Greenhouse gas emissions have been potentially reduced by 50,000 tons in the state, with the help of Wisconsin farmers supported by a statewide coalition.

Farmers for Sustainable Food has released its first progress report, which summarizes efforts and data from last year. The coalition consists of six farmer-led conservation groups across Wisconsin and works with 231 farmers.

The report also showed participating farmers reduced more than 330,000 pounds of phosphorus from leaving their fields.

Lauren Brey, managing director of Farmers for Sustainable Food, said while there are popular practices, such as cover crops, there's a desire to experiment as well.

"That might be different methods of manure application and incorporation into the land," Brey suggested. "How do we try different mixes of cover crops?"

Despite increased awareness of climate-friendly practices in agriculture, supporters acknowledge there is still work to do in convincing farmers who are concerned about their bottom line. Wisconsin's Farmland Preservation Program noted it saw participation decline by 24% between 2010 and 2017.

Brey pointed out if partners boost engagement efforts, it could entice more farmers to embrace the conservation movement.

"Trying to model what impact those practices are having on different sustainability metrics," Brey advised. "Carbon or greenhouse gas emissions or water quality. And we're taking that a step further in our sustainability projects even with an addition of a financial analysis component."

Farmers who responded to a 2018 landowner survey cited a burdensome application process, as well as limited tax credits for not signing a farmland agreement.

By Ray Levy Uyeda for Yes! Magazine.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Greater Dakota News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

When spring hits, Kelsey Scott finally breathes a sigh of relief. Come May, her 120 cows will be ready to birth calves, and as the weather warms, Scott knows the newest members of the herd will be able to grow strong before the arrival of another unforgiving South Dakota winter. While winters test the herd's resilience, snow on the soil actually protects the soil's microbes, small critters, and plant root systems that support the cattle's larger ecosystem. As Scott says, she's just as interested in the life above ground as she is in the life below it: A healthy soil biome underlies all farming.

Scott is deeply invested in maintaining healthy soil. She is the fourth generation of her family to ranch the land along the Missouri River east of the Cheyenne River Reservation, and the 125th generation of Lakota peoples to steward the land.

Everything on Scott's ranch, DX Beef, is done a little bit more slowly than one might see on a conventional ranch: Cattle graze rotationally on 14 different permanent pastures across 7,000 acres of land. Because her cows aren't treated with any antibiotics or chemicals, she and other ranch hands regularly check on the cow dung to make sure it looks healthy; if it doesn't, cattle are removed from the herd and treated individually.

While some might praise regenerative agriculture as a new advent, the techniques are older than the U.S. itself. These foodways are based on ancient movements now touted under new names: regenerative agriculture, permaculture, farm-to-table, and eating local. But the land theft that built ranching businesses is one of the main reasons Native peoples were killed, disenfranchised, and separated from traditional foodways in the first place.

It's not lost on Scott that the ranchers getting most of the credit for sustainable techniques are those newest to the land. Native farmers, who have long been pushed to the margins, want newcomers to the world of non-industrial food production to know there's nothing novel about caring for the land that grows our food.

"It's not a new discovery," Scott says. "It's just a late discovery for some that are a lot more confident in using it as a marketing approach."

Colonialism via Cattle

Cattle, specifically, can help tell the story of colonization of Native peoples on Turtle Island. Ranching was one of the reasons settlers and colonizers began to claim land from Native peoples west of the Mississippi in the mid-1800s, according to Ryan Fischer, a visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, and the author of the book Cattle Colonialism: An Environmental History of the Conquest of California and Hawai'i.

Fischer says there are no cattle native to this land. Spanish and English colonizers brought them to the U.S. Bison, which are native to the U.S., maintained the Midwest's rich ecologies and supported the diets and cultural practices of Scott's Cheyenne ancestors. But bison nearly went extinct because of settlers' desire to turn Native land into ranchland.

By the mid-1800s, the construction of railways and refrigerated train cars made beef more readily available and affordable. Later, federal officials found that unused fertilizer from WWII munitions could be used to boost corn production, which helped justify the creation of factory farms and introduced beef to an even broader market of consumers.

Around the same time, Scott's ancestors were removed from their ancestral river with the signing of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program, which created dams as a means of "flood control." Scott remembers being told stories of this from her grandparents and great-grandparents; the history of cattle colonialism is still recent.

But thanks to Scott's work, the land, and the community, is healing.

So while Scott would like to raise bison, these animals need thousands of acres and many years to roam before being ready to slaughter. In today's agricultural economy, she can't make a living off them.

"We just can't do it the way that our ancestors intended for us due to larger systemically oppressive realities that we're navigating in the development and evolution of what our future food systems are going to look like," she says.

Cattle, she's found, are a decent alternative; their hooves roughly resemble those of bison, which means DX Beef cows can help break down soil nutrients. Because she doesn't use chemicals, the animal waste can naturally fertilize the land in the way bison used to.

After processing, about 90% of the finished beef is sold in the two counties nearest the ranch. The direct-to-consumer business model means Scott is able to offer beef raised on the same land her customers themselves interact with. She's also been able to address some of the food-access challenges that peoples living on the Cheyenne River Reservation face by bringing healthy options directly to them.

In this way, Scott says her business is "an expression of resiliency amongst a system that disregarded the functioning relationship that we had in agricultural production prior to colonial impact."

Cross-Cultural Collaboration

Agriculture practices that prioritize soil health and honor an inherent relationship between cattle and the land are increasingly seen as an environmentally sustainable alternative to industrial farming. Raised this way, cattle can create a thriving habitat for soil phytonutrients, support the growth of native grasses, and result in beef that some say is tastier than the industrial alternative.

This system of farming practices, broadly referred to as regenerative agriculture, only accounts for 10% of farms and ranches today, but the numbers are slowly increasing, according to Ryan Siwinski, an organic livestock and dairy consultant for the Rodale Institute, a research and advocacy organization in the organic food movement.

As the movement grows, he says regenerative agriculture is showing consumers, who have long been told that meat consumption is inherently harmful, that the environmental impact has everything to do with the way cattle is raised.

Enrique Salmón, a professor in the department of ethnic studies at Cal State East Bay, is hopeful the larger ranching and farming community will listen to the lessons of Indigenous ranchers and support their leadership in the growing field of regenerative agriculture. He cites a centuries-old system of water management that's been so integrated in New Mexican culture that many forget it was imported by the Spanish-a story not so dissimilar from that of cattle.

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, 19 Pueblo tribes relied on a system of water sharing based on irrigation from rivers, streams, and tributaries, but limited transport of water meant Pueblo peoples mainly hunted and gathered their food. This changed after the Spanish introduced the Pueblo tribes to a water-management technique that remains in use today, and acequias, or gravity-fed canals, turned the desert into arable land.

More importantly, acequias increased Pueblo peoples' ability to farm and grow food without losing their traditional practices. "If those guys could do it, we can figure out other ways for that kind of collaboration to happen," Salmón says.

Raising Climate Resilience

Western science is now backing Indigenous knowledge that eating locally is best for personal and environmental health. But Spanish and English colonizers brought cattle to the U.S., meaning there are no cattle native to this land.

Still, so-called heritage breeds can be a key tool for climate resiliency, according to Jeannette Beranger, a senior program manager at The Livestock Conservancy, an organization dedicated to raising, sustaining, and saving breeds of livestock whose populations are threatened by industrial agriculture.

Even though many of the breeds supported by the Conservancy aren't native to the U.S., the genetic diversity they offer can be critical to staving off disease and illness, which industrial agriculture practices are exacerbating with a high usage of antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals. With a reliance on breeds of marketable animals, like standard broiler chickens that gain weight quickly, monoculture industrial agriculture threatens to eclipse the cultural and culinary value of other breeds.

Once breeds that are less profitable or more difficult to raise-in other words, breeds that aren't well-suited for the factory setting-are gone, they're gone forever.

The Conservancy helps build a community of like-minded ranchers and support a wealth of resources for raising uncommon breeds. But these kinds of organizations and the business platform they offer ranchers aren't necessarily easily accessed by Native farmers and ranchers.

Scott, for her herd, does not raise "heritage" cattle. Instead, she favors the Black Angus, because she can intentionally incorporate traits from other breeds that create a herd able to endure climate change's hotter summers and colder winters.

"We have this inherent desire to be connected to the production of our food systems, and we're going to do that in whatever way that we can," Scott says.

Ray Levy Uyeda wrote this article for Yes! Magazine.


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A farm in Idaho has received the first-ever "trout-safe" certification from an organization that protects habitat for the fish.

The Nature Conservancy's Silver Creek Farm in central Idaho near Ketchum received the certification from the organization Salmon-Safe. Neil Crescenti, agriculture program manager with The Nature Conservancy in Idaho, described how the farm met the standards to get the eco-labeling.

"It's an opportunity," said Crescenti, "to essentially create incentives for farmers for implementing practices that benefit the health of the aquatic and riparian systems."

Crescenti said the goal is for farmers to use the labeling in the marketplace so that they can gain premiums there.

The Nature Conservancy owns about 100 acres of farmland surrounding Silver Creek Preserve and leases it out to farmers. The group's been working with the farmers on implementing regenerative agriculture practices.

Crescenti said some of the regenerative practices include no-till farming, where a second crop is planted directly into the first crop without disturbing the soil, and planting cover crops. He said they use other methods too.

"Increasing the biodiversity of that land," said Crescenti. "So looking at different crops that we can grow, using mixes within our cover crops - and that just increases the overall health of the soil and reduces the need for additional fertilizers over time."

Crescenti said salmon and trout are emblems of Idaho, but they're under increasing threat from the changing climate, which has brought longer droughts and less snowpacks.

"As those symbols of the state, it's really important not just to the health of the species themselves, but also to the economy," said Crescenti. "Idaho has a very large tourism economy and a lot of that is within the hunting and fishing arenas."

Congress must pass a 2023 Farm Bill before the end of the year, a measure which not only impacts farming but also what's on our plates.

The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association has a vision of a future where local food nourishes communities and agricultural practices protect the environment.

Christine Hughes, board member of the Association's policy-steering committee and owner of Village Bakery and Café in Athens, said policies promoting soil health through methods such as cover crops and diverse crop rotations will build a more climate resilient food system.

"These kinds of techniques are needed to be spread further than just the people that are doing the certified organic production," Hughes asserted. "And also the farmers, they can't really carry this responsibility on their own. They need policies and resources that will encourage these kinds of practices."

The Association's members throughout Ohio have developed five key priorities for the 2023 Farm Bill. They include increasing investments in local food systems; funding organic and sustainable farming research, reducing agricultural consolidation; and providing more support for beginning farmers and farmers of color.

Hughes pointed out the recent supply-chain issues are just one example of the importance of investments in local food systems. As a restaurant owner, Hughes argued more support is needed for practices to help local growers and producers weather difficult seasons.

"We only buy from local producers for lettuce, for example," Hughes explained. "This year was the wettest year that our farmers have had, and we actually had to take salad off the menu because we didn't have a local source for tomatoes and lettuce because of extreme rain."

Droughts, flooding, extreme heat and storms are among the challenges faced by farmers throughout the U.S.

Hughes added transforming the agricultural system from extractive to regenerative will create a healthier food system and help the climate.

"Agriculture is a huge part of the solution that we need for the climate crisis," Hughes contended. "If standard organic farming practices were implemented worldwide, 12% of world greenhouse-gas emissions would be taken out of the atmosphere and sequestered in the soil, sometimes for decades."