Join Us

Betty Brennan (IL) is converting tillable land to pasture for rotational grazing

Are you a Climate Land Leader?

Please consider joining Climate Land Leaders if you:

 

Own or manage farm or forest lands;

Implement stretch conservation goals;

Share and learn with other land stewards;

Want to use your lands to address the climate crisis.

Rozina Kanchwala stewards Illinois cropland with her family

As a Climate Land Leader, you’ll join others on a journey to:

  • Take steps to improve soil health on working lands
  • Reduce synthetic chemical use/external inputs
  • Increase diversity of plants and animals
  • Increase perennials
  • Take steps to restore the land’s hydrology
  • Enhance community vitality and equity
  • Deepen your relationship with the land
  • Practice self-care to maintain your well-being for the long-term
  • Move to protect your regenerative land practices after you’re gone

Jackie Armstrong (IA) and Meg Nielsen (MN and WI) visiting restored pollinator habitat on a fellow Climate Land Leader’s farm

You can have a huge impact!

For example: By converting 50 acres of cropland to trees and shrubs, you could sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 206 tonnes of Co2 equivalent per year. (Source: COMET-Planner data on Rice County, Minnesota)

To put that number in context: 206 tonnes is equivalent to the carbon footprint of flying 232 round trips from Minneapolis to Los Angeles each year. (Source: Co2.myclimate.org)

Paul Mairet (MN) is building a hazelnut operation on former cropland

By becoming a Climate Land Leader, you’ll gain:

  • A community of like-minded landowners who will support and inspire you.
  • Access to synthesized and practical information most relevant to your needs.
  • Knowledge from perennial agriculture experts.
  • Nudges by the Climate Land Leader staff to help you stay on track.
  • An enhanced sense of commitment, community and resolve to address the climate crisis.

In exchange, you’ll:

  • Share your conservation goals with fellow Climate Land Leaders.
  • Learn from fellow landowners also making changes.
  • Serve as an advisor to the other Climate Land Leaders.
  • Share publicly your story about land transformation, if you choose.
  • Conduct soil testing and participate in on-farm research and demonstration.

Landowners like Becky Lourey (left) and Joe Luetmer (right) benefit from the perspectives of Climate Land Leaders who make a living farming, like Hannah Bernhardt (middle) of Medicine Creek Farm (MN)

Dan Guenthner and Margaret Pennings (WI) are sharing how changing weather patterns and extremes caused by climate change are affecting what and how they grow as vegetable farmers

Topics you’ll learn about through Climate Land Leaders:

  • Putting climate change in context
  • Primers on soil health and water quality
  • Setting your goals and how you’ll get there
  • Tapping into helpful sources for technical assistance
  • Working with your farming tenant for change
  • Accessing government programs that may help
  • Holding grief – and hope – about climate change
  • And much more….

Are you already part of other groups addressing the climate crisis? The more connections Climate Land Leaders have, the better. You’ll bring what you learn to the Climate Land Leaders cohort; you’ll bring your new Climate Land Leaders’ knowledge back to your other groups.

Veronica Baasen farms with her dad in Minnesota

“The collective actions of Climate Land Leaders inspire me to do more and give me hope that if we all work together, we can right the climate ship.”

—Veronica Baasen (MN)

Anna Geyer (IA) planting elderberries on former cropland

“I’m new to the group and have been taking in the information with some amazement. So many resources and collective knowledge.”

—Anna Geyer (IA)