Home > Climate News >
Solar grazing: A new income stream for livestock producers
Utility-scale solar arrays may cover 3 million acres across the U.S. by 2030, according to the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). This is causing tension with farmers and farmland advocates, as the panels are often sited on good agricultural land, displacing current production.
One solution is to restrict solar developments from being installed on farmland. But there are other solutions worth pursuing, too. Most large-scale solar arrays are located in rural areas where economies are hurting and farmer numbers are dwindling…
Empowering women farmers and landowners to protect their land and embrace conservation
“The future of agriculture is increasingly female.
43 percent of U.S. farmland —nearly 388 million acres— is now farmed or co- farmed by women. Many of these women have a strong conservation ethic and are deeply committed to healthy farmland, farm families, and farm communities.
But women face gender-related barriers to managing their land for long-term sustainability…”
Accelerate regenerative agriculture
Farmers and ranchers manage nearly one billion acres of the land in the United States — working lands that can serve as a natural carbon sink by drawing down atmospheric carbon dioxide and storing it in plants and soils. However, these working lands face threats from land degradation because of historical and common farming practices. Over time…
Tillage: an overview
Tillage is defined as the mechanical manipulation of the soil for the purpose of crop production affecting significantly the soil characteristics such as soil water conservation, soil temperature, infiltration and evapotranspiration processes.
Some thoughts on no-till farming
It is time to learn a new way of farming, or perhaps an old way — a way that nature has been trying to teach us since the beginning.
But first, you may be curious why tilling is such a problem. Over time, tillage wreaks havoc on the health of the soil and all of the critters that support a flourishing and productive farm ecosystem…
American Farmland Trust calls on the Biden administration to protect and conserve 30% of working farmland and ranchland to achieve 30×30
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, American Farmland Trust released “Agriculture’s Role in 30×30: Partnering with Farmers and Ranchers to Protect Land, Biodiversity, and the Climate” outlining agriculture’s critical role in the effort to “conserve at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030” as put forth in the Biden administration’s January 27, 2021, Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. AFT’s recommendations make it clear that we urgently need to both permanently protect five percent of vulnerable working lands from being converted to development and support landowners’ voluntary efforts to implement conservation practices on an additional twenty-five percent of working lands, particularly in biodiversity hotspots, key connectivity corridors and areas with high carbon sequestration potential.
Biden enlists ranchers, tribes (and land trusts) to conserve 30% of land and water
The Biden administration is unveiling a plan to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by the end of the decade, a top priority for environmentalists who see the initiative as a way to fight climate change and safeguard species on the brink of extinction.
“The conservation value of a particular place should not be measured solely in biological terms, but also by its capacity to purify drinking water, to cool the air for a nearby neighborhood,” or “to provide a safe outdoor escape for a community that is park-deprived,” the report says.
How to have your solar farm and keep your regular farm, too
You may appreciate this short news clip from NPR
Clean, abundant solar power comes with a price. It requires lots of land, and in some places that’s provoking opposition from people who want to preserve farmland.
In southern New Jersey, for instance, a company called Dakota Power Partners wants to build an 800-acre solar power station, and the Pilesgrove Township planning board is hearing from local citizens who don’t like it one bit…
She’s driven by soil health and pasture management
Looking out over the tidy farmstead in a valley below, Franceus talks about the ranch. Her parents bought the land in the early 1960s. “My mom sold a quarter of land in Illinois in order to purchase this place,” she says.
“It was predominantly covered in native grasses. My dad planted a pasture to crested wheat grass so that it would have some cool-season grasses for grazing. And now years later we are predominantly brome and bluegrass, which are cool-season grasses. Our biggest conservation challenge now is limiting the invasive cool-season grasses — the introduced species — and try and bring back the native grasses.”
Report: Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful
“A preliminary report to the National Climate Task Force recommending a ten-year, locally led campaign to conserve and protect the lands and waters upon which we all depend, and that bind us together as Americans.”