Biodiversity Articles:

Interview with Dan Imhoff, Author of Farming With The Wild

With Scott Vlaun, editor of Seeds of Change eNewsletters

After reading Farming with the Wild, I had the great fortune to meet Daniel Imhoff at the 2005 Ecological Farming Conference where he led an all-day workshop and tour promoting the synthesis of sustainable farming practices and conservation of biodiversity. As these goals are essential to the mission of Seeds of Change, I asked Dan if he would talk to us about his vision for the future and what it means for us as gardeners, farmers, and citizens. I caught up with Dan a few months later in Taos, New Mexico for this interview.
http://www.seedsofchange.com/enewsletter/issue_47/Imhoff_interview.asp

Farming with the Wild: With a growing presence in southern Oregon’s Rogue valley, an emerging national movement works to integrate organic farming and biodiversity protection.

By Dan Kent and Dan Imhoff

Even as agribusiness is increasingly attracted to an organic farming industry that has mushroomed into a $25 billion-a-year global business and large-scale organic growers produce multi-thousand acre monocrops, there is good news. Life down on some farms and ranches is getting wilder. Around the country, farmers, government agencies, and consumers are finding that local farms can not only provide essential sources of nutritious food, but also protect wild biodiversity.

In the world of sustainable agriculture, we hear a lot about the term "biodiversity." This can refer positively to the protection of soil organisms, such as earthworms or mycorrhyzal fungi. Or it could refer negatively to the devastating loss of traditional crop diversity, in terms of the dwindling numbers, varieties, and breeds of plant and animal species grown and collected for human uses.

It is less often, however, that we hear people speaking about "wild biodiversity" in dialogs about sustainable agriculture. By this, we mean the healthy habitats needed to support native flora and fauna in the areas where agriculture takes place. In some ways this is understandable. After all, agriculture at its very root, involves the domestication of the wild. Ultimately, agricultural operations reduce complex landscapes into zones of intensive production for just a handful of plants, or more often, a single monoculture.

What has become particularly apparent in North America, however, is modern agriculture’s role in the "biodiversity crisis." Over the past two centuries, agriculture production has converted more and more native habitats to agricultural lands—from river valleys to grasslands to wetlands to uplands and woodlands. In order to compete in global markets, to pay for expensive machinery and inputs, or simply to create "clean" farms void of "weeds," ever larger amounts of habitats have been erased from already cleared lands. With the clearing of habitat comes the loss of species. The result is that wild biodiversity has been pushed further and further into isolated pockets on the landscape. Agriculture has become the leading cause of species endangerment on the North American continent. And the situation is not that different in other regions throughout the world.

Fortunately, an increasing number of farms and ranches are incorporating the wild (integrating and protecting wildness in and around their operations) and working to enhance biodiversity. Helping to lead the charge towards protection of native biodiversity is Wild Farm Alliance (WFA), a California-based coalition of conservationists and sustainable farming advocates founded in 2000. WFA works nationally to reconnect ecosystems and food systems with a vision based on organic farming as the foundation of a new agriculture that embraces aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity.

Organic farming has made great ecological strides through crop diversification and biological pest control, but healthy farms within degraded landscapes can offer only minimal value to biodiversity. Organic farmers can use a variety of practices to conserve biodiversity within the larger natural landscape: planting sequentially flowering pollinator and beneficial insect hedgerows; timing farming activities to avoid disturbance of nesting pollinators, birds and other wildlife; protecting priority species; preventing the introduction and spread of invasive species; conserving natural areas of the farm, in addition to linking to and buffering wildlands. These activities often improve farm productivity as well.

In the Pacific Northwest, Salmon-Safe, a leading regional eco-label, has been working for almost a decade to highlight the connection between food production and wildlife preservation, particularly the protection of wild Pacific salmon. In 2003, a streamlined Salmon-Safe organic overlay standard was jointly developed by Oregon Tilth and Salmon-Safe by comparing Salmon-Safe’s certification program with the national organic standard. The overlay standard includes additional riparian area management and judicious irrigation requirements that are either not covered or covered only indirectly under organic certification.

The joint certification program has been field tested extensively in southern Oregon, where it directly addresses habitat conservation concerns that aren’t fully addressed by organic certification. "While organic farmers tend to be the best farmers in their watersheds, every farmer is looking for ways to better manage farm resources and every farm presents opportunities for habitat improvement or conservation," said Tim Franklin, organic farmer and Salmon-Safe project manager in southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley where the program is working with over 20 farms.

"The project has proven to be a great complement to the National Organic Program," Pete Gonzalves executive director of Oregon Tilth, said. "Working with Salmon-Safe is a way for us to bring additional value to family-scale organic farmers in the Northwest." For organic crops to earn the Salmon-Safe logo, they must be produced according to rigorous conservation guidelines. These guidelines include using cover crops to minimize erosion into streams, promoting natural methods to control weeds and pests, planting trees near streams to keep streams cool and improving irrigation practices. Farms receive Salmon-Safe assessment by Oregon Tilth inspectors as an optional addition to their routine organic inspection.

This past March, the National Organic Standards Board unanimously approved the Wild Farm Alliance’s request to integrate biodiversity criteria into their model Organic System Plan; final wording is expected later this summer. Although the criteria do not go into intricate detail in relation to the needs of fish, they do cover a broader diversity of conservation issues. Organic farming is evolving, and these biodiversity-oriented programs from Salmon-Safe and the Wild Farm Alliance are helping farmers take a leadership position in addressing some of the critical water-related issues in the northwest.

In southern Oregon, farms have implemented a variety of practices to achieve or enhance their Salmon-Safe status. Members of the Applegate’s Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative have worked to fence and revegetate riparian corridors, conduct erosion control projects, and restore native woodlands. Liz Baum, of the Siskiyou Coop’s L & R Family Farm, likes the message behind the Salmon-Safe label. "The Salmon-Safe Applegate program helps people distiguish between conventional organic and what we’re trying to achieve, which is family-scale, sustainable farming – it’s beyond organic," says Baum. L & R Family Farm fenced and planted their part of the riparian area along Williams Creek, home to coho and Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, and diverse wildlife community.

Find out more about Salmon-Safe’s overlay certification for Oregon Tilth certified organic farmers at www.salmonsafe.org or by calling Salmon-Safe at 503.2323750.

Field Notes: Back to Grasslands

By Brian DeVore

From , Minnesota Volunteer (a publication of the Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources)Jan-Feb 2005

John Bedtke stood on a high spot overlooking his Winona County dairy farm one day last June and told a handful of visitors to look around.

"What do you see?" he asked the farmers, DNR professionals, and researchers gathered there. What they saw on the 160-acre farm was grass-lots of it, an increasingly rare sight in southern Minnesota.

On Bedtke's pastures, the visitors also saw bird species that have become scarce as grasslands disappear. Bobolinks, savannah sparrows, and meadowlarks were flitting around grazing Holsteins. These grasslands birds were living testaments to the farm's success in creating habitat for wildlife.

Farmland as habitat may be even more critical as authorization for the federal Conservation Reserve Program ends in 2007. Then contracts to set aside almost 400,000 acres of Minnesota farmland will expire. Contracts for another 400,000 acres end in 2008. That means hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat could be plowed up by decade's end. Already farmers are reverting to row crops as contracts expire. Lincoln County lost more than 12,000 acres of CRP and Wetlands Reserve Program land between 1997 and 2002.

"Minnesota could lose a significant amount of wildlife habitat that's been protected under CRP," says Wayne Edgerton, DNR agriculture policy director. "In addition to preserving as much CRP acreage as possible under the next federal farm bill, we need to be creative at maintaining and improving habitat on working land that's in agricultural production."

To make perennial grasses a profitable part of their farm, John Bedtke and his wife, Donna, use a technique called managed rotational grazing, which divides a field into grass paddocks using portable fencing. They move cows to a new paddock every few days to prevent overgrazing and to distribute manure evenly.

One rotational paddock is on Whitewater Wildlife Management Area, adjacent to their farm. By agreement with the DNR, the Bedtkes temporarily fence 16 acres of native big bluestem, little bluestem, Indiangrass, and switch-grass. Because cows graze there every couple of years, the need to do prescribed burns to maintain the grassland is reduced. "It's another tool we can use to manage prairie and provide habitat for pheasant, deer, turkey, and grassland bird species," says DNR area wildlife manager Jon Cole.

Grassland birds are showing up on the Bedtke farm too, according to a recently completed two-year study by University of Minnesota graduate student Melissa Driscoll. Many techniques that improve rotational pastures also improve wildlife habitat. For instance, resting paddocks for 30 days between grazings significantly increased the nesting success of savannah sparrows, according to Driscoll.

More rotational grazing operations are springing up in Minnesota. In 1997 the Natural Resources Conservation Service (part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture) drew up 25 grazing plans for livestock farmers. In 2004 three times as many plans from 4 acres to 2,500 acres were completed, and 160 farmers were on a waiting list.

Nevertheless, row crops, which cover the land only a few months of the year, have displaced perennial cover such as pasture. Between 1975 and 2001 in nine southeastern Minnesota counties, the proportion of acreage planted to corn and soybeans increased from 64 percent to more than 80 percent. Minnesota as a whole lost 30 percent of its pastureland between 1997 and 2002.

That's why conservationists should pay attention to what farmers like the Bedtkes are doing, says DNR watershed coordinator Larry Gates. "We will need to rely more on acres like this-land that's being worked."

Additional Links:
Land Stewartship Project - Tips for providing grassland bird habitat on livestock farms worked."

Brian DeVore is editor of the Land Stewardship Project Letter

Farming With Nature: Conservationists and ranchers can get along, as some Southern Arizona pastures show

By Tim Vanderpool

From Tuscon Weekly, March 18, 2004.

Rancher Mac Donaldson has adopted new conservation techniques. Mac Donaldson rumbles alongside lush Cienega Creek in his beat-up GMC, eight Angus bulls wobbling grimly in a red trailer behind. At 1,500 pounds per, these pitch-black lotharios are a daunting, beefy load on their way to winter pasture. But by spring, they'll be giddily reunited with Donaldson's larger herd of 1,200 cattle, to engage in several weeks of lusty bovine bacchanalia.

"We like to have all the calves born around the same time," he explains.

But there's far more to this rustic scene than meets the eye: Under a innovative arrangement with his landlords--the Arizona Land Department and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management--Donaldson is helping the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area return to its roots as an abundant, wildlife-rich grassland. In the process, he's also helping to protect several threatened species, from the Southwestern willow flycatcher and Gila topminnow to the lesser long-nosed bat.

A cattleman by trade, with a black hat, sun-beaten cheeks and manure-splattered boots, Donaldson seems an unlikely conservationist. But he's in constant touch with a team of 25 biologists, botanists and even a few enviros. Together, they schedule cattle rotations to keep these sweeping grasslands vibrant. Riparian areas get equal attention: Creek crossings are spare and tightly orchestrated, to avoid damaging banks and disrupting wildlife.

Simply put, Donaldson considers progressive range management the last, best chance of survival for his gasping profession.

"By having this team onboard, I'm able to adjust the management of the ranch, and adjust the bottom line," he says.

"I see it as the natural evolution of cattle ranching."

So does Daniel Imhoff, author of the recently published Farming With the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches (Watershed Media; $29.95). In his beautifully produced book, Imhoff details efforts to integrate nature with farming, rather than obliterate it.

"I think wilderness people really weren't seeing the farmers and ranchers as necessary collaborators," he says, "but they're an increasingly necessary link in the chain of species survival. After all, two-thirds of the land in the lower 48 states is being used for agriculture."

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, agriculture is also the leading contributor to species endangerment in this country. To turn that around, a growing number of farmers and ranchers are blurring the lines between nature and cultivation. Among them is Tubac-area farmer Mark Larkin. Stretching alongside the Santa Cruz River 40 miles south of Tucson, Larkin's organic farm is banked by a canopy of mesquite, cottonwood and willow trees. It's also in the heart of what Imhoff calls the "Pollinator Trail," where researchers have listed up to 1,200 bee species and 25 nectar-feeding birds and bats. To help these animals flourish, Larkin's fields are thickly planted with wildflowers and wild squash--a delicacy for certain bees--winding along the furrows.

Now he's turning to pasture-grazed cattle, which he calls "even more in light with wild farming techniques. Organic vegetable farming really beats up the soil--it involves a lot of plowing to keep down the weeds. As a result, the soil is always getting torn up."

In contrast, properly maintained cattle pastures "are like raising an orchard," Larkin says. "The growth in the fields can remain more permanent. With livestock on pastures, you're also required to pay a lot more attention to natural cycles. The cattle will be rotated, and pasture lands will be great for pollinators."

Larkin's approach marks a convergence of two potent trends, says Imhoff.

"My book started with people arguing for wildlands connectivity. They're saying, 'Look, our core wilderness areas are more and more isolated, and if we are going to maintain species populations and natural migration patterns, we need connectivity between wildlands.' At the same time, you have the organic movement, probably the most dynamic part of the food sector, growing at 10 percent a year."

But that very success is making the industry more globalized--and thus less responsive to local ecosystems.

"You find these huge organic farms that don't conform to surrounding landscapes at a biotic level," Larkin says. "To me, it seemed that these two things really had to come together, if we're talking about sustainability."

That approach is being pushed by several environmental groups, including Defenders of Wildlife.

"Farming with the wild captures the spirit of a new agro-ecology movement that's growing internationally," says Scotty Johnson, a Tucson-based rural outreach coordinator for the group.

Defenders is assisting several projects in the United States and in Mexico; all of them seek to make wildlife protection an incentive to stimulate more wild farming, Johnson says.

"In North Carolina, we work with commodity producers; in Wisconsin, it's potato farmers. In Arizona, Montana and Idaho, we combine our wolf compensation program with rural development to encourage wolf acceptance. We have similar programs for wolves on the Mountain Apache Reservation, and in Mexico, we are working with ranchers to protect the beautiful and elusive jaguar population."

Forty of those ranchers, farmers and groups are the focus of Farming With the Wild.

"My whole approach was to highlight on-the-ground examples of farmers, land trusts, agencies, people starting eco-labels--people who are trying to merge conservation biology with a profitable farm, and see if that inspires others," Imhoff explains.

But for his part, Mac Donaldson doesn't need convincing. Now he's leaning against his truck, as the bulky bulls lumber off across lush rangeland.

"Las Cienegas contains one of the most intact sacaton deltas and riparian areas in the west," he says. "That's good for wildlife, and it's good for ranching."



Pictured Rancher Mac Donaldson has adopted new conservation techniques.
Photo by Tim Vanderpool



Food and Biological Diversity

By Dana Jackson

From Orion Afield, Summer 1999.

After decades of monocultures, pesticides, and habitat destruction, biodiversity is becoming a hot topic in agriculture. Plant diseases, herbicide-resistant weeds, and peaks and crashes in yields have farmers worried. Some agronomists and ecologists have concluded that lack of crop diversity is a real problem. This concern represents a significant departure form the past, and it bodes well for the protection of natural biodiversity within agriculture.

A special report called "Benefits of Biodiversity" was published this spring by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST). It was written by a task force chaired by Dr. Donald Duvick, former Pioneer Seed Company vice-president now at Iowa State University, and Dr. G. David Tilman, well-known ecologist at the University of Minnesota. One of its messages is predictable: genetically modified organisms will increase crop diversity and be the answer to feeding the world (they must keep Minnesota happy). But another message is new for CAST, and I find it very encouraging: we must "establish more biodiversity reserves worldwide" and manage rural landscapes "to have a mixture of agriculture and natural ecosystems that can preserve much of local biodiversity and provide ecosystem services essential to agriculture."

I say amen to more biodiversity reserves, but it is the other recommendation that excites me, because it has been typically ignored, and it relates directly to the work of the Land Stewardship Project (LSP), a grassroots membership organization founded in 1982 to foster an ethic and practice of stewardship for farmland. A few years ago, we formed a team of farmers, university researchers, and agency professionals to study indicators of sustainability on farms where animals were moved through a series of pasture enclosures, grazing each section intensively. They monitored populations of birds, frogs and toads, insects and fish, as well as soil quality. The farmers gained a new appreciation of plant diversity in their pastures, including prairie species, and developed grazing patterns to encourage nesting of bobolinks and savannah sparrows, grassland birds that have been on the decline since corn and soybeans engulfed the countryside. This project has broadened LSP's focus; we are learning to foster stewardship of the wild.

Many major environmental and conservation organizations have worked hard to protect the natural world from agriculture-and for good reason. Consider the millions of acres in corn and soybeans that have replaced prairies and wetlands. Nitrogen and phosphorus from fields and feedlots find their way into streams, and each year the Midwest Corn Belt dumps a nutrient load into the Mississippi that contributes mightily to the zero-diversity, hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

How do we prevent agriculture from preying on the natural world? Neither private organizations nor government agencies can afford to buy enough agricultural land to protect streams or establish reserves for biodiversity. Instead, we must devise incentives for farmers to be conservationists, as Aldo Leopold advocated, and protect or restore natural habitats on their farms.

Farmers who strive for biodiversity in their crop and livestock enterprises have the potential to increase natural diversity. Many have begun replacing corn and soybean fields with soil-holding perennial grass and legume pastures to supply most of their animals' feed. In their whole farm plans, they set goals for protecting aesthetic features of the land, which often enhance natural habitat, as well as quality of life. Because these management practices lower the need for costly machinery, fuel, and chemicals, these farms can profit as long as they have fair access to livestock markets and receive fair prices. However, today's giant meat packers and dairy processing companies discriminate against them.

There are two ways to help diversified, family-sized farms both make a living and practice better stewardship of the wild. First, we need to build regional food systems that enable farmers to quit selling commodities on the global market for low prices and instead sell food to people who appreciate it for its quality and the way it was grown. Sustainable beef, pork, lamb, and chicken producers, like community-supported vegetable farmers, are beginning to sell directly to customers for fair prices. Second, we should develop public policies that provide incentives and rewards for farmers who produce multiple benefits for society. Let commodity prices respond to the market, and link federal subsidies for farming to improved water quality through grass or forest buffers along streams, maintenance of wetlands for floodwater retention, and the restoration of habitat for native plants and animals.

As consumers and citizens, we must take advantage of agriculture's awakening to the merits of diversity and support the farmers who provide food and biodiversity at the same time.

Dana Jackson is associate director of the Land Stewardship Project in White Bear Lake, MN.