An agroecological approach to increased conservation and production on Midwestern grazing farms

Many Upper Midwestern dairy and beef farmers are adopting Management-Intensive Rotational Grazing (MIRG), a low-input production system that has been shown to enhance rural livelihoods and minimize negative environmental impacts relative to confinement operations and their attendant annual cropping systems.  While using MIRG restores plowed land to its native biome, perennial grassland, most farmers sow non-native grasses and forbs and manage for low diversity plant assemblages.  Growing interest in prairie restoration provides us with a unique opportunity to blend conservation efforts with agricultural production by integrating tallgrass prairie species into grazed pastures.  Potential benefits of this approach have agronomic (improved forage quantity and seasonal distribution), ecological (increased genetic diversity and ecosystem function), and social (niche markets, promotion of farmers as land stewards) dimensions.  We offer a conceptual model explaining factors that influence farmers’ decisions to undertake restoration/conservation projects.  To this model we apply results from a written questionnaire administered to 800 Wisconsin MIRG farmers assessing their opinions and motivations for using native prairie grasses.  Secondly, we present results from a field experiment that tested management techniques (combinations of burning, grazing, and soil amendments) for establishing native prairie species into grazed pastures.  We address the ecological theory motivating these management treatments and their ability to promote native grass establishment and ecosystem services, such as stimulating root production and nitrogen mineralization.  Lastly, we offer for discussion the challenges and opportunities we encountered by using an integrated approach and applying ecological theory to working agricultural lands.