The latest news on Grassland 2.0, grassland-based agriculture, and restorative agricultural systems.
-
Dairy Needs Real Innovation
William D. Hoard’s enlightened understanding of the importance of livestock to soil health, coupled with his courageous advocacy work, helped pull Wisconsin agriculture from the depths of despairing wheat production in the late 19th century. When year after year of wheat production led to devastating disease pressure, he opened a door to unimagined prosperity. Hoard ignited the concept of America’s Dairyland by understanding the importance of diversified cropping to break disease cycles, the role of livestock in recycling nutrients, and the importance of peer-to-peer education to making change. Hoard’s lore, captured in the booklet “Hilltop Decision,” speaks of how Governor…
-
Back to his grassroots: Jacob Marty returns to family land with new vision for agriculture
As a dairy farm kid from southwest Wisconsin, Jacob Marty had no desire to return to his family’s farm. He was set on attending UW-Stevens Point and pursuing a career in conservation. Studying wildlife ecology pointed him in an unexpected direction, however: back to the farm. “I got interested in how we can harmonize food production while also providing habitat for wildlife,” says Jacob. “That led me down this road.” Watch Jacob Marty share why he had a change of heart, all while fending off an overzealous ram!
-
The Spring Digital Dialogue Series wraps up with four great presentations
And that is a wrap! This semester’s Digital Dialogue Series brought together over 700 participants to learn about the levers of change needed to bring about a transformational change to our agricultural system. This semester’s series featured four great speakers who discussed policy, populations dynamics and it’s impact on agriculture, watershed adaptive management, examples of innovative partnerships looking to create change, and the interplay of environmental laws and agriculture.
-
Last Digital Dialogue of the spring coming up May 17th
Grassland 2.0 is once again hosting our monthly Digital Dialogue webinar series! In the fall of 2021 the Digital Dialogues Series focused on what makes a healthy agroecosystem. This spring, we are changing lanes and will be focusing on the levers of change for our agricultural system. Tune in and hear about the policies, legal reforms, and partnerships needed to regenerative farming and balance the power in our food system from the input suppliers, processors, and retailers to the farmers, workers, small business and consumers.
-
New tool helps dairy farmers explore the economics of grazing dairy heifers
To graze or not to graze? The newly debuted Heifer Grazing Compass is a spreadsheet tool designed to help farmers predict and understand the cash flow and long-term financial outcomes of deciding to raise heifers on pasture. Developed by the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems of CIAS and Grassland 2.0, the Heifer Grazing Compass compares the total economic implications of a farmer’s existing system with a potential pasture-based heifer raising system.
-
Cattle and Brookies: Making Modern Agriculture and Trout Habitat in Wisconsin
Some 10,000 years ago, glaciers from the last Ice Age were retreating from the Upper Midwest. While much of Wisconsin was scraped into the rolling landscape that is representative of much of the state, a roughly 24,000 square mile piece of land at the intersection of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, was left untouched by continental glaciers. Broad ridge tops with shallow soil, river-formed valleys, and steep, craggy ravines make the Driftless area a geological anomaly. For millennia, this was a fertile Brook Trout habitat but in an evolutionary blink of an eye, these waters became threatened by modern agriculture. Across…
-
U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard incentivizes land use change with environmental consequences
In order to address global climate change, the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) aims to increase the use of biofuel in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to a new study by Tyler Lark of UW-Madison and co-authors, including several members of Grassland 2.0, the RFS may have missed the mark in reducing emissions – in fact, the greenhouse gases produced consequentially negate any advantages of corn ethanol over gasoline. Why? The RFS policy makers did not predict the full-scale impacts of the land use change that would result from its implementation – mainly more corn and less pasture.
-
Creating a grazing movement in Sauk County
Serge Koenig has been serving Sauk County, Wisconsin as a county conservationist for the past 27 years. So, needless to say – he knows the community well. During his tenure he has helped a lot of farmers get back in touch with nature and rediscover why they farm. Koenig’s journey in conservation started in Madagascar where he grew up, where he says he basically lived outside.
-
New GrassCast podcast shares cutting edge research linking animal and human health
How does the way we raise our agriculture impact our health as humans? That is the critical question surrounding Stephan van Vliet’s research. Stephan is a nutrition scientists and metabolomics experts at the Center for Human Nutrition Studies at Utah State University and in the fall of last year Stephan spoke to the Grassland 2.0 team as part of the teams fall Digital Dialogue Series.
-
GrassWorks: A place where working dogs (and their humans) belong
Exactly when dogs and humans started hanging around together is a matter of debate, but it’s been a good long time. Scientists suggest that ancestral wolves were likely the first animals to be domesticated by early humans, some 10,000 to 30,000 years ago. And what was those first dogs’ primary job? Herding! On grasslands around the world, wild ruminants were a food source for humans and wolves. As hunting partners, ancestral wolf-dogs’ herding abilities and hunter-gatherers’ hunting tools and skills benefited both. Domestication of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats) came later with the help of those same herding dogs.
-
Six ways to incorporate grass-fed meat and dairy this holiday season
December abounds with cultural and religious holidays. There’s Christmas and Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Rohatsu, and the winter solstice, to name a few. It’s a time for family gatherings, celebrations, reflection – and sharing delicious meals with those we hold dear.
-
New podcast episode features poetry discussing the changes in dairying over the last 50 years
This fall Grassland 2.0 hosted a four-part Digital Dialogue webinar series exploring the question of “What are healthy agroecosystems?”. The dialogues were hour and a half long conversations with farmers, researchers, and agricultural professionals who each explored the different aspects that make up a healthy agroecosystems and the benefits these systems have on people, farms, communities and the land.
-
Introducing Grassland 2.0’s Digital Dialogue Series
This fall Grassland 2.0 is hosting a 4-part Digital Dialogue focusing on the question – What are healthy agroecosystems? The series will explore the different aspects that make up a healthy agroecosystems and the benefits these systems have on people, farms, communities and the land.
-
New podcast episode describes the relationship between perennial ag and water quality
Every couple of weeks, Grassland 2.0 folks get together on Zoom for an informal, project-wide lab meeting. Each meeting features a short presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session, and a group discussion of how the work presented relates to the project as a whole. Presenters have included grazing specialists, grass-fed industry and marketing professionals, and researchers from a wide variety of disciplines.
-
Grassland 2.0 and partners receives grant to understand opportunities and barriers related to integrating livestock and crop production
Diversified crop and livestock systems offer some of the best options for getting more continuous living cover on the landscape. Incorporation of forage crops and well-managed pasture into crop rotations is key to achieving the economic and environmental outcomes. In recent decades, specialization has been a dominant trend in the upper Midwest. Now that is changing, and there is increasing interest in re-integrating livestock into annual cropping systems.
-
Caring for the land is caring for ourselves: A deeper look at care work
Growing up in a small town in Kansas, where my parents still farm wheat and raise cattle, I understood that humans are social beings who need each other. Only through community effort was it possible to accomplish education in the school system, religious practice through the church, the economic realities of agricultural labor from planting to harvest.
-
Marie Raboin shares the importance of farmer dates in new GrassCast podcast episode
Marie Raboin is a Conservation Specialist for Dane County, Wisconsin. She has spent over a decade working in and around southern Wisconsin to get farmers to adopt conservation practices. She currently serves as an advisor on the Grassland 2.0 project, and this summer she sat down for an interview with GrassCast, the Grassland 2.0 podcast.
-
Kevin Oppermann shares his most common questions from customers in new GrassCast podcast episode
Kevin Oppermann is a beef farmer at Highland Spring Farm south of Madison, Wisconsin where he raises Scottish Highland cattle. For Kevin, his time on the farm has progressed over time. He used to concentrate on the management full-time, but more and more, he has found his knack for direct marketing his beef.
-
Farming for the future: Research demonstrates the potential of pastures to sequester carbon
Story by Ashley Becker What gives me hope for the future? Farmers. Farmers can shift our landscape towards agricultural systems that are regenerative and I admire those who have committed to adopting sustainable practices. As I travelled throughout Wisconsin collecting soil samples and conducting interviews at a range of grazing operations, it became evident that Wisconsin graziers should be listed among those regenerative farmers.
-
“In Her Boots” podcast provides a voice for women in organic and sustainable agriculture
The latest episode of the GrassCast podcast follows a different format than some of our previous episodes: we’re sharing a promotional trailer for a new podcast being released by our collaborators at the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service or MOSES.
-
Grassland 2.0 and Wormfarm Institute partnering for Fermentation Fest: Grassland Edition September 25th and 26th
Grassland 2.0 is happy to announce that it is partnering with the Wormfarm Institute to host Fermentation Fest: Grassland Edition! The festival features a two-day jamboree of live ”grassical” music, fermentation tastings and demonstrations, grazing demonstrations, art activities and local food. The event will showcase the promise and possibilities of regenerative agriculture to support healthy ecosystems, communities and people across the rural-urban continuum.
-
Where do plant-based milk substitutes fit into the Grassland 2.0 vision?
There is a debate raging over plant-based milk substitutes (PBMS). These include beverages made from soy, rice, almond, cashew and other nuts (apparently, you can make “milk” from any kind of tree nut), coconut, oats, and hemp. They’re all white and opaque like milk, but I won’t call them “milks” because that’s one of the sources of controversy.
-
Midwest bumble bees declined with more farmed land, less diverse crops since 1870
As farmers cultivated more land and began to grow fewer types of crops over the last 150 years, most native bumble bee species became rarer in Midwestern states. New research reveals that these species declined while the average number of different crops grown in these states was cut in half and as modern agriculture began to focus on intensive production of corn and soybeans. A handful of hardy species continue to thrive today, but they also seem to prefer areas with a more diverse assortment of crops such as hay, beans, potatoes and oats in addition to corn and soy.
-
Land stewardship mirrors agroecological change at Sinsinawa Mound
If we seek to truly regenerate the land, we must do the same in our own communities. This connection between the health of the land and the health of our communities is abundantly clear at the Sinsinawa Mound located just east of Dubuque. The Catholic sisters at Sinsinawa Mound live and work in this parallel, recognizing these processes as equally ecological, social, and spiritual transformations.
-
Research on Agro-IBIS aims to estimate the ecological and economic benefits of grazing and cover-cropping
Every day, people in the agricultural sector, from farmers to advisers and planners, need to make tough decisions to balance the increasing demand for food, fiber, biofuel, and clean water. These decisions are only getting more complex due to new crop varieties, climate change, shifting markets, government policies, and changing human demands.