracts some of the world’s leading scientists in climate change, biological soil crusts, rangeland management, dryland vegetation ecology and soil erosion.

Thirty-four percent of people on Earth live in dryland regions. These areas support 44 percent of the world’s cultivated systems and 50 percent of the world’s livestock. Yet drylands are home to the poorest and most marginalized people in the world. Experts estimate that 25 to 35 percent of Earth’s drylands are already degraded, with over 250 million people directly affected and about one billion people in over 100 countries at risk. With climate change impacts intensifying rapidly, restoration solutions for key dryland components—like biocrusts—can’t come soon enough.

“These organisms pack so much punch!” exclaims Dr. Reed with two pumping fists. Just as coral reefs are critical to marine habitats, biocrusts are the ecosystem engineer of Earth’s drylands. Biocrusts provide important services to people and nature by:

  • Stabilizing Soils – Biocrusts act as a “glue” to stabilize desert soil and prevent it from blowing away. In this way, biocrusts are nature’s safeguard against dust storms that threaten human health and wildlife.
  • Boosting Fertility – Biocrusts take in nitrogen and concentrates other nutrients, playing a valuable role in the diversity and productiveness of desert soils that sustain plants, wildlife and agriculture. 
  • Retaining Moisture – Biocrusts increase the ability of soils to retain water from precipitation, a critical process for the entire desert ecosystem. 
  • Storing carbon – Like all photosynthetic organisms, biocrusts take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, sequestering carbon in soils.

Sue Bellagamba, TNC’s Canyonlands Regional Director, who is partnering with Dr. Reed, sums it up this way: “Biocrusts are the keystone element of the landscape in the western United States. If we lose our biocrusts, we could see major impacts on soil stability, vegetation and wildlife. Restoring biocrusts is a nature-based solution for mitigating the impacts of climate change and creating resilient drylands in the face of a warmer and dryer world.”

When healthy biocrusts are doing their job, they prevent the soil loss caused by wind and rainstorms. Massive dust storms, which are increasing in frequency across the southwest United States and in other drylands around the globe, are becoming more hazardous for people. Dust from one region can travel thousands of miles. These storms can limit visibility, threatening the safety of people on our highways and wreaking havoc on the human respiratory system. The reality is that if we lose biocrusts, people could also be impacted.

A bonus benefit is carbon storage. “There’s a lot of interest in carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change and we know biocrusts can take carbon out of the atmosphere via photosynthesis. However, we need to better quantify this carbon control. Our understanding of how much carbon restored biocrusts could sequester and how climate change will affect this uptake remains exceedingly poor,” says Dr. Reed.

Emerging evidence suggests drylands play a dominant role in key aspects of Earth’s carbon cycle, helping to regulate our planet’s terrestrial carbon sink. Dr. Reed and her team are working to quantify this role and to add this quantitative understanding in the context of climate change.

For years, scientists have known biocrusts were vulnerable to long-lasting damage from tires, boots and hooves. Now, a new threat looms: climate change. As heat and drought intensify for Earth’s dryland regions, the impacts on biocrusts are raising red flags. A recent study conducted by the USGS in Utah revealed that long-term experimental climate warming resulted in the dramatic loss of biocrust mosses, as well as slowed recovery of biocrusts following disturbance. Scientists warn that in the face of a warming climate, these biocrust losses could occur around the globe.

In short: Scientists like Dr. Reed and her team have a small window of time to figure out how to protect the very fabric of dryland ecosystems.

As scientists seek ways to restore damaged biocrusts in the face of climate change, they have had both advances and setbacks. Initially encouraged to discover they could grow biocrusts in a nursery, scientists were disappointed when the nursery-grown biocrusts died after being relocated to restoration sites in the desert. What they decided was that the nursery may have made life too easy for the biocrusts.

“They withered and blew away shortly after we sprinkled them on restoration sites in drought-stricken areas, such as the western U.S.,” says Dr. Reed, with a sigh. “We asked a lot of questions and came up with an idea to grow the crusts outside so they could acclimate with the harsh climate where they face relentless sun, heat and very little water.”

Biocrust farm. Video by Sara Reardon.

Researchers grew intact crust communities on biodegradable cloth on the first biocrust farm near Moab. After 8 months, volunteers unrolled the crusts on two restoration sites. The team is now monitoring these sites to determine how well the biocrusts grow. So far, they are seeing phenomenal response and future potential to advance our ability to sustain biocrusts in the face of climate change.

This forward-thinking restoration technique holds promise for scaling up the work. The size and pace of growth at the Moab biocrust farm marked an important success for restoration science. 

“If the biocrust communities continue to succeed, it would be a significant advance in our ability to help resource managers bring back biocrust communities,” Dr. Reed notes. “People would be able to grow biocrusts without disturbing much land, a lot of new technology could take off, you could automate biocrust harvesting, increase the scale of the process, and open a really exciting new pathway for restoring much larger areas.”

Dr. Reed is animated…make that joyful. “I often study worrisome climate change impacts and threats, the pollution and damage,” she enthuses. “But this project, this is about hope. We are finding new ways to bring biocrusts back on the landscape, and it just feels so useful and so… good!”

More research and communication are imperative to building on the success in Utah. Restoring biocrusts across dryland ecosystems will look different in different places. While we still have many questions, biocrust climate science is happening in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and California, stretching all the way to Africa and Antarctica! To harness the power of biocrust knowledge and global research, a soil crust Community of Practice – called CrustNet – has been created by Dr. Reed and her collaborators. They aim to bring together biocrust researchers around to world to improve the understanding of where biocrusts are, the roles they play in diverse ecosystems and how they are responding to change. This network approach will enable learning, sharing and replicating projects.

Federal conservation programs could offer another avenue for scaling up biocrust restoration projects in the United States, providing incentives to landowners to protect and restore biocrusts, and providing support for efforts to reestablish biocrusts on degraded public lands. The America the Beautiful program offers one potential avenue of support.

In addition to scaling up biocrust restoration, increased awareness about what it is and why it’s so important is imperative. The average person has no idea what biocrusts are, which means they can’t care about it. With funds dedicated to education, partners produced a short biocrust video to educate people about these amazing and important communities.

If you want to support this effort, share a link on your organization’s social sites and with your friends and family. Though they are small, biocrusts are mighty and restoring these communities across our planet’s drylands offers a great deal of hope for Earth’s dryland ecosystems and people. 

For more information, please see our  Climate-Adapted Biocrust Restoration Fact Sheet. You can also access the current Biocrust Restoration Manual at: canyonlandsresearchcenter.org.


Tracey Stone is an Associate Director of Communications for The Nature Conservancy.

Dr. Sasha Reed is a Biogeochemist at the United States Geological Survey.

Sue Bellagamba is the Canyonlands Regional Director at The Nature Conservancy in Utah.

Partnerships for Developing ‘Forever Green’ Agriculture in the Upper Midwest

The seeds of a new agricultural system are sprouting in Minnesota, one that can fight climate change using profitable new crops that keep agricultural lands covered with green, living plants year-round. Crops ranging from perennial Intermediate Wheatgrass (producing Kernza® perennial grain) to new winter annual “cash cover crops” such as winter camelina, pennycress, and winter pea have the potential to amplify carbon storage in plants and soils while also building climate resilience, protecting water quality, improving soil health, and creating new economic opportunities for rural communities. Many of these crops complement and enhance current Midwestern agriculture, whereas others offer new and exciting alternatives. All can bring greater choice to growers, new products to market, and diversification to the agricultural landscape.

The Forever Green Initiative at the University of Minnesota (UMN) is developing and scaling these crops in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, farmer groups, citizen advocates, private businesses, nonprofits, and research organizations. We write as a group of young to mid-career professionals building on groundwork laid over decades. As a group of rising leaders in this effort (among many others!), we want to highlight its recent successes, share its origin story, speak to the value of partnership in advancing climate solutions, and reflect on where we are headed. 

In 2022, Forever Green and its partners saw several landmark successes:

  • After decades of advocacy, Forever Green was allocated permanent general funding from the Minnesota Legislature to keep developing perennial and winter annual crops. 
  • Simultaneously, a diverse grassroots coalition succeeded in developing a State pilot grant program to support entrepreneurs to scale value chains for these crops. 
  • A State pilot program to de-risk grower adoption and increase acreage of these new perennial and winter annual crops is also expanding.
  • Nationally, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service incorporated perennial grains into the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). 
  • Through the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities and the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, USDA moved to invest billions in “climate-smart agriculture,” including crops Forever Green is developing, like winter camelina.
  • In the Fall of 2022, Forever Green hosted USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and representatives from over 30 countries to learn about these crops and their potential to address grand global challenges around soil, water, climate, and biodiversity.

These early successes have required decades of careful perennial partnership in science and society for new perennial and winter annual crops to start transitioning from ideas to reality.

Since 2022, Forever Green and its parters have also had some other big advocacy wins:

  • The Minnesota Legislature has committed $6 million from the Clean Water Fund to support the Forever Green Initiative (FGI), along with an extra $1.604 million from agriculture committees. This funding ensures that vital roles like breeders, agronomists, and managers can be sustained.
  • The MN Legislature also allocated $500k to the Department of Agriculture’s “Developing markets for CLC crops” grant program to support supply chain businesses. This brings the total awarded to $1m since its inception in 2022.
  • Productive dialogues with the Risk Management Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service have aimed at streamlining the path for farmer adoption of Conservation Leverage and Collaboration (CLC) systems, which currently face disincentives due to federal regulations. As a result, NRCS has approved winter camelina and pennycress for inclusion in EQIP and CSP, two primary conservation cost-share programs (with Kernza already approved in 2022). Efforts with the Risk Management Agency regarding crop insurance coverage are ongoing and at earlier stages.

Nearly 40 years ago, visionaries at The Rodale Institute and The Land Institute had the wild idea that producing grains from perennials—plants that grow for multiple years—could form the basis of more ecologically sound agriculture. Kernza® perennial grain is the first of these to reach farmers’ fields. This perennial’s deep and dense root system draws down carbon and regrows for years without the need for carbon-emitting tillage and the costs of annual replanting. It also reduces runoff and erosion, soaking up excess nutrients that can impair surface and groundwater, harm human health, and act as powerful greenhouse gasses. Recent research shows that Kernza reduces nitrogen loss by over 95% compared to corn.

LEFT: Kernza has roots up to 10-feet long. RIGHT: Kernza grain. Photos by: Alita Films

Concurrent to early perennial grains breeding efforts, University of Minnesota researchers, including Dr. Don Wyse, were leading the basic science that spurred the development of a grower-owned, multi-million dollar perennial ryegrass seed industry in Northwest Minnesota. Together they learned that providing growers with a new profitable crop option was the quickest and best way to scale up the environmental benefits of perennial groundcover. Moreover, developing that new crop option required working together across disciplines and sectors. The University of Minnesota began expanding this model to other perennials and winter annuals in the early 2010s, including Kernza, in partnership with The Land Institute.

Today, the Forever Green Initiative is a uniquely broad innovation platform that supports the research, commercialization, and societal change required to transition toward continuous-living-cover agriculture in the Upper Midwestern US. Housed at the University of Minnesota, Forever Green supports over 15 interdisciplinary crop teams of plant breeders, agronomists, soil and water scientists, food scientists, economists, and commercialization staff. In addition to Kernza, Forever Green scientists are working on:

Beyond the university’s walls, Forever Green’s unique commercialization, adoption, and scaling program supports a wide range of growers, entrepreneurs, and businesses, taking these new crops to market in the form of new food, feed, seed, industrial, and energy products–spanning baking flour to biopolymers to biofuels. A coalition of advocates called the Forever Green Partnership continues the cross-sector work of advocacy, learning together, and building momentum. Forever Green has engaged hundreds of students and early career youth throughout its structure, preparing cadres of young scientists and professionals to continue tackling grand global challenges such as climate change.

Minnesota is now a leading hub of research, development, and innovation in perennial grains. A University of Minnesota research team works closely with The Land Institute and several others to holistically tackle breeding, agronomy, environmental science, food science, and commercialization. UMN Kernza breeders are making headway, increasing grain yield by an average of 10% per breeding cycle. Sustaining this increase would mean achieving yields equivalent to wheat in under a generation–an exceptionally fast and remarkable feat in the world of plant breeding. This work has led to the release of the first commercial Kernza variety, MN-Clearwater. Minnesota also hosts the USDA-supported KernzaCAP project, integrating research, commercialization, policy, and education across multiple states. 

INNOVATION Perennial Pantry is a dedicated Kernza processor and food brand, taking Kernza directly from the farmer and turning it into a variety of food products. Photos by: Alita Films.

Outside the laboratory and research plots, Minnesota farmers are growing several thousand acres of Kernza® perennial grain–one-third of all commercial Kernza acres. The state is home to a new grower-owned Kernza cooperative, a startup food company devoted to putting delicious perennial products on your plate, and numerous small and large food businesses developing new products ranging from cereal to naan to beer

The seeds planted by visionary researchers would never have taken root in Minnesota without supportive state agencies, policymakers, committed advocates, and conservation-minded farmers. Their support grew from a long-standing concern that nutrient loss and erosion from Minnesota’s 20 million acres of agriculture threaten the state’s 10,000 lakes, the Mississippi River Watershed, and the people that rely on them. 

In 2004, a coalition of these entities formed a network called Green Lands Blue Waters to collaborate across sectors and states to scale up “continuous living cover” agriculture, which has been a critical partner in advancing perennial grains ever since. In the ensuing years, Minnesota advocates secured resources to develop perennial and winter annual crops from the State’s general fund, the Department of Agriculture, a unique state Clean Water Fund funded by sales tax, and a commission on natural resources funded by the state lottery. These state funds have been used to unlock 5-10 times more funding from federal, philanthropic, and other sources.

As the economic potential of these new crops became apparent, the coalition broadened to include farmers, rural economic development interests, community-based conservation organizations, and food and agriculture companies, large and small. Together, this uncommonly broad coalition has created fertile ground for innovations like Kernza and other new crops to take root. 

As we work to stave off climate disaster, transforming the world’s agricultural systems into a giant carbon sink is one of the most hopeful avenues for progress. We believe that advancing Forever Green agricultural systems is a key part of that transformation, and we hope this story will inspire farmers, researchers, advocates, companies, citizens, eaters, and policymakers across the U.S. and worldwide. First, to believe in wild ideas with transformational potential, and second to work together to make them a reality. Some ways you can advance this work include:

  • Join your local soil health and regenerative agriculture movement, whether it’s as a citizen, consumer, employee, grower, or entrepreneur.
  • Learn more about the priorities identified in Farm Bill Law Enterprise’s recent Climate and Conservation Report for the 2023 Farm Bill.
  • More specifically, support continued development of perennial and winter annual crops as a climate adaptation and mitigation strategy–in Minnesota, your state, and the country.
  • Show grassroots people power by signing on to the Regenerate AmericaTM campaign.
  • Feed friends and family the message by enjoying Kernza perennial grain and similar new products at home. You can even now sign up for a monthly Perennial Share!
  • Pursue an education or career that will help advance the grand transition toward a ‘forever green’ agricultural landscape.

No one effort will be sufficient to slow climate change. It will take leaders in every state, at the federal level, and in every country. It will happen in laboratories, on the land, on loading docks, lunch tables, and in legislation. It will take all our hands to lift new ways of farming that simultaneously work for growers, create value for companies, reduce emissions, and create a climate-resilient future. Join us!


Prabin Bajgain is the Kernza breeder at the University of Minnesota and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics.

Colin Cureton is the Director of Adoption and Scaling for the Forever Green Initiative in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics.

Jess Gutknecht is an Associate Professor in the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate, a Fellow of the UMN Institute on the Environment, and recipient of the Community Engaged Scholar Award at the University of Minnesota in 2022. 

Mitch Hunter is the Associate Director of the Forever Green Initiative and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. 

Margaret Wagner is Manager of the Fertilizer Non-Point Section at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. She received an MS from the University of Minnesota and was a graduate fellow at The Land Institute in 2007.

Download project fact sheet
(includes pathways for scaling)

Explore our Decision-Makers Guide to Natural Climate Solutions to better understand the science behind these strategies and get tools to implement them.

Collaborative Program Drives Climate Solutions on U.S. Dairy Farms

Cheese, yogurt, butter… dairy is a long-time diet staple and integral to a vast number of food cultures worldwide. In the United States, dairy consumption has been on the rise for decades, while the number of U.S. dairy farms has steadily declined. Today, there are fewer than 30,000 U.S. dairy farms, and each has an opportunity to drive climate solutions within their operation.   

The dairy industry has a long-standing commitment to sustainability. In fact, thanks to improved farming practices the carbon footprint of producing 1 gallon of milk shrank by 19% between 2007 and 2017, requiring 30% less water and 21% less land, according to a study published in the Journal of Animal Science. But there is still more work ahead. While growing crops for cow feed contributes to a dairy farm’s environmental footprint, most of an operation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is methane from cow burps and methane and nitrous oxide from manure.

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy has set aggressive environmental stewardship goals—including achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050. To reach these goals, six national dairy organizations came together to form the U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative (NZI), an industry-wide collaboration to advance research and technology, on-farm pilots, and new market development. The objective is to make sustainable practices and technologies more accessible and affordable to all U.S. dairy farms. 

Farmers like Theo Scholze in Wisconsin are ready to do their part. “Just about every decision we make, there is a financial side to it,” he says. “But if I can make changes to help the overall global environment, I feel it is my responsibility to do that.”

Scholze is among the first farmers to enroll in the Dairy Feed in Focus program, a collaboration launched by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, Syngenta and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The program supports NZI’s environmental objectives by helping to incentivize and implement best practices in feed and forage production and feed efficiency.

Since farmer recruitment began in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2022, TNC has worked with Foremost Farms and  Michigan Milk Producers Association to enroll over 30 farmers and approximately 10,000 acres. These farms represent a total influence of over 42,000 acres and 23,000 dairy cows. Farmer recruitment for 2024 is slated to start in September 2023. The program is helping farmers adopt an array of practices expected to deliver climate, soil, and water quality benefits on dairy farms of all sizes. These practices include:

The minimum time commitment for farmers to implement practices on their farms is three years. Farmers also receive incentive payments for practice implementation. To date, the FiF team has fundraised over $1.5M for farmer incentives in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Idaho. Nestlé USA is funding the incentives in all three states, and Rotary International District 6310 is funding the incentives for several farms in Michigan.

Additional elements of the climate-smart Feed in Focus program include working with the farmer to collect data, and then track and analyze that data for sustainability metrics like reduction of GHG emissions. Program partners also provide tailored technical support for decision making, implementation, monitoring, reporting and verification.

Participating farmers, like Scholze, are pioneering a new phase of dairy farming. They are helping to create scientifically verified examples of the best agronomic and farm management practices that will serve as models for practice implementation on dairy farms of all sizes through the U.S. and beyond.

“Scalability is key to drive meaningful change and impact,” said Liz Hunt, Head of Sustainable and Responsible Business for Syngenta North America. “Our expectation is this project will deliver a blueprint for how to implement similar projects across the country, promoting shared learnings that benefit supply chains across the dairy industry.”

Throughout their broad networks, program partners will share these success stories with U.S. dairy farmers and help accelerate adoption of practices that improve productivity and reduce the industry’s environmental footprint.

But the collaboration between the dairy industry and conservation does not stop with the Feed in Focus program. In 2021 the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, the Institute for Feed Education and Research, and TNC were awarded a $537,440 grant by the U.S Department of Agriculture to explore innovative feed management strategies that can reduce enteric methane emissions in dairy cattle. This project, along with the Feed in Focus program, are examples of how government, businesses and NGOs can work together to advance climate-smart agriculture practices for the benefit of farmers, communities and nature.

“If we all contribute a little bit, we can move in a direction that is positive for the environment and positive for our industry,” says Scholze.


Last edited on August 1, 2023.

Karen Scanlon is the Executive VP of Environmental Stewardship at Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.

Alisha Staggs is the North America Dairy Program Director at The Nature Conservancy.

Two Midwest Farmers Grow Climate Solutions On Working Lands

Farmers can sequester more carbon, increase productivity

The agriculture community is on the front lines of one of the greatest environmental challenges of our time: climate change. Year after year, farmers endure chronic droughts, flooding, record high temperatures, frequent storm events and significant economic losses. These impacts make it harder for producers to support their families and, in turn, provide food for a growing global population. 

Yet farmers are drawing on their rich heritage and passion for stewardship to navigate a changing climate while leaving a legacy to the next generation, as illustrated in The Nature Conservancy’s three-part video series featuring two Midwest farming families.

Food production is the most basic and essential way people interact with nature, so it’s no surprise that the agriculture industry is poised to play a major role in combating a climate change. Farmers have enormous opportunities to help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while ensuring the long-term resilience and profitability of their operations. 

In the three videos below, meet Elyssa McFarland and Fred Yoder, two farmers embracing regenerative practices to build soil health, reduce GHG emissions and leave a lasting legacy. By trying new techniques and investing in their land, they’re discovering the potential of ag lands assome of Earth’s largest natural reservoirs of carbon.

Soil Legacy: Farming for a Stable Climate

The soil health practices farmers use today can impact the resiliency and  productivity of their land for generations to come. What’s your soil legacy?

The Back Forty

Conservation farming practices don’t come in a one-size-fits-all package. The opportunity is finding out which practices work best on individual farms by testing new and different techniques—even some that might make you uncomfortable. 

Leaving Things Better

Family farms make up 98% of all U.S. operations. Learn why these farmers are hopeful each new generation will leave the land in better condition than when they received it.

When farmers use conservation practices (e.g., cover crops, no-till and crop rotation), they retain existing carbon sinks and draw more carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil. Increased soil carbon sequestration helps restore degraded soils, improves holding capacity for water and nutrients that plants need to grow, and increases productivity.

This article was originally published on Farm Journal.

For more information about how agriculture holds the key to addressing climate change, visit http://nature.org/soil or USN4C’s Agricultural Lands Natural Climate Solutions Pathways.

The Seed Collector: An interview with seed harvest and restoration technician Keith Bennett, who is helping restore Missouri's native tallgrass prairie.

Keith Bennett, seed harvest and restoration technician for TNC’s Dunn Ranch Pawnee Prairie, collects seeds at the prairie preserve in Hatfield, Missouri, U.S.
RESTORING A PRAIRIE: For 15 years, Keith Bennett has worked not far from where he grew up, collecting seeds from native plants to restore tallgrass prairie at TNC’s Dunn Ranch Prairie Preserve in Missouri.  
© Dan Videtich/Courtesy TNC

What is a typical day for you?

Mother Nature determines everything: what grows, what produces seed. You have to first go out and find big populations of native plants. Road banks, remnant prairies, old cemeteries—that’s where I look. And when I see plants blooming, I find out what they are and then I flag it. 

What makes Dunn Ranch Prairie an important place to protect?

Prairie plants are deep-rooted plants. They store carbon in their roots, which can be more than 15 feet deep. The prairie is like a huge sponge. When it rains, [that sponge] soaks up water and then slowly lets it back out of the hillsides into the streams. In our streams, we have Topeka shiner minnows [an endangered species], and they have to have very clean water. The prairie helps the water, the soil health, the wildlife, the pollinators. There’s so much that it does. At Dunn Ranch, there’s more than 1,000 acres of native prairie that have never been plowed. It was majorly overgrazed, so it needed a lot of restoration and rest, but that was the start. There’s less than 4% of the tallgrass prairie left in the United States so having such a big, unplowed portion here was a rare thing to find.

You grew up not far from Dunn Ranch. What got you interested in conservation and ecology?

I’ve lived here in Harrison County my whole life. And I’ve always loved nature. Everything about it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a bug, a plant, an animal. As a little kid, my dad would set me outside and say, “Look at him, he’s just listening to everything.” But I never knew anything about native plants until I started at The Nature Conservancy and started this role of seed collecting and prairie restoration.

To me, [a native plant] was a weed. And that’s how most people think of them—as weeds. But they’re really interesting if you take the time to stop, look, listen, smell. It’s amazing what’s out there. I’ve learned a lot by doing this. I never would have thought to go to an old cemetery to look for native plants. But most old cemeteries have an area that’s never been row-cropped or grazed or used to this day. And that is remnant prairie. 

So you’re gathering seeds not just from Dunn Ranch sites but from the surrounding area.

Within 100 miles is considered native. That’s the ecotype. 

Keith Bennett, seed harvest and restoration technician for TNC’s Dunn Ranch Pawnee Prairie, collects seeds at the prairie preserve in Hatfield, Missouri, U.S.
GATHERING SEEDS Keith Bennett, seed harvest and restoration technician at Dunn Ranch Prairie gathers native plant seeds. © Dan Videtich/Courtesy TNC

How do you keep all that knowledge stored? Is it all in your head? Or do you have maps or GIS systems that actually plot where large populations of important plants are?

I kept it in my head for years. But now we’ve made a map with GPS locations so if somebody needed to find a large population of a plant, they would have locations of where to go look for it. And then I have a list of when a plant blooms and when I start hand-collecting the seed. For instance, this year is a late spring. We’ve had a lot of cool weather. Field cat’s-foot is one that’s already come and gone. Normally, I collect Field cat’s-foot right around May 1. This year I collected it around May 15. So I can figure the rest of the plants throughout the year are going to be close to a week to 10 days later than normal. 

Why is it beneficial to harvest native seed by hand?

That’s the only way you can do it. Field cat’s-foot only gets 5 or 6 inches tall. The way I harvest it is I use a push lawn mower with a bagger on it. I set it as high as it’ll go, and I just mow over it, and the seed is so light and fluffy it just goes up in the bag. I’ve come up with several things over the years to make the harvest as simple as I can, because when you’re out there, and it’s 100 degrees, and you’ve got 75% humidity, and you’re on your hands and knees, and you’re looking for a seed that’s itty-bitty, it’s pretty tough going. 

I read that you collect as much as 800 pounds of seed in a season.

By hand, yes. And then we also mechanically harvest. I have a combine. It’s an R-52 Gleaner combine, and it’s got a 22-foot rice stripper head on it. It knocks the seed off the plants; it don’t cut ’em. I go out in the fall when things are starting to dry a little bit, or when I find really big concentrations of seed. I might combine anywhere from 30 to 40 species all at one time. 

Bennett holds a dried flower seed pod. 
SEED Bennett holds a dried flower seed pod. 
© Dan Videtich/Courtesy TNC
Picture of tall grass prairie. Dunn Ranch contains some of the last remaining tallgrass prairie in the U.S. that hasn't been plowed under. 
PRAIRIE RESTORATION Dunn Ranch contains some of the last remaining tallgrass prairie in the U.S. that hasn’t been plowed under. 
© Dan Videtich/Courtesy TNC

In addition to grazing Dunn Ranch with a bison herd, you use prescribed burns to maintain the prairie. Can you explain a little bit how fire benefits prairie plants?

There are species of plants that you do not see unless you burn. Prairie blazing star, for instance. If you go several years without burning, you can look out, and you’d think there is no prairie blazing star out there. And then you can burn that area, and there will be so much blazing star that it’s just a purple sea. It’s beautiful. 

What are some of the most interesting plants you’ve encountered in your work?

Bird’s-foot violet has a sticky, sugary substance on the seed. When the seed explodes, the ants take that seed into the ground to lick the sugar off of it and plant the seed. New Jersey tea—if you want New Jersey tea to grow you have to cook it to 180 degrees Fahrenheit before you seed it. There’s so many medicinal plants. Purple coneflower—American Indians used it for toothaches. But my favorite is downy blue gentian because of the color of it. And the rarity.

What is the hardest part of your job?

The hardest part is dealing with Mother Nature. I used to get awfully upset when a native seed would be ready to pick, and we would have one windy day, or one thunderstorm, and that seed was gone. I mean, you just have a [tiny] window, and Mother Nature can take it away. When it comes harvest time, the pressure is on. You gotta get out there and get it when the window is there. 

Every month a prairie is like a different place. What is it like to have a job where you’re so connected to those cycles and that seasonality?

It’s really great. I had a volunteer who would come up from Kansas City, which is about 100 miles south of here, every other Tuesday throughout the whole year to help hand-collect seed. And she said it was different every time. There are different plants in bloom, there are different colors. She really noticed a big difference in just a two-week time period. 

Bennet looking over a field.

“Native plants are really interesting if you take the time to stop, look, listen, smell. It’s amazing what’s out there.”

KEITH BENNETT

DUNN RANCH Keith Bennett at work at Dunn Ranch Prairie Preserve © Dan Videtich/Courtesy TNC

This article was originally published by The Nature Conservancy in the Fall 2022 issue of Nature Conservancy magazine.

Other stories related to seed collection in the United States:

Gisel Garza: Seed Hunter
It Starts with a Seed: Producing High Quality Native Seed for Restoration in the Willamette Valley
Seeing the Forest for the Seedlings: Challenges and Opportunities in the Effort to Reforest America