The Back 40

Excess manure running off of farmlands into waterways is a significant issue across the nation, negatively impacting the quality of soil, water, and wildlife. In Wisconsin, county conservationists play a major role in working with farmers who wish to develop crop rotation and other nutrient management practices to reduce the runoff. The conservationists also often find [...]

Wisconsin is experiencing some deep budget cuts to land and water conservation efforts, which is being felt by state conservation offices at the county level. As the article below states, cuts at the county level will have an immediate impact on Wisconsin agriculture. Cap Times writer Margaret Krome traveled around Wisconsin, asking farmers how these [...]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been SLOWLY making its way through the list of candidates for the Endangered Species list. There is a current backlog of over 260 imperiled species that are awaiting a decision from the agency, some have been waiting for over 20 years. Due to a 2011 settlement of two [...]

The Farm Bill we had hoped Congress would act on last year is still pending. One of the conservation issues under discussion has been conservation compliance – the requirement that farmers receiving farm program payments maintain a conservation plan to limit damage to highly erodible land and wetlands. Some have argued that, with direct farm [...]

In a recent study, researchers from South Dakota State University have documented a sodbusting trend in the Central Plains states. Due largely to rising commodity prices, the Western Corn Belt has lost  1.3 million acres of grassland over the past 5 years, which is a rate that hasn’t been seen since the 1930′s. The authors found [...]

For many years, the amount of American family farms has been in steady decline. The average age of farmers continues to rise and fewer and fewer young people are choosing farming as a career. The article below cites census data that tell us that the amount of farmers that have been farming 10 years or [...]