corn and soybeans once covered josh payne’s farm as far as the eye could see. tidy rows of green and brown marched across his 600 acres from spring to fall, kept in line by tillage, and herbicide. though payne’s operation was the picture of modern agriculture, he could not shake a general dissatisfaction.

today, payne calls his farm in missouri “a messy, complex, diverse life worth living.” gone are the corn and soy, replaced by a diversified farm that includes various animals, nuts and fruits. young chestnut trees reach their limbs skyward. dozens of sheep, bleating and plodding, graze on native grasses in payne’s front yard. and several brown cows lounge on rolling pasture in the distance.

“we’re trying to rethink our food, and we’re trying to regrow our land,” payne said.

payne is one of a small but growing number of midwestern farmers re-evaluating how to manage their land as they face climate change, market shocks, and other threats. diverse farms like his made up only 10% to 15% of the roughly 2 million farms in the 2017 u.s. agricultural census. yet researchers predict these farms will become more common across the midwest as climate change redraws the american agricultural map. already, the corn belt – which traditionally spanned from kansas to ohio and from missouri to the dakotas – has shifted northwest, a trend that’s expected to continue.

the midwest hasn’t frequently seen wildfires or hurricanes, but subtle shifts may make the cornfields that comprise traditional corn-soy rotations less productive. already, heat waves, intense storms, droughts, and other weather changes are causing crop damage of increasing magnitude.

although many farmers would scoff at the idea of moving away from corn, some researchers are encouraging them to consider diversifying their crops.

linda prokopy, a professor who studies sustainable farming at purdue university in indiana, puts it in stark terms: “growing corn and soybeans exclusively in the midwest is not sustainable in the long run,” she said in a january magazine interview. “as the climate continues to change, corn is not expected to yield very well in this area.”

dennis todey, director of the midwest climate hub, a usda research center in ames, iowa, says the main reason for the corn belt’s agricultural productivity is regular rainfall during the summer. this rain can make up for a lack of regional irrigation, when corn and soy need it most in the growing season.

“if we start to move to where we are more frequently drier in the summertime, then corn and soybean yields will likely suffer,” todey said.

prokopy said that this is the time for corn belt row-croppers to plan for the future of their farms. “i would tell them to start thinking about transitioning now,” she said.

the change of business models was not a light lifestyle decision for payne. it was a big risk, a commitment to his children’s future on the farm and the health of the mississippi river basin. it was a chance to blaze a trail in his community and find future prosperity by looking to the past.

a cinching corn belt

corn-soy rotations take up 75% of the farmland area in the corn belt region. close to 90 million acres of corn were planted in the corn belt this year, taking up an area nearly the size of montana. that corn is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40% for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36% is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). so much corn is grown in the midwest that “corn sweat” contributes to high humidity. drive across the region, and the miles of leafy green blend together.

climate change is putting that landscape at risk. corn is notoriously fertilizer-dependent and sensitive to temperature and moisture changes. one report projects regional crop yields to decrease as much as 40% from early-century levels by 2055.

missouri, at the southern end of the corn belt, is a bellwether for a changing agricultural landscape. current projections suggest it will be harder to maintain productive corn crops in missouri’s future. a 2020 missouri soy report suggest missouri may be the hardest-hit midwestern state by climate change.

todey said the concerning projections have farmers looking for options. “i would say missouri probably is going to be one of the places where we’ll see that sooner,” todey said.

farm diversification is being held up as one answer. diversification is the process of adding additional cash crops, livestock, or other income sources to one’s land. farmers might add a few acres of pecan trees to go with a cattle operation, or add tomatoes and chickens to cornfields. farmers also might double-crop wheat and soybeans, or add winter wheat to a corn-soy annual rotation.

prokopy was given a $10 million usda-nifa grant in october of 2021 to lead study on-farm diversification as a climate solution for the corn belt. her five-year research project will evaluate alternative farming systems, three-crop rotations, and their environmental impacts for midwest farms. her emphasis will be on farms in illinois, indiana, and iowa.

the usda is pumping an additional $1 billion into climate-resilient agriculture over the next five years. in february, u.s. agriculture secretary tom vilsack rolled out the partnership for climate smart commodities program in jefferson city. the program is designed to finance partnerships between government and community institutions for “climate-smart commodity” projects. projects eligible for funding include alternative crop market development.

“when you talk to farmers about diversification, they’ll often say, ‘well, that’s what my grandfather used to farm,’” prokopy said. and of course, the original inhabitants of this land practiced diversified agriculture too, she said.

diversified farms often use less chemical fertilizer, land and fuel than conventional farms. the model also offers prospects of improved profits, robust local food security, new jobs and economic resiliency in a changing climate.

“diversifying across a larger set of crops helps to spread the risk,” said sarah lovell, director of the mu center for agroforestry. “so [farmers are] not all reliant on conditions required by one certain crop.”

a seed of change

with diversification, the payne family is, in a way, returning to its roots.

josh’s grandfather charlie payne bought the family land in concordia more than 60 years ago, pulling out a pasture and an orchard to plant corn and soybeans.

as a child, josh’s job was to pick up rocks and sticks in the rows as his father and grandfather planted seeds. “the work was literally symbolism for drudgery,” he said. “my family always said, ‘this is why you’re going to college.’”

after josh graduated high school, his father jon told him to never return to the farm. there wasn’t enough money to support him, nor his sister jordan, working there. josh payne became a high-school english teacher in kansas city.

but after jon died in a farming accident, josh returned part-time to the farm in 2010 to help 81-year-old charlie. josh loathed the monotonous planting season and the feeling that he was killing the earth with herbicides.

“i really, really just hated it,” he said. “i just sat on a tractor for hours.”

charlie regularly rebuffed josh’s ideas to change the farm by pointing out the financial risks. the family had bought into commodity agriculture. now, they were finding it hard to justify change.

researchers point out that existing financial systems serve to support monocultures. “we’re within a system that doesn’t necessarily incentivize using different practices,” said kelly wilson, assistant director of mu’s center for regenerative agriculture.

high input costs and risk of poor returns have discouraged farmers from playing with more diverse business models. haphazard government funding for alternative crop market development has also made it hard for farmers to sell other products. grain co-ops proliferate the region, and harvesting machinery is predominantly designed for corn and soy.

the revenue protection plans under the federal crop insurance system—which can cover up to 85% of a farmer’s projected income from yield and price decline—focus on a handful of commodity crops. multi-crop revenue protection and specialty crop insurance policies can be significantly more expensive.

“this (system) can go on in perpetuity,” josh payne said.

making change pay

what does it take for a farmer to make the leap? for payne, it was a health crisis, a massive storm, and a spiritual insight.

one day about 12 years ago, bored while on his self-driving tractor, payne began reading the book surprised by hope by theologian n.t. wright. the book rethinks the construct of heaven and bringing it about on earth. “it helped me realize that the things that we do should be a part of bringing about hope and healing and regeneration to the world,” payne said.

the book inspired payne to begin looking into cover crops, or crops planted to cover the soil and prevent erosion. he got approval from his grandfather in 2012 after a massive storm destroyed a beanfield and had success increasing yields with the system.

life handed him a new challenge in 2020. payne discovered he was severely allergic to a common herbicide and petroleum-based fertilizers. it was an untenable situation for a conventional farmer. “it was either go back to teaching or change the way we farm completely,” payne says.

in response, payne began working on a plan for a regenerative sheep-and-chestnut farm – leading to where he is today.

payne has become a convert, speaking at conferences about diversified farming. farmers often ask him: does it pay? just two years into his new system, payne said his margins are similar to what he had before with row crops. he earns a good profit from his livestock with lower costs than with row crops. he stands to gain as much as $6,000 per acre once the chestnut trees mature. payne rents out the remaining 300 acres to a neighbor.

the farm currently supports two full-time jobs, and payne hopes to add another 10 positions as he does his part in restoring the rural economy.

“when you get down to net profit, we’re doing better than we did in row crops,” payne said.

planning the future of corn

not everyone believes farmers will need to consider such drastic changes.

ray massey, an mu professor and agricultural economist, said he is skeptical of an impending row crop climate crisis. he argued most climate models “are more pessimistic than they need to be” because they account only for worst-case scenarios, and not for technological advances like new genetics or high-tech precision planters.

jay schutte, president of the missouri corn growers association, said that climate change effects have been incremental and that corn can adapt. he also said that genetically-modified corn seeds are more resistant to climate change than they’ve ever been.

for example, dupont pioneer, syngenta, and bayer have developed seeds for increased extreme weather tolerance and nitrogen efficiency. bayer will be commercially testing its short-stature corn in 2023, which grows to only two-thirds the size of conventional corn and is expected to enable better efficiency and extreme weather resilience.

while climate change is a concern, schutte said farmers should keep growing corn because there’s a market for it.

“if i’m not paying my bills, i’m not going to be a farmer,” schutte said. “it’s just that simple. and corn and soybeans pay my bills.”

at the missouri maize center, a multidisciplinary plant biology group, usda corn geneticists norman best and jacob washburn are exploring tools like predictive crop modeling, double haploid induction and crispr gene-editing technology to design the corn of tomorrow. yet solutions will be pressed between the pace of climate change and the time needed for adaptive plant breeding.

“for the foreseeable future, i think corn is still the answer,” said best. “but i mean, we still don’t know exactly how fast and quick this climate is going to change that.”

prokopy said technology advances don’t eliminate the need for broad-scale change.

“technology is part of the solution, and we will keep growing corn and soybeans,” prokopy said. “but there’s so much about climate change that we can’t predict. and if the only outcome of climate change was that our temperatures go up a little bit every year, that we can plan for, right? but it’s these extreme weather events that we can’t plan for.”

washburn said intelligent choices will have to be made about what to plant and where.

“i think we can make corn that will grow and do well in pretty much any climate in the world. as of now, we’re always going to need to,” he said. “but there are also many other crops that can possibly do well in those climates. and maybe even do better in some cases.”

rethink our food, regrow the land

making choices is exactly what payne is doing.

speeding through the pasture on his four-wheeler, he radiates an infectious hope as he gestures to a row of plots. he explains he is developing a horticultural “forest” of native missouri fruit and nut trees. his sister jordan plans to build an apiary that houses pollinators while selling honey. his daughter reina will be helping to get their hog operation up and running this coming autumn.

and after more than a decade away from the family farm, jordan, josh, josh’s wife larin, and their three children have all returned to work with 93-year-old charlie payne.

“i think grandpa is really proud that we decided to come back to the farm,” jordan said. “it’s something that gets him choked up.”

while he knows not everyone would want to make wholesale changes like he did, josh payne says farmers should consider at least a gradual shift towards more diverse crops. after years of doubt, the operation has reinvigorated payne’s faith.

“growing up in a conservative christian tradition, the goal of everything was to get to heaven,” he said. “[but] maybe what we’re supposed to do is work out our own little spot, and bring about heaven here. that’s a complete paradigm shift. then, everything matters.”

“it looks just like this,” fresno rueda said, displaying the spinach smoothie at her workbench.  

the belly of the beast: studying bison gut bacteria

on the ranch, home to the turner institute for ecoagriculture, fresno rueda is studying the nutrient-processing genetics of bacteria in bison rumen. the rumen is the largest compartment of the bison’s gut. it contains bacterial colonies in its fluid, which break down the animal’s natural diet of prairie grasses and vegetation. 

a symbol of america’s past, the bison is gaining interest from livestock researchers as they look toward a future of declining grassland. 

since the turn of the century, extreme heat and lacking rainfall have ravaged the great plains. as of late september, 50% to 80% of pasture and rangeland in the plains is rated poor- to very poor-quality as a result of drought. two-thirds of regional cattle ranchers have reported selling parts of their herd due to inadequate feed, according to an american farm bureau survey. 

bison, meanwhile, demonstrate a unique resilience to climate change’s effects on their diet. 

the animal belongs to a family of herbivorous mammals with multi-part stomachs, known as ruminants. cows, sheep, goats, and yaks are also in the ruminant family. species in this family lack the gut enzymes necessary to break down grass and instead rely on internal colonies of bacteria to aid in the process.

bison are supported by the work of more than 116,000 kinds of bacteria, many of which are not found in other ruminants. researchers believe genes in these microbes allow bison to digest starchy, low-nutrient plants better, and maintain weight in drought conditions for longer periods of time.  

“they seem to not lose condition as quickly as other domesticated ruminants will when they’re on poor-quality forage,” said carter kruse, director of science and conservation with the turner institute for ecoagriculture. “we think there’s some key in the bison rumen that allows them to process this forage, which could have huge implications for how we manage the animals out on the range.” 

finding helpful bacteria in this rumen would mean a higher-margin future for bison ranchers, as they spend less on supplemental feed. it may also help livestock ranchers across the industry. 

fresno rueda said transplanting rumen bacteria between ruminants has been done in prior study. so finding a key colony in bison could help other livestock survive on nutrient-poor grasses for longer periods of time, as well. 

“if we identify beneficial bacteria, some of the things we can do with them are create products, or prebiotics, or probiotics,” the research assistant said. “it’s not just going to be for the bison. these will be for goats, and sheep, and cattle.”

a dirty job

according to fresno rueda, bison rumen bacteria have less than 90% genetic resemblance to bacteria from other ruminants.  

“we don’t really know what they are,” she said.

finding out is somewhat of a messy process. and it all happens in a white bison shed, the research team’s lab at mcginley ranch. 

inside is a maze of blue-painted gates and pens, with cut-up tire flooring and wooden platforms placed above them. on this mid-september sampling day, three bison had been wrangled into a holding chamber. they snorted and rattled barrier rails with their flanks. the shed smelled of manure, sulphuric bile, and wood chips.

a ranch technician led one bison through a corridor of pens with a flagpole until it arrived in the bison chute, a shipping container-like chamber. with the press of a button, the researchers applied gentle hydraulic pressure to hold the bison in place. 

at one end, kruse inserted a hand into the bison’s rectum for a fecal sample before bagging it and bringing it to fresno rueda. at the other, turner institute of ecoagriculture veterinarian tom bragg maneuvered a metal pipe into the bison’s mouth, before inserting a length of plastic tubing. 

“this tube is curved at the end,” bragg said. “so once we get it into their mouth, they swallow it, and it makes collection easy.”

on cue, the bison shook its head and olive-green rumen fluid flowed through the tube into a plastic bucket. fresno rueda paced the room with purpose, occasionally draining samples into test tubes and documenting them.

when work was complete, fresno rueda and kruse loaded their materials for a return trip to their lab in sdsu’s animal science department. they planned to break open the bacteria and extract the dna with a soap solution and high-speed test tube shaker. then, the research team would analyze bacterial dna chunks for their function. 

“right now, we’re just in the process of finding out what is there,” fresno rueda said.

while fresno rueda has two years left to complete her research, the promise of a viable probiotic is at least three years down the road. 

still, initial findings have the researchers hopeful for a more robust grass-fed meat market.

“if we show producers that grass-fed animals are healthier, higher-profit, and better for the environment, they will market it better as an alternative,” fresno rueda said. “it’s a win-win.” 

university of wisconsin life sciences communication emeritus, veteran broadcast journalist and a citizen of mashkiiziibii, or the bad river band of lake superior ojibwe, patty leow spent one summer visiting tribal communities across wisconsin for a book project. she would bring tobacco as an offering to each community, but found herself having to buy american spirit tobacco from the store. 

leow shared the irony of not having access to traditional tobacco while working at a university with a world-renowned college of agriculture with her then-colleague, uw horticulture professor irwin goldman. 

goldman and leow worked with the oneida nation to obtain some traditional seed and began growing ceremonial tobacco at one of uw’s research plots. they invited wunk sheek, a campus org that serves students of indigenous identity, to participate in the initiative as well. 

goldman said inspiration for the inter-tribal seed stewardship initiative grew out of this project. former uw ph.d. candidate and current horticulture faculty associate claire luby was instrumental in pursuing this grant. goldman and luby connected with the ho-chunk nation, assisting them in continuing their heritage corn strains. 

goldman said the project was centered around pollinating these traditional seeds, ensuring the strains remained pure as they grew and making sure all the seeds went back into the ho-chunk community. 

“what i definitely didn’t want was to keep any of the seed ourselves, it didn’t belong to us,” goldman said. “and in the process, teaching whoever wanted to learn from the [the ho-chunk nation] community about how to do the pollination.”

this sharing of knowledge and research that could be used to benefit the broader tribal community became the driving factor behind the inter-tribal seed stewardship initiative. after partnering with dan cornelius of the intertribal agriculture council and the uw law school, jessika greendeer of dream of wild health, rowen white, national leader in the indigenous seed keeping movement– the project began to bloom. 

ultimately, the team created a multifaceted initiative that included; a 9 month seed stewardship training program, the development of hort: 375 seed and food sovereignty in indigenous communities, a two-day ‘tribal farming 101’ workshop and an inter-tribal research garden located in the uw arboretum. they were able to secure funding for this project through the baldwin wisconsin idea grant in 2018. 

in a recent panel hosted by pbs wisconsin, cornelius shared how this project combined both traditional and contemporary agricultural techniques. 

“we’re not totally recreating the historic practices and ways of growing, but bringing some of the seeds back and looking at, how can we use modern equipment to more closely mimic a traditional approach,” cornelius said. 

this project marks a notable shift from research solely centering westernized agriculture, work goldman said should have been started long ago. goldman said as a land-grant, the research uw does is supposed to benefit the broader community. for decades this definition of community was limited to those practicing european-style agriculture. 

this expanded focus including indigenous farming also improves uw’s research, goldman said. many indigenous agricultural practices are actually more sustainable, disturb the soil less and require less inputs than european methods.

“[the] menominee, have a reservation and they have a very famous forest there that they’ve been curating for a long time. in the forest they have these kind of like egg carton indentations… and it turns out that is ancient raised field agriculture that is at least 1,200 years old and what they find in those is the soil after agriculture was better than the soil before agriculture,” goldman said. “imagine that, i mean that is just completely the opposite of modern conventional western agriculture.”

this more comprehensive view of what agriculture is was actually driven largely by students, goldman said. goldman conducted “exit interviews” with outgoing horticulture students, many of whom said they would have enjoyed the inclusion of a more diverse array of perspectives. goldman said integrating indigenous viewpoints and practices into curriculums makes classes both more interesting and “honest.” 

though the two-year grant has ended, many facets of the project have lived on. goldman said information from the seed stewardship training program is currently being developed into workbooks, the arboretum research garden will continue and hort 375 has been developed both into another class, hort 380. some of this curriculum has also been adopted for a first-year interest group, co-led by cornelius. 

the fig, listening to land: indigenous education, language, and foodways, was taught for the first time last fall. it centered hands-on, place-based learning with activities, including braiding traditional corn, preparing wild rice, cooking workshops and a first nations cultural landscape tour of campus. 

cornelius said this approach to learning has far-reaching benefits. 

“how can the university of wisconsin better support native communities in the state and beyond, and in the process how can the university help to support rural communities as well, because a lot of the issues that native nations face are the same issues that a lot of rural communities face,” cornelius said. “having the space on campus for these hands-on outdoor interactive classrooms, it also provides a laboratory.”

though goldman said these efforts are still very much a work in progress, they are already spreading outside the classroom. 

goldman said the uw arboretum has also been rethinking its history. the arboretum has long been lauded as the location of the country’s first restored prairie, a feat largely possible through their use of controlled burning, a practice used by indigenous communities for generations. 

goldman said the arboretum has just recently begun to recognize this history of indigenous communities and prescribed burning, as well as other contributions they have made to modern-day conservation. 

the recognition and integration of indigenous cultivation practices has been a slow process, largely due to decades with no native voices at the table, goldman said. the more indigenous scholars, farmers, leaders and community members are able to work with the university, the better uw’s research and overall education will be. 

“we’re reevaluating what our function is as a land-grant and it’s amazing to me that it’s taken us 150 year plus to recalibrate who we serve and why we do what we do,” goldman said. 

in other words, the use of data and technology can minimize financial and logistical barriers for food insecure households to obtain high quality food, which in turn can expand the potential for food sovereignty in local communities, raise nutritional standards nationally and embrace indigenous and first nations communities.

the green revolutions of the 20th century forced the industrial economic model onto the agricultural system, which resulted in the loss of seed variety, traditional farming techniques, cultural identity and a sense of home. (clapp 2015)

small-scale farms should have increased access to federal and state funds to incentivize regenerative agriculture, which is marked by an agricultural landscape with biodiversity that includes multiple income streams. monocultures are senseless because they are destructive to soil health of fertile agricultural land, overuse valuable water resources, and involve the use of toxic and dangerous pesticides and chemicals that harm human health. today, much taxpayer money goes into subsidies for monoculture infrastructure, such as corn and soybeans, over 90% of which are genetically modified and go towards livestock, not human, consumption. instead, there should be a transition to regenerative agriculture through a series of guidelines, public funding and tax incentives for organizations that help bridge the divide between conventional and sustainable agriculture. 

large-scale monocultures are inherently more vulnerable to supply-chain disruptions. in the event of another epidemic, local farms and community members can keep a steady food supply and establish safeguards to minimize viral spread. trucks can be routed from local suppliers to retailers by healthy employees, with mandatory and frequent testing rather than unnecessarily spreading the disease across the country. this way, there is not as much of a shock to agribusiness and large food suppliers that may already be struggling amidst this public health crisis. 

meanwhile, the trump administration proposed a 15% funding cut to the usda in 2020, partly through limiting crop insurance subsidies to small-scale farmers. in response, the organic farmers association has also asked for the 2020 budget appropriations to provide foundational funding for the following programs: national organic program ($18 million),organic transitions program ($8 million) and organic data initiative: ($1 million). 

there is $2-3 billion in conservation spending through eqip (environmental quality incentives program) and csp (conservation stewardship program), which subsidizes farm conservation practices, such as cover crops and riparian buffers, which limit the human impact on ecosystem health and provide much-needed natural space for wildlife and biodiversity accumulation. at the state level it varies, and in pennsylvania there is the annual conservation innovation grant which provides eligible farms with up to $225,000 for 1-3 year long projects, and $5,000 to $75,000 for single projects.

organic provisions in the 2014 farm bill expanded the mandatory funding cap on organic agriculture research to $100 million, $57.1 million to the expansion of organic farm certification and $10 million to technological updates. if the federal government were to pass a federal policy that drew a  $3-5 billion in resources to database capacity-building, hire staff and personnel for farm-to-community outreach and a biodiversity management department, this would kickstart an industry that is already valued at $55.1 billion in 2020 at this point in the fiscal year. 

there are sections, or “titles”, for conservation (title ii), research (title vii), horticulture (title x) and crop insurance (title xi), which outline where the funding is appropriated for programs and initiatives. in this latest farm bill, there is no formal codified categorization and funding for environmental justice, collective action, restorative justice, artificial intelligence/data analytics and marketing, which could accommodate some of the obstacles posed by the current food supply system by expanding bargaining power and providing communities and government with the tools they need to see effective results and catch up to other departments’ institutional capacities.

now is the perfect opportunity for public policy and national food companies to invest in local food supply chains to protect the health of their staff and the public, to increase the value of organic food and supply more resources and assets to community supported agriculture (csa) farms that are in desperate need of assistance or better yet expansion. even if the government and national corporations do not get involved, the economic trends do not lie: organic food sales are increasing by 20-40% around the world as consumers look for products that provide essential health services and boost immunity. while the organic food industry has increased in value by 12.2% in the past two years alone, some worry that a lack of infrastructure may prevent as many sales as there could have been otherwise. 

the most fundamental distinction to organic farming is that it approaches agriculture as an interconnected ecological system that emphasizes non-chemical solutions to fertility and production obstacles. while not specifically part of organic certification, it also tends to encourage mindfulness of natural resources in regards to biodiversity and energy, not to mention the use of age-old mechanical processes such as cover crops, green manure and sustainable procurement of compost. 

csa provides a unique opportunity for sustainable agriculture in that members subscribe (i.e. pay) a certain amount for the farm to function, and in turn the farm produces enough for the subscribers. this establishes a strong sense of community while beginning to account for entrenched gaps in wealth and economic security for all members of the supply chain, with a focus on underserved groups.

the history of our food system is based on stolen land from indigenous communities and forced labor, and that legacy persists today: 2% of farmers are black while 95% are white; and 2% of farm owners identify as latinx even though they make up 80% of farm workers. meanwhile, 8% of farms own 40% of american farmland. workers get harmed, systems prevent the oppressed from wealth, while carbon emissions via agriculture have increased by 9% since 1990.

there is a rising coalition of organizations, such as the national young farmers coalition, that demand reform and transformational change. nyfc strives to support a diverse array of agricultural operations, and to incorporate stakeholders that have suffered from systemic oppression, forced migration, slavery, jim crow, mass incarceration. the mission for racial justice must address access to land, food production and access and economic mobility. additionally, groups such as northeast farmers of color land trust and familias unidas por la justicia are worker-owned, community organizations that aim to decolonize farmland ownership in the united states.

there can still be a variety of options, however in this system people will not starve or go hungry or face medical consequences due to lack of access, especially during a global health pandemic. now is the time for everyone to take a second look at csa farms and regenerative agriculture as a catalyst of economic growth and health.