71st SWCS International Annual Conference July 24-27, 2016 Louisville, KY

1. Fostering an ethic of stewardship for farmland,
promoting sustainable agriculture and developing
healthy communities.

2. Our power comes from our 4,000
member households including
farmers, nonfarm rural
and urban people.
Policy and Organizing
Farm Beginnings
Community Based Food Systems
Watershed Stewardship

3. Chippewa 10% Project
• Broad based partnership
• Research and modeling
• Farmer and Landowner
Engagement
• Community Building
With our partners we are taking a
multi‐faceted approach to creating
lasting change in the way farm
land is managed in the watershed

6. Farmer/Landowner
Engagement Strategies

7. Farmer/Landowner
Engagement Strategies
One to one stewardship
values conversation

8. Isolated, feeling powerless to make changes
outside the dominant view of agriculture
?? How to get to a belief in our ability to
create the landscape and community we
want—to a sense of agency??

9. It takes a community to
cover a landscape
• Networks of farmers and landowners in a
learning community, innovating ways to
farm profitably with a high level of
stewardship for water, wildlife, the soil
and each other.

10. Networks: Cover Crops for Soil Health
and Forage

11. Grazing networks

12. Return of Grazing Through Community

13. Women Caring for
the Land

14. Building Community Linkages
Bioblitz

15. Tools for farmers
to use to assess
changes in their
soil quality

16. Cropping Decision Calculator
The Cropping Systems Calculator is available at
http://landstewardshipproject.org/chippewa10croppingsystemscalculator.

17. Conservation Leader Development

18. Have the
people doing
the project
tell their own
story.
The audience
will be
riveted.

19. landstewardshipproject.org