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Agrivoltaics looks at farming around and among solar panels
If you are driving to the West Central Research and Outreach Center (WCROC), look along U.S. Highway 59 for large pastures where cows graze among solar panels.
The cows, under the direction of Bradley Heins, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, use the panels for shade and shelter.
Double cropping solar power and organic dairy production works successfully here, but the concept — called agrivoltaics — is still very new…
Land conservation combatting climate change
Agricultural Stewardship Association is working to position farmers and farmland as part of the climate solution. Here’s an excerpt from their website:
ASA is dedicated to helping mitigate climate change. Here’s how:
- We are helping farm families permanently protect the most valuable and resilient land for farming and growing food.
- We are educating our community about the importance of keeping land in farming and the connection with increasing resilience to a changing climate.
- We are partnering with other organizations to help farmers adopt soil health practices and generate renewable energy in ways that are compatible with agriculture and keep productive land in farming…
Cover crops not enough to improve soil after decades of continuous corn
Although about 20% of Illinois cropping systems are planted with continuous corn, it’s nearly impossible to find fields planted this way for decades at a time. Yet long-term experiments like one at the University of Illinois, including over 40 years of continuous corn under different nitrogen fertilizer rates, provide incredible learning opportunities and soil management lessons for researchers and farmers alike…
Farming collaborative plan looks to keep land accessible, open
Under the land collaborative model, the property will not solely be devoted to agriculture; Sanford-Long’s animals will share land with a planned solar array…
California conservation to address climate change
[In 2021] the Trust for Public Land and JPMorgan Chase announced a $500,000 collaboration to launch The Trust for Public Land’s new California Climate Conservation program, and protect natural and working lands, mitigating climate impacts for people in the Central Coast and Los Angeles County. The program will incorporate California’s climate action strategy and help achieve greater community resilience through nature-based solutions and by engaging with local communities…
Regenerative ranching is better for the environment, but can it be profitable?
Ellis tells me that she did the math, and the amount of beef she produces on her ranch in a year is about the same quantity that McDonald’s uses globally in 45 minutes. “I’m this tiny blip on the radar,” she says. “But if I could get all ranchers across the nation doing the job sustainably, then we’d have a lot of clout.”
She says most consumers have no idea if their beef comes from a ranch with environmental goals. “I want to give them that choice”…
Farms under threat: the state of the States
American Farmland Trust’s new report used spatial mapping analyses of agricultural land conversion to provide unprecedented insights into the status and fate of American farmland. Our findings and maps of agricultural land at the state, county, and even sub-county levels show that between 2001 and 2016, 11 million acres of farmland and ranchland were converted to urban and highly developed land use (4.1 million acres) or low-density residential land use (nearly 7 million acres).
SunCommon financing program helps Vermont organic farmers go solar
SunCommon, headquartered in Waterbury, Vermont, launched a program that offers to help Organic Valley farmers go solar with zero upfront costs. Organic Valley is the largest farmer-owned organic cooperative in the US with a footprint of 100+ Vermont farms. The program provides Organic Valley farmer-members with financing for solar and other renewable energy projects. Farmers benefit from a fully-funded solar installation with no upfront costs, and they save on their energy bill…
The extent of soil loss across the US Corn Belt
“Soil erosion in agricultural landscapes reduces crop yields, leads to loss of ecosystem services, and influences the global carbon cycle. Despite decades of soil erosion research, the magnitude of historical soil loss remains poorly quantified across large agricultural regions because preagricultural soil data are rare, and it is challenging to extrapolate local-scale erosion observations across time and space…”
The corn belt is losing topsoil, increasing carbon emissions, and lowering yields
Scientists have found that around 35 percent of the region has lost its most fertile A-horizon soil, more commonly known as topsoil, since European colonization in the 1600s, resulting in estimated annual economic losses of around $2.8 billion and a 6 percent reduction in crop yields per year. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences….
“A third of the Midwest is currently losing 50 percent of its fertilizer,” Bruno Basso, a professor at Michigan State University, who was not involved in the study, said…