Conservation & Restoration
Beyond Your Backyard: Prairie Conferences
By Megan Benage The last week of June was the North American Prairie Conference in Altoona, Iowa. The conference kicked off with a trip to the Hayden Prairie Preserve. We learned that Hayden prairie is one of the largest Iowa remnants outside of the Loess Hills. It is a beautiful prairie filled with life and…
Read MoreSay ‘Hey’ to SFA at FarmFest
Will you be at FarmFest this year? Come say hello at the Soil Health Tent! We will be at the Redwood County event all three days, August 1-3, co-hosting the Soil Health Tent with Minnesota Soil Health Coalition and a whole crew of great partners. We’ll have rainfall demonstrations, cover crop and Kernza plots, live…
Read MoreNew Case Studies Tell Hopeful Stories
A brand new volume of farm case studies are hot off the press. This time, the case studies highlight farms and their soil health practices who are certified through the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program (MAWQCP). Angie Walter, the MAWQCP Outreach Coordinator with SFA, began working on this project in 2021 thanks to a boots-on-the-ground…
Read MoreBeyond Your Backyard: Bumble bee Buzz
By Megan Benage Well, was that a suspense builder or what? You might have even thought that I forgot about part 3 of this ode to nature series, but not so! Sometimes field season and surveying prairies is just very, very distracting in the best way. I’ve been enjoying visiting all of my prairie friends…
Read MoreBeyond Your Backyard: Bison bison, an ode to a modern day mammoth
By Megan Benage I promised a three-part series and a three part-series ode to nature is what I intend to stand by. This series features raps about things in nature I find exciting, awe-inspiring, and frankly, worth rapping about. Part 2 could only highlight one of nature’s largest land mammals, the bison. (If you missed…
Read MoreBeyond Your Backyard: Rhizome Rap
By Megan Benage A while back I was trying to think of fun and engaging ways to get people excited about nature. I remembered when I was working as a naturalist on Cape Cod how we sometimes asked the students to voice their appreciation through song or short plays. And that got me thinking. If…
Read MoreScenes from the Summit
It was a nearly full house for our 10th Annual Midwest Soil Health Summit, held last week in Alexandria. Although snow showers threatened us on-and-off over the two-day period, inside we were cozy, dialed in to rich presentations, and swapping stories. Under the theme “Pioneering the Future: The Soil Health Mavericks,” we brought in a…
Read MoreKernza Ale Taste & Tour
Enjoy a brew and take a tour with your friends at the Twin Cities Metro Growers Network at Finnegans! Join the TC Growers on a brewery tour featuring Finnegans’ new Buckwheat Honey Brown Kernza Ale on Thursday, March 30, 4:30-7:30 PM. Minnesota farmers and researchers are at the forefront of developing Kernza, a perennial wheatgrass with…
Read More$1k for ‘Climate Smart’ Farms
How does an extra $1,000 sound to you? How could that help your farm? What would you spend the $1,000 on? Maybe a new piece of equipment for your farming operation? Maybe a vacation to escape the long MN winter? You can spend it on anything that you want! How do you get this extra…
Read MoreBeyond Your Backyard: Better with Beavers
By Megan Benage I recently took a long winter break through January as I recovered from surgery. I wish I could share that I spent that time brushing up on my ecological knowledge and am now ready to share lots of cool and interesting facts about the natural world with all of you. Unfortunately, if…
Read More