Climate Land Leaders are looking forward to gathering in East Central Minnesota this weekend for the second of our fall retreats (read about our first fall retreat in Northeast Iowa here). Over the course of the weekend the cohort will spend time on forested land and three farms, one of which is in year 3…

At Climate Land Leaders, we try to make sense of our lives, agriculture, our land and our time through films, poems, podcasts, photos — and especially books. Here’s a Climate Land Leaders book list, with contributions from Mary Damm, Teresa Opheim, Jane Shey, Sylvia Spalding, Lee Tesdell and Paula Westmoreland. Several of these titles have…

On August 5th, Carol and Peg Bouska and their sisters Ann Novak and Sally McCoy (in spirit) treated Climate Land Leaders to a tour of their amazing conservation projects. Here are their remarks from the day. Our ancestors bought the first plots of this farm in 1903. They continued to add onto this land, purchasing other…

When it comes to responding to the climate crisis, Bonnie Blodgett doesn’t believe in incremental change. Within the last several years, she has purchased two parcels of land – a serendipitous deal to preserve an organic farm in western New York and a defensive move to slow the expansion of factory farming in western Wisconsin…

Some Climate Land Leaders live on their land and farm it themselves. Others live on the land and don’t farm, and still others live across the country from the land they own. And the cohort includes every combination in between. But all of them agree: They are NOT “absentee landowners.” In their words, they are: “Land leaders.”…

Helen DeElda Gunderson is a fourth-generation farmland owner who began managing over 500 acres of inherited land in 1997, embarking on a deep and intentional learning process enriched by the breadth of her work and life experiences. It’s impossible to weave here all the strands that together tell the story of Helen’s land stewardship journey.…

Updated July 2023 Sylvia Spalding brings a unique background to Climate Land Leaders. A long-time resident of Honolulu, she spent a career in fisheries management in the Pacific Islands and today is bringing insights from that career to her stewardship of family land in Mahaska County, Iowa. Her family’s history in Mahaska dates back to…

Totaling $428 billion in funding, the Farm Bill includes nutrition programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) that provide food access for low-income families, risk management programs like crop insurance and disaster assistance, resources for starting and growing a farming operation, and support for conservation and sustainable farming practices on land. The next Farm Bill…

Dear Friends, Glenn and I begin to feel like farmers – you know, those sturdy people who have to brave all kinds of weather to plant their crops and feed their animals no matter what! Despite six (yes, 6!) inches of rainfall in Minnesota this past weekend we managed to plant 250 trees in a riparian buffer and 26…

Each year Climate Land Leaders commit to on-farm conservation steps that will result in reduced emissions, carbon drawdown, improved water quality, increased biodiversity and improved human well-being on their land and in their communities. This year’s array of goals is ambitious and inspiring, including: making changes in cultivation and grazing practices on working lands; reintroduction…