Climate Land Leaders are big users of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) — and full of opinions about the program’s benefits and how it could be improved. CRP is a non-working lands program,” Maggie McQuown, Resilient Farms, Red Oak, Iowa, explains. “In other words, land with a five-year, or more, cropping history is taken out…
Wendy Johnson recently presented at the 2022 Sustainable Farming Association Annual Conference. Wendy Johnson is a farmer and climate land leader stewarding land that is the ancestral home of the Ioway, Wahpeton, Oceti Sakowin Sioux, Sauk, Meskwaki, and Winnebago peoples. Wendy’s relationship with this land goes back to her great-grandparents, German immigrants who after years… Read More →
In early 2020, we were planning the final details of an in-person launch of Climate Land Leaders. And then COVID hit. We quickly moved the launch to Zoom, and, in March, a group of 20 gathered to share about the land they owned, the conservation they had completed — and their plans to do more.…
Matthew Fitzgerald is a well-known farmer in Minnesota for his work with beginning farmer policy issues, but most of his time is spent stewarding land and raising healthy organic grains — with an eye toward our increasingly volatile climate. Matthew grows corn, soybeans, wheat and edible peas and beans near Hutchinson, Minnesota. The farm has…
Climate Land Leader Paula Westmoreland talks about her history with Iowa farmland and her plans to devote the proceeds of that land’s sale to regeneration and equity. I grew up on a farm in the prairie pothole region of northwestern Iowa near Storm Lake. Dad bought 240 acres in 1955 and by the time I…
Climate Land Leaders frequently come together to learn from each other and from experts in climate-friendly agriculture. Jack Hedin of Featherstone Farm is both a Climate Land Leader and veteran vegetable farmer in southeast Minnesota, and he recently joined the group for an illuminating conversation about growing commercial vegetables as the climate changes. Here we’ll…
The State of Minnesota has released a draft Climate Action Framework, and Climate Land Leaders are weighing in. Goal 2 concerns climate-friendly natural and working lands and offers some specific targets: Increase carbon annually sequestered in natural and working lands by 25% by 2035 from 2014- 2018 average levels, through restoration, management, and using climate-smart…
Climate Land Leader Wendy Johnson gave this speech at a Sharing Our Roots for the Climate field day on Sept. 9, 2021, at the Sharing Our Roots Farm near Northfield. Good afternoon! I am very happy to be here today. What a beautiful day it is for a field day! My name is Wendy Johnson,…
Climate Land Leaders are eager to address climate change on their lands, and they know that they first need to reduce emissions (decreasing or eliminating pesticide and fertilizer use, for example). Over the years they also look to draw down carbon into the soil. But what is the carbon sequestration potential for these farms? Well,…
“When I am asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same,” the author Paul Hawken writes.* “If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet the [people working for social…
