Climate Land Leader Bryan Simon is owner/operator of Lakeside Prairie Farm, and has a B.A. in Biology from University of Minnesota Morris and a M.S. in Ecology from South Dakota State University. Lakeside Prairie Farm currently offers targeted goat grazing to control invasive species and custom grazes cattle. The land’s most defining feature is the restoration and rehabilitation of the prairie, wetland, and oak savanna ecosystems. Bryan is currently serving on the Climate Policy Steering Committee at Land Stewardship Project, and is a board member of Land Stewardship Action. We talked with Bryan about his land stewardship in the context of our farming system.
Bryan Simon
What messages do people need to hear about farming practices and ecosystem health?
People have a vital role to play within ecosystems, but it isn’t one of extraction and degradation, it’s one of enhancing and facilitating natural cycles and processes that build productivity and vitality. We need to understand our role in the ecosystem – to take a step back and look at what we’re doing and our impact from a broader perspective, not just the immediate impacts. When we keep letting the dust blow away, that dust eventually adds up to inches and feet of topsoil, until it’s gone.
As we think about our role, sometimes not doing something is doing something. For example we’ve prevented these major driving forces of our ecosystems like grazing and fire – we’ve removed them – but they’re vital for prairie and savannas to function. We live in these fire-obligate and grazing-obligate ecosystems, but we’ve taken away the animals and the fire, and these systems are degrading.
You’ve said “Our federal farm policies created the system we have today and the damage we’re now seeing,” which means that our farm policies can be a tool for farmers to create a more sustainable system. Say more about this.
At a field day my neighbor who I help with harvest and planting showed up, and he said flat out, “I hate growing corn. It’s hard on the land and equipment, and requires huge investments in infrastructure. I do it because I feel stuck. The markets, government programs, my banker, all tell me there is no other option than to grow corn.” Commodity programs, crop insurance, even conservation programs are all supporting him to grow corn. All that equipment and all those subsidies make it so that he can’t easily switch even if there was a viable alternative crop out there to grow. If you’re going to be a farmer in West Central Minnesota, you have to grow corn – that’s what he’s gotta do.
A lot of taxpayer money has been spent on growing as much corn as possible and then on trying to figure out ways to use all that excess corn, and round and round it goes. To me, our money would be better invested in promoting the production of and developing markets for a wide variety of crops. Soil health would benefit as well as the overall resilience of our agricultural system.
What do you think inspires your neighbor to say that when he comes over? What is the scenario where your neighbor could transition from growing corn?
That’s just the truth of it. He recognizes that corn is hard on the land due to chemicals, fertilizer and tillage, and is a very capital intensive crop with all money tied up in a combine, tractors, planters, and sprayers, corn dryer, grain bins, grain augers, etc., then you add on the cost of seed, chemical and fertilizer and the fact that the sheer volume of a corn harvest leads to more wear and tear on equipment – I can see why he doesn’t like growing that crop. Also he was with a group of folks who care about sustainable agriculture when he said this. It wasn’t a corn growers meeting – who’s probably the audience that needs to hear this message!
There was someone at our field day that had done some research around the world including on dry land rice, and my neighbor was interested in this – “Maybe I could grow rice some day!” In order for him to transition he would need an alternative crop with a viable market, and the infrastructure to support growing that crop and getting it to market.
Have you and your neighbor talked about the impacts of climate change?
We’ve talked more about soil health. He’s making the transition to cover crops and has said he thinks every acre is going to be covered this year, which is pretty cutting edge for around here. We’ve discussed the fact that he’s been able to get in the field when it’s wet or has more moisture when it’s dry because of his focus on soil health – so not specifically climate change, but resilience during adverse conditions.
What are you observing on the land and farms around you?
I find that I’m frequently saying to myself, I’m sure glad I’m not a row crop farmer. As intense storms are becoming more regular, as well as extreme weather patterns like 2023’s drought followed by 2024’s very wet spring and very dry summer and fall, our temperate climate doesn’t seem so temperate any longer.
The lake we live on has a troubled recent history. With all the added tile drainage and subsequent rise in water level, much of the lake’s banks have been undercut and are now bare soil and eroding into the lake. The water quality is awful, with all the excess nutrients leading to abundant algal growth.
Every winter in recent memory, soil from across the lake blows onto our farm and can be seen in the drifts of snirt. Every summer there are days where you can smell the chemical from fields over a mile away being sprayed. It really bothers me. The other day driving through Barrett, our closest town, someone must have screwed up, because all over town the smell was so strong. What are we doing?
Share your perspective on the costs associated with how our food is produced.
The concept of externalities comes to mind – when you drink pop and eat chips, there’s a long term health cost to your body. Keep doing that every day you’re probably going to get sick. At the moment you’re feeling good, but there’s a cost to eating that way in the long term. The chips may be cheaper now than a salad, but in the long run the chips are more expensive once you account for the cost of your medical bills. Externalities are these hidden costs that aren’t reflected in the upfront cost.
Our farming system is really good at producing cheap food, but there are three huge externalities that we aren’t paying for yet: messing up our climate, our water, and our soil. At some point these bills will come due and they won’t be cheap. In fact I’d say we can’t afford to not do something about them right now.
How big of a deal was it to take 160 acres of prime cropland and decide not to make money the traditional way from it?
In the context of our current system it’s unheard of – why would you take really good farm ground and plant it to pasture and prairie? And yeah, there’s a lot of money we could have been making from that land. There’s even a lot of money we could have been receiving had we enrolled it in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). It hasn’t been a money-making thing – it’s been a lot of investment in the seed and the time it takes to establish. We haven’t come out ahead, but I feel passionate that it’s the right thing to do for the land and the climate.
You tapped into federal cost-share through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and said this was “huge.” Talk about that project and the impact of that funding.
When we first got started we wanted to convert acreage to perennials, have a pasture-based system, and grow highly diverse native prairie on restored cropland, but we didn’t have infrastructure like fences and waterlines. EQIP paid us to put in that infrastructure, shared the cost of the seed, and then paid us for three years to implement our rotational grazing plan.
So previously I said we didn’t come out ahead – if we’d put our land into CRP or rented it to a corn and soybean farmer, we would have had more dollars in our pocket, but EQIP really helped us offset some of those losses. When you take farm ground out of production, for a couple of years, you’re waiting – you’re waiting to graze, you can’t make hay, you have to wait until it grows. EQIP was really helpful for a beginning farmer to get started.
Talk about the role easements have played in your land stewardship.
We had this dream of managing prairie, but how do you swing that economically when you don’t already have access to land? We were able to make that work because of the easements. Our way of farming didn’t want the land to be broken up. We had a big upfront investment in the seed cost of these native plants, and we wanted to see that investment protected. We were going to put a lot into taking this land out of production and waiting for a couple of years – you’re committing to this alternative form of production – so the easement protects that form of investment and doesn’t require us to give up anything we want to do with the land. We could still graze it, we could still hay it. It was the previous owners who got the money [from the easements], but they used it to reduce the purchase price of the farm. So we were able to buy the farm because of these easements.
Jesse and Bryan Simon with their kids (photo credit: Brian DeVore)
Do you talk to your kids about climate change?
I struggle with this. You can’t really say to your kids, sorry, but your future doesn’t look so hot, or rather, really sorry your future looks too hot. But I am frank with them and when it comes up, I do describe it as a big problem. I also try to explain the steps we are taking to be a part of the climate solution.
What’s your vision for the year 2050 on this land?
I hope that it’s a vibrant, well-functioning system that gets to be less and less requiring me to be involved. There are insects and birds and plants all thriving and making the system more resilient. That it just works, instead of needing inputs from us. We can kind of step back and enjoy those ecosystem goods and services that a well-functioning ecosystem provides. We’ve got clean water because we’ve got all the diversity and it’s a perennial system. We’ve got clean air and healthy productive soil. Harmony.
What’s your dream for your neighbor’s farm in the year 2050?
I hope that they’ve taken on a soil health mindset and are implementing soil health principles. I wouldn’t expect them to make big changes in that timeframe, but if all their acres are covered with cover crops, and if they’re looking to reduce their fertilizer and chemical inputs and trying to be good stewards of their land and shift their focus to what matters in the long run – soil health is what matters in the long run, water quality is what matters in the long run.
Where do you want taxpayer dollars to be going in agriculture in the year 2050?
It should be going towards the public good. Right now public funds are incentivizing things that are bad for us all in the long term. We’re incentivizing practices that deplete soil and that are bad for water quality. We need to invest in things that are fact-based that we can measure – if we invest here, here is what we can expect for an outcome. We need measurements that factor in external costs and consequences of certain projects or practices.
How do your kids describe what you do as a farmer?
“Works with goats.” My son sometimes says he wants to do what I do when he grows up. We’ll see.