A vision and roadmap for the next generation of agricultural systems
Our Mission
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Contact:
Dr. Helene Murray
411 Borlaug Hall
1991 Buford Circle
St. Paul, MN 55108
612-625-8235
hmurray@umn.edu
Who We Are
Green Lands Blue Waters is a consortium of scientists, policy experts, farmers and community organizers from over a dozen non-profit organizations, six land grant universities, and multiple government agencies in Mississippi River basin states from the Upper Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. We have formed this collaborative in order to leverage and gain traction with our collective resources in effecting the systemic transformation in the agricultural system that we seek.
What We Do & Where
Throughout the United States and elsewhere in the world, broad landscapes are threatened by climate change, degradation, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Given the acuteness of these problems in the Mississippi River Basin (MRB), their downstream impacts on the watershed and the Gulf of Mexico, and the area’s importance to the US agricultural system and international trade, this region serves as a laboratory for transforming the agricultural system. The region is therefore the focus of our collective work through the Green Lands Blue Waters initiative.
Through research, education, outreach, and public policy, Green Lands Blue Waters is actively involved in developing a new generation of sustainable agricultural enterprises in the MRB and adjacent areas. These new enterprises are based on the adoption of economically profitable and environmentally sustainable perennial plants and other continuous living cover into the landscape. In so doing, the Green Lands Blue Waters initiative aims to strengthen the resilience and health of rural communities and the environment by increasing long-term economic options for farmers. We aim to serve as a model of positive agricultural transformation that can inspire and inform agricultural stakeholders and practices across the nation.
Back to topWhy We Do It
Over the past 150 years, farmers have converted nearly 60% of the 33 state Mississippi River Basin’s land area to annual cropland, making it one of the largest agricultural watersheds in the world. Unfortunately, annual crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat now grown on most of the land in the river basin pose significant economic and environmental risks to farmers.
Consequently, MRB farmers share many of the concerns faced by other growers around the world: 1) greater dependence on expensive inputs, 2) soil loss and reduced fertility of croplands, 3) nutrient loss to lakes, rivers, and streams, 4) exposure of farm families and communities to agrichemicals, 5) greater exposure to economic and environmental risk, 6) reduction in the adaptive capacity of agricultural lands, and 7) uncertain resilience to the impacts of climate change.
These risks to farmers include increased costs and generally more work overall to keep farm fields productive and resilient in the face of uncertainty. They also contribute to downstream insecurity in the supply of food, fuel, fiber, and water both in the watershed and the Gulf of Mexico where the river ends. This is increasingly the case in this era of rising energy and food costs and climate change.
Back to topWhat We Want to Achieve
We aim to transform land use and the adaptive capacity of the Midwest agricultural system through the research, development, implementation, scaling up, and promotion of ecological services rich, perennial-based enterprises and other continuous living cover.
The Benefits of Perennials and Cover Cropping SystemsWe will target specific watersheds in which the ecological benefits of perennial and other cover crops would have the greatest overall impact. The concentration of our efforts in specific watersheds will also help ensure that the levels and scales of production are sufficient to support new markets for perennial-based foods, fuels and biomaterials. Successful transformation of a regional agricultural system will demonstrate that modest, targeted investments can have significant impacts. Localized successes, in terms of the greater farm profitability and environmental benefits of perennial production systems, will serve as evidence that similar transformations can be made on larger scales and will stimulate development of new marketing, land use, and public policy (e.g., farm policy, carbon trading) strategies.
Mutual learning forums involving farmers, scientists and policy makers will help disseminate new information about perennials and other cover crop systems and will provide rapid feedback to these different groups about what works and what does not under specific circumstances. The proven new methods for expanding the production of these crops will create conditions for successful agricultural transformations in other regions of the U.S., and could provide valuable models for other regions of the world, especially where there are strong connections between agricultural practices, watershed health, and the extent of hypoxic zones in adjacent coastal areas.
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