Wisconsin's investment in preserving its agricultural land is offering some solace to farmers and landowners while helping them save money amid a climate of economic uncertainty.

The Farmland Preservation Program provides landowners a $10 per acre credit on their income taxes if they meet agriculture conservation requirements.

Katie Abbott, county conservationist for the Iowa County Land Conservation Department, said county conservation staff work with landowners to make sure they are meeting the standards and help those who are not to get back into compliance so they can keep their tax credit.

"It's just a really great way for landowners to get one-on-one conservation help and get a little financial incentive to help protect the soil and water that we all depend on," Abbott explained.

The program promotes practices like nutrient management planning, which helps landowners save money by optimizing fertilizer use and protecting soil resources. Most of Iowa county is zoned for agriculture use with local farmers and landowners benefiting from more than $1.4 million in tax credits.

Agriculture contributes nearly $105 billion to the state's economy and more than 11% of the state's employment. In Iowa county alone, about a third of agricultural lands have compliance certificates under the program which has helped landowners significantly save on operating costs.

Abbott noted the recent tax credit increase from $7.15 to $10 per acre has sustained participation and ensured landowners still see financial benefits.

"As we all know, costs keep going up. The cost of doing conservation, of having these nutrient management plans, just the general cost of farming keep increasing," Abbott observed. "We just really needed that increase just to keep up with the rising expenses of the farmers in these programs. "

Gov. Tony Evers has proposed allocating $80 million to farms and agriculture in the most recent state budget, some of which would support programs like the Farmland Preservation Program. Abbott emphasized the importance of such initiatives as a community staple.

"We're just here to support farmers, in all kinds of atmospheres whether it's economically challenging or not," Abbott stressed. "We're here to help protect soil and water and help farmers stay productive."


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By Dawn Attride for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Greater Dakota News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

At the supermarket, you're often met with a choice: organic or not? Organic foods - largely free of synthetic pesticides, hormones and antibiotics - are synonymous with sustainability in the minds of many shoppers. But sustainability is a fraught and complex measure - does it mean better for you or for the planet? And how do farm animals, farmers and workers fare? About the only measure that's simple here is the nutrition, which remains the same whether you buy organic or conventional foods. After that, however, the tradeoffs quickly become complicated.

When it comes to the environment, organic food isn't necessarily better and can even be worse, in part because it requires more land to raise animals and grow their feed. In other words, that additional land means farm animals get a little more living space under U.S. organic rules. But unfortunately, unless we cut back on how much meat we eat, farming with even more land comes at a steep climate cost (and we're already way over budget).

After reviewing publicly available data and the scientific literature on the impacts of organic versus conventionally farmed meat, Sentient breaks down the tradeoffs.

Organic: Not As Environmentally Friendly As It Sounds

A 2017 review of hundreds of studies compared the environmental impacts of organic foods with their conventionally produced counterparts. The researchers looked at life cycle assessments to account for all the inputs, outputs and environmental effects of a food system. According to the findings, organic meat requires slightly lower energy on average than conventional meat - things like machinery and fertilizer production - but is less environmentally friendly in terms of nutrient runoff and higher land use.

Organic livestock standards require that farm animals be allotted more land than intensive agriculture operations, such as factory farming. Across all animal products (including milk and eggs), organic requires around 75 percent more land based on our analysis of the 2017 paper.

What we do with land has serious opportunities or consequences for climate change. For example, peatlands can suck in huge amounts of carbon by sequestration, and trees can also capture and store carbon. But if we were to expand how much of our food was sourced from organic farms, we would have to clear more land. When we clear land for farming, it loses its capacity to store carbon for as long as it stays a farm (essentially until it is rewilded), which is very bad for the planet.

As it stands, over a third of land globally is used for agriculture, resulting in deforestation in places like the Amazon rainforest. If we keep eating meat at the rate we do now, and the population keeps on growing, which is what the United Nations expects to happen, we will drive up greenhouse gas emissions even further, making the planet a more challenging place to live.

More Land Is Better for Animals, Not So Good for Climate

When we dig into the details, "better" depends on what you measure and how. A different review focusing on Western European farming found that organic animal foods have lower carbon emissions per hectare than producing those foods conventionally. But here's where things get tricky: this was mainly due to land management practices used in organic farming, which the authors argued would increase the carbon sequestration of the system.

The argument for this kind of farming - sometimes called regenerative or climate-smart - doesn't track with the many studies showing these carbon farming practices tend to only add carbon to soils for a short period of time and then release it back into the atmosphere, which is not what you need for climate mitigation. In any event, when the researchers measured emissions by weight of meat produced, organic animal foods emitted more greenhouse gases per pound.

While organic foods' inefficiency can contribute to higher emissions, it can be better in terms of welfare for farm animals. More land means more room for animals to graze than what they experience in factory farms. Raising more animals in the most confined spaces translates to lower emissions, while the higher-emissions organic livestock farms can offer animals better living conditions. This is the crux of the tradeoff between organic and conventional meat.

Demand for Organic Food Is Growing - But It's Not Scalable

In the United States, demand for organic food is surging, despite only a tiny fraction of farmland being used for organic food production. Between 2023 and 2024, organic meat sales increased 14.3 percent in dollar terms to hit $3.1 billion. Although typically more expensive, the label is in high demand, particularly among younger generations. A recent survey by the Organic Trade Association found that two-thirds of young consumers look for the label in nearly every food purchase.

Keeping up with this demand means using more land. What would happen if animal farming went entirely organic - and humans ate the same amount of meat, eggs and dairy, but using roughly 75 percent more land? The land area needed for farm animals would increase from 36 percent to 63 percent of the world's habitable area. Under current global warming estimates, this expansion likely wouldn't be sustainable given the dire need for carbon-cutting solutions which involves avoiding deforestation and preserving land.

The Bottom Line

Based on the way we eat now, organic livestock farming is not scalable to feed the projected 9.7 billion people who will be living on the planet by 2050. While organic production gives animals more space, that higher land usage isn't so good for climate change. But there are alternatives. Proteins like beans - whether organic or conventional - could substitute the growing protein demand while remaining low on emissions and avoiding typical animal welfare concerns.


Dawn Attride wrote this article for Sentient.


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A new mapping tool shows South Dakota is a big player on the farm conservation scene.

The online feature coincides with a new poll, revealing most farmers want stronger funding for climate-smart practices. In a survey of nearly 500 farms around the U.S., the National Wildlife Federation said three of four respondents support an increase in long-term funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's voluntary conservation programs. The initiatives incentivize farmers and ranchers to work their land in ways that make it more resilient to extreme weather, from prolonged droughts to widespread flooding.

Aviva Glaser, senior director of agriculture policy for the federation, said survey support was consistent across geographic areas.

"The poll also found that farmers not only supported this funding, but they got a lot of value out of this funding," Glaser reported. "They cited things like soil health and improved yields."

Congress is debating future funding levels for programs under the Farm Bill, which needs to be reauthorized for five more years. Conservation dollars usually enjoy bipartisan support but this year could be trickier with talks of spending cuts needed to offset tax cut extensions. Meanwhile, the map shows South Dakota farmers have enrolled more than 7 million acres in the Conservation Stewardship Program, above all other states.

Conservation in farming might seem like "inside information" to producers and policymakers. But Glaser and other advocates emphasized it benefits the public to learn about practices farmers adopt, to make their fields healthy and strong.

"That could be a range of different practices -- practices like cover crops or grazing management -- or it could be a conservation easement," Glaser outlined. "It could be putting in a buffer strip."

Buffer strips can slow and prevent harmful runoff, like nitrates, from leaving farm fields and finding their way into lakes and streams. Agricultural researchers said making landscapes less prone to flooding protects taxpayers, too, by not having to spend money on property cleanup for surrounding communities.

By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Danielle Smith for Tennessee News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Since the beginning of April, President Trump has announced a number of new tariffs on countries around the globe, most notably China. While exactly which tariffs will remain in place long-term is changing day-to-day, the trade war with China appears to only be escalating. This is certain to have major impacts on the agriculture industry, and the consumers who rely on it for food.

Trump’s tariff plan, as originally announced, contained two different “layers.” The first was a 10 percent tariff on exports from all countries, while the second was an additional, “reciprocal” tariff on 60 specific countries. The reciprocal tariff rates differed from country to country, and were ostensibly going to be applied to countries with large trade deficits with the U.S.

Just hours after the tariffs took effect, however, Trump reversed course and announced a 90-day “pause” on the reciprocal tariffs. The first layer of tariffs remains in place, however.

In the same announcement, Trump said that tariffs on China will be increased to 125 percent. This comes after the Chinese government, as widely expected, imposed retaliatory tariffs on American exports in response to Trump’s initial announcement.

How the Tariffs Will Impact Agriculture

Trump’s tariffs will have major impacts on a wide swath of American industry, and agriculture is no exception. The exact nature of those impacts, however, may not be what the president is expecting.

Ultimately, the goal of tariffs is to incentivize domestic production and disincentivize imports — in other words, to reduce international trade. But this is a mistake, says Andrew Muhammad, professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

“International trade is a means by which you can consume beyond your ability to produce,” Muhammad tells Sentient. “It’s good for an individual. It’s good for a city, it’s good for a state and, of course, it’s good for a country.”

“Good,” of course, is relative. Increasing our consumption options in this regard might make our lives feel more plentiful, and more consumption is certainly good for producers’ bottom lines. But overconsumption is a problem; we already consume the planet’s resources at an unsustainable rate, and this definitely is not good for the environment, animals or our long term prospects as a species.

Nevertheless, it’s helpful to look at what happens when international trade is artificially restricted via taxation in the way Muhammad describes. And that’s exactly what Trump’s tariffs — and all tariffs — aim to do.

   Higher Costs & Lower Profits for Producers

Although it’s impossible to say with certainty how this trade war will pan out, it’s almost certain to result in higher prices and lower profits for Americans, at least in the short term.

   Higher Costs & Lower Profits for Producers

From an economic standpoint, Trump’s tariffs will likely cause pain for both agricultural producers and everyday Americans. That’s because tariffs usually cause what’s called a price wedge — a type of economic inefficiency that results in buyers paying more, and sellers earning less, than they otherwise would have.

On the production side, the tariffs will make business less profitable and more costly. Retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. will result in less international demand for American agricultural products, which will hurt agricultural exporters’ bottom lines.

Any American company that sells beef to China, for instance, will see a dip in their profits thanks to the tariffs, as their products will suddenly cost more for Chinese buyers. This, in turn, will incentivize Chinese importers to buy from non-American sources instead, and it’s already started happening: Since Trump’s tariff announcements, China has started buying more beef from Brazilian producers, a move that experts predict will lead to increased deforestation in the Amazon.

But it’s not just exporters. A whole lot of farming equipment is manufactured abroad, and even products that are built in America are often sourced from foreign parts. Because of this, any agricultural producer who uses foreign products at all will have to pay more for them than they would without the tariffs. This applies to tractors, backhoes, combine harvesters, captive bolt pistols and any other piece of equipment that might reasonably be used on a farm.

Muhammad points out that, thanks to the complex and highly interconnected nature of modern economic markets, plenty of agricultural producers who might not think of themselves as exporters or importers are nevertheless deeply enmeshed in international trade, and will be impacted by the tariffs.

“Whether you think you’re connected to global markets or not, there’s a high likelihood that a retaliatory tariff will depress the prices you receive in the market,” Muhammad says. “Trade dynamics with China will filter down into the market prices [producers] receive.”

   Higher Prices for Consumers

All of the above factors mean that American food producers will likely make less money than they were before as a result of Trump’s tariffs. The cost of doing business will go up, and if history is any guide, producers will respond to this by charging more for their goods.

A key factor for producers is whether the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide financial relief to farmers as the Department did during President Trump’s first term.

For now, it appears Americans will almost certainly be paying more money for groceries than they were before. Foods that are primarily or largely sourced from other countries will likely face the highest price hikes, and Muhammad cites hamburgers as a prime example of this.

   Beef As Case Study

The U.S. beef trade is a complicated topic, as America is both a leading exporter and a leading importer of beef. This might seem odd, but it’s because beef is sourced and produced in different ways depending on the country. Generally speaking, the U.S. imports lower-quality forms of beef and exports higher-quality cuts.

Burgers are made from ground beef, and between 20 and 30 percent of ground beef in America is imported from abroad. American burger producers are especially reliant on imported lean trimmings, a lower-quality form of meat that they combine with domestically produced fat trimmings to create ground beef.

Tariffs will make it more expensive for these producers to acquire lean trimmings from abroad. You might think that this would compel them to purchase more trimmings from American cattle farmers; however, due to the way cattle is fed in the U.S., American beef farmers are not well-equipped to produce lean trimmings at the volumes needed to replace foreign trimmings.

Of course, retaliatory tariffs make it less profitable to export beef, too. With that being the case, couldn’t U.S. farmers simply use high-quality, domestically produced cuts of beef that they otherwise would have exported to fill the gap in lean trimmings?

Not exactly. In addition to the fact that this would result in a different-tasting burger that customers might not prefer, ground beef goes for a cheaper price on a per-pound basis than steaks, roasts and other products made using high-quality cuts of beef. It wouldn’t make economic sense for beef producers to grind up that meat and sell it for a lower price than they were receiving before.

“It has sort of two compounding effects,” Muhammad says. “You have depressing beef prices in terms of what we export, but inflating beef prices in terms of what we import. And since we export something very different from what we import, that’s not going to balance out.”

No matter how you slice it, the end result is the same: more expensive burgers.

   (Some) Empty Shelves

In addition to raising prices for everybody, buyers of agricultural goods could face an additional consequence due to the tariffs: shortages.

This doesn’t mean Americans will suddenly be facing a food scarcity crisis. What it does mean is that some manufacturers might be disincentivized to produce certain foods, specifically those with very low margins.

Blueberries, for instance, have a very low markup. They’re only sold for slightly more than they cost to produce, and so in order to be profitable, producers need to sell them in very high quantities. But if the price of importing them increases, even by a little bit, it may no longer be profitable to sell blueberries at all.

“If you are an importer of blueberries, you’re making your money off the fact that a bunch of people will buy blueberries, not that on a per-unit basis, you’re making a high [profit],” Muhammad says. “When tariffs make that low markup non-competitive — when you can’t pass the price along to consumers, because they’re only going to pay so much for blueberries — you could actually then see some decreases in availability, as well as higher prices.”

In a broader sense, any agricultural goods that can’t be produced domestically, or can only be produced in relatively small quantities, may be in short supply as well. This includes out-of-season fruit and vegetables, and goods that are required to be made in another country, such as Mexican beer or Scotch whiskey.

Will Tariffs Increase Domestic Food Production?

The “upside” of tariffs, at least according to their proponents, is that they make domestic producers more competitive with their foreign rivals. Will U.S. food producers “rise to the challenge,” and begin producing more food domestically?

Not necessarily. Making more food in the U.S. would require farmers to increase their production capacities, and this costs money. But such an investment would only be worthwhile for as long as the tariff is in place; the moment it’s gone, this excess production capacity becomes a wasted investment, as there’s no longer a market for the extra food being produced.

As Trump has already shown, tariffs often don’t remain in place for very long. The administration has even stated that the tariffs are a “negotiating strategy,” and as such, American firms have little incentive to treat them as anything other than temporary. 

“All they’re gonna do when they’re temporary is just raise prices,” Muhammad says. “In theory, they’re supposed to also increase domestic production. But unless there’s some excess capacity unrealized, where we can ramp up production without investment, you won’t get any increase in output unless someone can guarantee that the tariffs are permanent. But the problem is, even if they last four years, that’s still not permanent.”

Will Tariffs Increase Farm Consolidation?

Over the last half-century or so, small farms have increasingly been acquired or put out of business by large agricultural producers. This phenomenon is referred to as consolidation, and because tariffs will hurt farmers’ bottom lines, they could accelerate consolidation in the agricultural sector.

But they might not, either. Muhammad says that, although increased consolidation is a possibility, large producers may be reluctant to buy up smaller farms, given that the tariffs may only be temporary.

“If I wanted to acquire another firm, I would need to know that these tariffs are in place for life,” Muhammad says. “What’s the point of investing in expanding capacity to take advantage of economies of scale when I need a tariff to still be competitive?”

The Bottom Line

This isn’t the first time Trump has waged a trade war. He did so during his first term as well, and the results were not good: The U.S. economy shrank, American companies lost nearly $46 billion and an estimated 300,000 Americans were put out of work.

It’s too soon to say exactly what the results of these new tariffs will be. But there’s little reason to believe that they’ll be any different than the last time, and if that’s the case, things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better, including in the agricultural sector.


Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.


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