RESEARCH

Determinants of Sustainable Agricultural Practices in Wisconsin

Michael Bell, Rachel Gurney, and Shaheer Burney

Understanding farmer perceptions is critical for developing efficacious support for sustainable agriculture. Yet, existing farmer survey data is limited in scope. Addressing this need, SHALL launched a statewide survey distributed to a random sample of 3,200 Wisconsin farmers engaging in a wide array of farming practices.

This project, funded by the University of Wisconsin Consortium for Extension and Research in Agriculture and Natural Resources (CERANR), analyzes SHALL’s statewide farmer survey dataset with the aim of (1) assessing the prevalence of sustainable farming practices throughout Wisconsin, (2) identifying related perceptions and demographics, and (3) potentially developing solutions to the barriers faced by farmers when transitioning to sustainable practices.

Centering Justice in Climate-Smart Agriculture

Michael Bell, Rachel Gurney, Annie Jones, Marisa Lanker, Sarah Rios, Valerie Stull, and Sarah Janes Ugoretz

Centering social justice in climate-smart agriculture is key to ensuring its long-term sustainability and success. Through conservation practices such as continuous ground cover, minimal soil disturbance, and crop diversification, climate-smart agriculture reduces greenhouse gas emissions and increases resilience to climate impacts. In order to be truly sustainable, however, climate-smart strategies must also enhance community well-being and address critical needs of farm producers and laborers. Climate-smart strategies that enhance food sovereignty and improve supply chain relationships—especially between farm producers and laborers—can strengthen both ecosystem and community resilience; yet, little research focuses on these issues. Broadly, this project addresses the question, what social justice values, principles, and strategies should be applied in climate-smart agriculture to support the well-being of communities, farm producers, and farm laborers? This project involves participatory research methods to develop community-guided social justice metrics for sustainable climate-smart Tribal food sovereignty, dairy production, and vegetable production. In addition, this project focuses on Wisconsin as a key agricultural state and develops a blueprint for considering community needs when developing climate-smart agricultural strategies for other states. Through interviews and focus groups, our researchers incorporate input from historically underserved and underrepresented food system actors (e.g. farm employees and Tribal members). This work facilitates broad and diverse conversations about social justice, labor patterns, and sovereignty, within food systems in order to ensure our findings are culturally appropriate and materially significant. These findings will be disseminated via labor management workshops for farm employers as well as professional development workshops for agricultural agency staff. This project is funded by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) with additional support from the Soil Health Alliance for Research & Engagement (SHARE).

Soil Health Alliance for Research and Engagement (SHARE)

Michael Bell, Rachel Gurney, and Valerie Stull

Improving soil health is an approach to building farmer and rural community well-being and economic vitality while reducing risk, soil loss, soil compaction, nutrient loss, water pollution, biodiversity decline, energy use, pesticide drift, fine particulate pollution, and other challenges to agricultural sustainability.

SHALL works in collaboration with a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional USDA-funded research project entitled the Soil Health Alliance for Research and Engagement (SHARE). SHARE is committed to understanding how agriculture can mitigate soil loss, soil compaction, nutrient loss, water pollution, biodiversity decline, energy use, pesticide drift, fine particulate pollution, community decline, income loss, social disparities, and other challenges to agricultural sustainability. Through SHARE, the USDA ARS Dairy Forage Research Center (DFRC), Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI), and UW-Madison’s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS)—along with farmer and stakeholder partners—investigates and conducts outreach on equitable, community-supporting, and practical strategies for building agricultural soil health. SHARE integrates research and outreach in a scientifically-grounded and participatory way to support landscape transformations.

SHARE builds on the success of a similar past endeavor, the Cover Crops Research and Outreach Project (CCROP). Broadly, SHARE focuses on understanding the social, agronomic, ecological, and economic efficacy of practices that promote these principles of soil health, such as incorporating small grains into rotations, the use of cover crops, and grassland and perennial systems. Crucially, these practices must engage farmers, their strategic partners, and other stakeholders, if they are to succeed.

SHALL contributes to the SHARE by developing understanding of the social factors and dynamics that promote and/or hinder principles of soil health. We consider how agriculture practices associated with soil health—e.g., maximizing soil cover via cover cropping and perennials, optimizing biodiversity via crop rotation and diversification, engaging in minimal disturbance (no- or reduced-till)—overlap and synergize with farmers, farmworkers, and their communities.

Learn more about SHARE by visiting www.soilhealthalliance.net.

Grassland 2.0

Michael Bell

Grassland 2.0 is a collaborative group of scientists, educators, farmers, agencies, policymakers, processors, retailers, and consumers working to develop pathways for increased farmer profitability, yield stability, and nutrient and water efficiency, while improving water quality, soil health, biodiversity, and climate resilience through grassland-based agriculture.

Grasslands 2.0 is taking an integrated approach to developing technical and financial tools, expanding grass-fed markets, cultivating positive institutional policy changes, and empowering producers and consumers.

Grasslands 2.0 hosts listening sessions, conducts surveys, and convenes local conversations to learn from communities across the state and beyond to develop paths that move us toward grassland-based agricultural systems that create a healthy environment, healthy communities, and healthy people. Throughout the process, the project seeks to engage with farmers and consumers across Wisconsin.

The Livelihood, Agroecology, Nutrition and Development (LAND) Project

Michael Bell and Valerie Stull

Improving health, tackling economic challenges, and managing natural resources are all important aspects of agroecological development that are tightly linked. The Livelihood, Agroecology, Nutrition, and Development (LAND) Project is committed to addressing these challenges using a holistic, participatory approach to agroecological development—one where the most up-to-date scientific evidence is merged with crucial, on the ground know-how and contextual knowledge.

By combining the expertise of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, the Kidlinks Small Farm Incubator, Kidlinks World, and Fort Cox Agriculture and Forestry Training Institute the LAND project seeks to improve livelihoods and health in communities across South Africa. The LAND Project is thus a partnership between NGOs and the University, which uses research, participatory approaches, and educational outreach to generate change. We engage undergraduate students in service-learning trips, foster open dialogue between community members and local agencies, and seek to innovate new methods of sustainable development. The LAND Project emphasizes continual, cross-cultural learning and relationship building to ensure lasting partnerships and create durable change.

We give special focus to the needs and opportunities for youth in the communities where we work. Children and youth are at once the most vulnerable community members, and a community’s best hope for the future.