In Blue Earth County, Minnesota, farmer Kristin Duncanson and her family run a large, conservation-minded hog, corn and soybean operation.
A proving ground of sorts, the family has tested and employed regenerative practices on their land for more than 40 years. The key to their success? “A strong stomach, and a good lender,” says Kristin.
The health and productivity of this farm is a long game for the Duncanson family. Now in its fifth generation of operation, they believe regenerative practices have made their production not only more valuable, but more resilient. “Where we live, there’s a whole lot of water. At the end of the day, it really is all about water. Its quality. Its abundance. We need to keep the soil in place and not let it slide away after a heavy rain.”
Right now, about a quarter of their acreage is certified organic, allowing them to sell crops grown on that land at a significant premium. Across both their organic and conventional acreage, they use regenerative practices such as cover cropping, minimizing tillage and managing nutrients more efficiently. These practices have also helped them significantly reduce the chemicals they use on the land.
Achieving organic certification can be complicated, but their regenerative approach helps build healthier soil and reduce inputs across the farm. Their hog sites, isolated for biosecurity, collect manure under the barns, which is then injected into the soil as fertilizer. And the corn they grow? It’s sold to an elevator, much of which is returned as feed.
Farmers like Kristin understand that nature is a partner in their farm’s opportunity, not a backdrop to it. As a result of regenerative practices, their soil is healthier, the water is more controlled and they can spend less money and time on weed prevention, tilling, fuel and feed.
With the help of agronomists, supportive lenders and a near-obsessive eye for detail on every acre they farm, the Duncanson family has proven over decades that conservation can lead to greater security and productivity for farmers.
But for many farmers, the perceived risk outweighs the potential long-term benefits.
Family farms historically relied on diverse crops and livestock to maintain an operation, using nature as a tool to keep soil and water in place. But modern practices, including the federal crop insurance program, have dissuaded this diversity, instead rewarding valuable, exportable commodity crops, penalizing lower-yielding practices, and relying on rigid rules that treat non-traditional agriculture as a high financial risk.
Through farm field days, rigorous data collection and peer-to-peer work, the Duncansons are sharing what they learn not only with other farmers, but with national stakeholders through the AGree Coalition.
For more than a decade, the coalition has convened a broad spectrum of agriculture stakeholders – from farmers and environmental NGOs to commodity groups, lenders and policymakers to help shape a future-facing federal agriculture policy that encourages conservation practices that benefit the environment, profitability and resilient supply chains.
Described as a “safe place to talk about conservation,” the conversations have not always been easy, but the coalition’s diverse points of view and data-driven solutions have made it a trusted source of forward-looking, common-sense agriculture policy.
The Walton Family Foundation supports the work of the AGree Coalition as they encourage the use of farming practices that work with nature to protect communities from water-related climate change impacts, support economies and build long-term resilience.
Bev Paul serves as policy advisor for the coalition.
She says that farmers like Kristin, a founding member of AGree and a former Capitol Hill staffer herself, “have been exceptional in offering guidance on the real needs and challenges of implementing these practices on working lands.”
Bev was raised on a farm in Nebraska, where the rural landscape included everything from sorghum and soybeans to sunflowers. Most farms also had small livestock operations. Today, despite there not being enough water to sustain corn or soybeans, these crops dominate the landscape, driven by a federal system designed to prop them up.
This system, which has redrawn rural landscape into mile after mile of corn and soybeans, has left in its wake diminished rural communities and farm families saddled with increasing debt. “Farmers know there's a better way,” says Bev.
AGree is focused on helping farmers find this “better way,” helping existing federal systems like crop insurance become more supportive of regenerative practices.
“Increasingly, farmers are coming to understand that putting certain crops back on landscape is really important for soil health and diversifying markets,” says Bev. Not only does it lead to healthier soil and water, “it spreads the labor out over different seasons, creates more stable rural jobs for processing and marketing of diverse crops, and creates economic resiliency of growing different food here at home.”
In Washington, Bev says the pandemic illuminated another reality for lawmakers. “Our system is really vulnerable in a lot of ways. Sometimes things happen really fast, and you better be ready for it. The reasons for becoming more resilient extend beyond profit. We also need to feed ourselves.”
Bev says the mindset shift around crop insurance and conservation practices on Capitol Hill is so far AGree’s most meaningful legacy.
“In 2018, we were pushing serious boundaries even talking about the intersection of conservation and crop insurance,” Today, conservation practices are an acknowledged risk reduction practice when it comes to the policy conversation around crop insurance.
“It’s simply not fair if five inches of rain comes down in two hours, and the farmer making big investments to improve soil health gets no insurance payment while their neighbor who’s done nothing is compensated.”
Back in Blue Earth County, Kristin and her family are eager to share what has worked for them, while recognizing that every farm is different. “You don’t just show up on someone’s doorstep and tell them what to do,” she says.
Through field days, university trials, research plots and data sharing, the Duncansons are proving that high-yield, conventional farmers can adopt these practices while remaining profitable and more resilient in the face of climate change.
“Sometimes it would be easier to push the easy button, but we just don’t live like that,” says Kristin of their family’s commitment to conservation practices. “The returns don’t happen overnight, and it can be risky, but farming is a risky business. In the past 10 years we’ve seen huge changes in weather, rains that come heavier and harder, milder early winters that build in severity. Pricing, tariffs, overproduction, you name it. We like to say that you only get around 50 seasons to get this right. For our two sons, we are in it for the long haul.”
