Interviewed: January 24, 2023

Mike Chandler, Program Manager

Management Policy: IDNR’s agriculture program is governed by internal policies,which often reference Illinois statutes and administrative rules. “They’re all kind of intertwined,” says Mike Chandler. “If you change one, you’ve got to make sure it’s allowable in the other. As the program has grown over the years and as agriculture has changed with regenerative farming and other things that we’re trying to accomplish, it is much more difficult to change some of our policies.” 

For example, IDNR has discussed going with longer-term leases (even eight to ten years in length), but because the wildlife statute sets the maximum length of contracts at four years, farmland lease lengths are also currently limited to four years. So the statute would need to be changed before the policy on agricultural leases could be changed. This can be difficult and slow to accomplish. 

Agriculture vs. Conservation?: “A few years ago, there was discussion of eliminating agriculture within IDNR,” says Mike Chandler. “Of course, we’re farming these fields that could have 40, 50, 60 acres of nice prairie that grassland birds would use. We also have to look at the other side. Unfortunately, the state is strapped economically and also physically in terms of staffing. If you look at a lot of our state sites, they’re overwhelmed with honeysuckle in the timber and prairies with autumn olive and Chinese lespedeza and all kinds of invasives. It gets to a point where you’ve lost everything that you’ve planted. Agriculture can be utilized really well for wildlife management, in my opinion, because if it’s spatially distributed across the landscape the way it should, it’s going to benefit wildlife.” 

Farmer Relationships: The IDNR promotes a decentralized approach in managing farmland. The IDNR empowers its district biologists to implement conservation efforts and manage sites customized to the unique conditions of each site, including decisions on buffer size, buffer locations, and cropping. The district biologists also determine  when the first cutting can be taken on hay fields, which is driven by whether a site is, for example, being managed for bobolink or quail. This allows for farming practices tailored for a particular context and for relationships to be developed as farmers engage with IDNR staff who have the power to make key decisions and who are knowledgeable of local constraints, concerns, opportunities, and sentiments. The IDNR also promotes an iterative approach to implementing new policies and restrictions. IDNR staff find this allows for stakeholders’ voices to be heard and allows for a collaborative working relationship. 

In general, IDNR staff put alot of energy into communication with and listening to their tenant farmers. “There’s more than one way to do things,” says Chandler. “We want to have a good relationship with them and make it comfortable for our farmers to call and discuss things.”

“I often tell our tenants,” says Chandler, “that our main goals in managing our state sites is looking out for the resource and use of the resource by our constituents, whether that’s hunting, bird watching, or fishing. But at the same time, we want our tenants to make money. It’s a partnership. So how can we help each other out?  I think if we do that we get better tenants, and in the process, we can learn from them. Then, hopefully, they’ll work with us, trying our new practices, such as our cover crops that we’re implementing now. Neither one of us is perfect. So we learn as we go and help each other as we go.” 

On Leasing: The IDNR usually acquires land that is next to existing IDNR lands. Acquisitions can happen quickly and with only short notice for the IDNR agricultural team, preventing them from having sufficient time to plan and assess how to best manage that land before a new lease is drawn up. As a result, assuming the district biologist wants the farmland to continue to be farmed, IDNR will often start up with a standard four-year lease with corn and beans. Over the course of that initial lease, the district biologist will get to know the property better and then put in place changes in the farming system (installations of field buffers, etc.) for that property when the next lease starts. When putting land up for lease, IDNR uses an online procurement platform called BidBuy through which farmers can learn which properties will be available for leasing and can make their actual bids. They also advertise new leases in local newspapers and, with the help of the IDNR communications team, they have also begun to use social media to put out the word as well. Once they have put the lease up to bid, IDNR holds a bid meeting where all interested parties have the opportunity to learn about the details at the same time. There are strict rules on how IDNR staff manage all aspects of the bid process.

On Farm Conservation Practices: The IDNR aims to be the leader in conservation in the state and expects to be undertaking more experimentation with regenerative farming practices in coming years. 

“I think the atmosphere within IDNR now is positive,” says Chandler. “It’s exciting. That’s one of the reasons I’m still here. I’ve been eligible to retire for a couple of years now. I keep pushing it off, because I like the direction we’re going. I think we are moving in the right direction. We have support.” 

This will be the first year for IDNR to have cropping plans that require cover crops. IDNR knows they have some farmer-tenants who are very excited and ready to go with using cover crops. There are also tenants who are convinced cover crops will not work. Site superintendents and the district biologists will check if cover crops were or were not planted in accordance with plans. As part of the leases with farmers, IDNR also requires farmers to supply IDNR with information about the different seeds that they plant. “We want to see the seed tags,” says Mike Chandler. 

In the past, little systematic monitoring and data collection was possible, because of very limited staff capacity committed to management of the IDNR’s farmland holdings. However, the program now has two full-time staff plus administrative staffing capacity. This is allowing the two agriculture-focused staff to start implementing regenerative policies and soil testing. The additional capacity opens the door to allocating more resources to grazing, data collection, and analysis as well. 

IDNR staff also want to move all soil monitoring data to digital storage for easier analysis. They are hoping to partner with the University of Illinois – Springfield (where IDNR’s headquarters are located), which has an internship program through which its students serve government agencies and help them solve problems with the expertise the students have gained at the university. IDNR hopes to have a student pursuing a master’s degree in computer science to sign on to address the IDNR’s soil test data records and to set up a system for collecting, holding, and enabling access to soil testing data from properties from around the state.

IDNR previously had a number of grazing leases but put grazing on pause across most of the system  because of the impacts of overgrazing. There is interest in starting to graze more widely again, especially in light of seeing what the state of Missouri has been doing on their public lands. IDNR does feel that it needs to get a better idea of how to manage grazing for wildlife. Patch grazing is of particular interest, potentially at two of IDNR’s large grassland sites (Pyramid State Park and Jim Edgar Panther Creek). Both sites are being managed for bobwhite quail, and Chandler expects they would respond well to patch burn grazing. Infrastructure is a challenge, however, as there would be a need for fencing. On the few grazing leases that still exist, IDNR has modified them to make them better for wildlife, including requiring interseeding and fencing off areas where cattle were getting into streams. In the short-term, IDNR will prioritize getting cover crops implemented widely across its land.  

Field Buffers: A majority of IDNR sites have some kind of field buffers in place at the edge of farm fields, which were usually planted to grasses when originally installed and were primarily designed for wildlife habitat. A particular highlight was when the IDNR purchased the Jim Edgar Panther Creek property. The property had fields that were over 100 acres of uninterrupted row cropping. Now, thanks to work done over the years, the biggest field there is, at largest, 70 acres in size. John Cole, the upland biologist at the time (1999), developed the buffer designs for the site with quail habitat in mind. While there were deviations from his plans due to limitations around staffing, finances, and equipment, significant progress was made. Field buffer strips next to timber or established natural cover were 33 feet wide, and the field borders dividing the larger fields were 66 feet wide. There have been deviations from the plan due to site staffing, financial restraints and equipment. Some were planted to a warm season mix, and some planted to a cool season mix. Maintenance of field buffers has been a challenge in the IDNR system, due to capacity limitations as well. 

Hay: IDNR doesn’t have one set standard on how hay fields are managed due to the fact that district biologists have considerable autonomy in how they manage each site, including the agricultural lands, in a way that is appropriate for the natural resources needs of the site. At one site, for example, there is a good population of bobolinks, so the district biologist sets the hay cutting date to allow the bobolinks to successfully fledge bobolink young. At another site, quail are the birds of highest priority, and the cutting system is tailored for the needs of the quail. In some cases, there may even be hay cutting in the midst of nesting season so that the habitat during brood rearing season for particular birds is more favorable than it would be if cutting was delayed. 

Chemical Management: The decision to address neonicotinoid use in treated seeds  was based on IDNR’s review of the research that documented the negative impacts of the pesticide on pollinators. The IDNR has initially only prohibited neonicotinoids on soybeans, because non-treated alternatives are readily available to farmers. IDNR has, however, postponed the implementation of a prohibition on treated corn seed until it is more easily accessible on open markets. In addition, securing untreated corn seed could also be nearly impossible for farmers in cases where issues on the IDNR side in terms of its lease signing process delay the finalization of those leases until quite close to planting windows. Specifically, the current lease process calls for IDNR to finalize lease agreements by March 1st of the year in which farming will begin. This is already late in the season, and if finalization can not be completed by March 1st, then the farmers are put in an even more difficult situation in terms of ordering seed. 

IDNR staff will do field visits to verify that the soybeans planted by farmers had not been treated. In addition, leases also require tenant farmers to supply IDNR with seed tags for any seeds used at a particular property. This allows them, for example, to be able to tell whether soybeans used were treated with neonicotinoids.