Interviewed: January 27, 2023

Mary C. Anderson, Grazing and Conservation Agriculture Specialist

Management Policy: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ (WDNR) Farming Agreements and Policy Guidance Document guides the WDNR’s leasing framework for all kinds of farming types. When Mary joined the WDNR, that document had not been updated since 2014. In her second year at WDNR, Mary was asked to review the document in collaboration with the public lands specialist. They proceeded to do so in a thorough manner. They confirmed which statutes were relevant to WDNR’s leasing program and also had a legal analysis done to make sure the document incorporated all of the relevant Wisconsin statutes, rules, and policy guidance. Mary and her colleagues also added language and rules that would assure that the farming done on Wisconsin public land is done at the highest level of conservation recognized by Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and WDNR conservation knowledge. 

As an example, farmers must have a conservation plan in place if they are going to manipulate soil. Under the newly revised Farming Agreements and Policy Guidance Document, farmers are also required to get a nutrient management plan if they will be applying fertilizer or other mineral inputs. There is also a whole new section on cover cropping and a neonicotinoid prohibition policy for any crop, with a five-year grandfathered transition allowance so that existing lease agreements would continue to be honored as they had been originally written. The only exception is if the field in question is in an area of high frequency use by the rusty patch bumblebee or Karner Blue butterfly. In that case, the cessation of neonicotinoid use would be enforced in the following growing season.  

As far as the Department’s stance towards agricultural lands, the WDNR has far more land that needs management than the WDNR has capacity for providing. The question then becomes what is the right approach towards agricultural lands. One possibility would be to seed everything down to some kind of perennial cover and mow or burn it. Another possibility is to convert it all to woody cover. But keeping the land in agriculture generates income and maintains good relationships in local communities, where there has been the perception that all the WDNR cares about is enforcing compliance. In addition, the revenue generated from agriculture goes directly to habitat management on the landscape. Because of the revisions to the Farming Agreements and Policy Guidance Document, the WDNR now gets greater revenue from its lease contracts, which further enhances the benefits of keeping some land in agriculture. When the WDNR doesn’t charge a farmer for cutting, bailing, and removing hay, the WDNR now finds a way for the farmer to return the favor with some kind of strategic cutting on another property as an in kind contribution to habitat management. 

Information Management: The WDNR has recently redesigned one of the data management systems – Land Management System – they use so it would communicate more easily with the other property data system they use, which is the Wisconsin Forest and Field  Inventory and Reporting System (WisFIRS). This now should, in theory, allow WDNR staff to identify a farm property layer, move that data into the Land Management System as digital information, and then create a contract for use with the farmer. 

“We’ve been able to update the Land Management System software package,” says Anderson, “so that you can bring in your field, identify your field, and put in soil sample data. If that parcel has been reported to the Farm Service Agency, there’s also the common land unit layer that will come in with the FSA farm and track number. We’re still working on this connectivity because it’s very difficult to get information from the USDA.” 

Soil testing is required whenever a lease contract is renewed or every three years. Being able to easily monitor the trends of soil conditions on its various properties is important to the WDNR, because the WDNR has tremendous capacity to build carbon in depleted soils through management changes. In fact, the WDNR has been finding that some of its farmland sites have dramatically depleted soils. This matters a great deal in a time of climate change. Management options can include transitioning a parcel to a permanent cover of cool or warm season vegetation in combination with some type of ongoing manipulation (haying, mowing, burning, etc.). “Working grasslands,” says Anderson, “have the greatest capacity to sequester carbon.” By contrast, land in the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) actually loses carbon over time because the land is often overtaken by grass species that build sod and reduce vegetation diversity. “To get the best sequestration,” says Anderson, “you need diversity.”

As part of lease arrangement, farmers must provide production reports to the WDNR. These detail what they grew (seed variety, etc.) and what they harvested (bushels, bales of different sizes, etc.). Farmers must also provide their seed tags as well as their additive tags and pesticide use forms. A request has been submitted to the WDNR Information Technology (IT) section to also create an ArcGIS Survey123 system whereby farmers can just submit reports immediately online after they have had their fields sprayed. 

In general, the WDNR has really good lines of communication with its farmer-tenants. Out of good communication comes good partnership and trust. “The more people trust in each other,” says Anderson, “the broader their teamwork can be to benefit both of them.” 

Lease Contracts: The language within the lease contracts is very detailed, and property managers can add additional specific conditions. 

As part of revisions to Farming Agreements and Policy Guidance Documents, WDNR also added a stipulation that if a lease contract in a one-year period is worth more in dollar value than the average soil rental rate for that county, then it has to be bid out publicly when the contract expires. This was done because there were places where one farmer might have the lease contract for one parcel for 10 consecutive years without any other farmer ever having a chance to bid for the property. Making this change ruffled many feathers, but it has made the WDNR farmland management system much more transparent.

Conservation: “We’ve also spent a lot of time educating staff about the most important habitat that we as wildlife and habitat managers have,” says Anderson, “and that is the soil layer. When you go to a wildlife-focused, conservation-type university, you don’t learn what the base of the entire system (ecosystems and habitats) is built on.” Some of the staff without soil education sometimes do not understand why taking soil samples is necessary. Anderson and other WDNR staff must then show them how foundational that knowledge is and how it can explain why certain restorations (e.g., prairie restorations) do not succeed because of the underlying soil conditions. When the underlying conditions are understood, then more effective management can be undertaken. 

Current soil testing tracks organic matter, phosphorus,potassium, and the micronutrients. They do not currently have the resources to delve into some of the soil health metrics, but the WDNR expects that to be added in the future. 

Neonicotinoid Prohibition: The WDNR bases its policies on agricultural chemical use on good evidence and scientific research. There is very good research that shows neonicotinoids are neurotoxins that carry efficacy through the plant’s life cycle, and they are showing up in the pancreases of deer and in the organs of game birds. There also are linkages to the dwindling numbers of bees and birds. 

The prohibition on neonicotinoid use with any kind of crop, including corn and soybeans, has not been an issue for farmers farming WDNR land. 

“I think part of that is because the farmers are linked in to me and my connections in the organic and natural seed source world,” says Anderson. “You have to know where to source untreated seed. You also have to understand a little bit about why the seed man that you’ve been using is going to tell you can’t get it and you’re gonna lose your crop. The ag seed and chemical world doesn’t really make a lot of money selling the actual seed. A lot of their profit margins come from the sale of the chemicals that are used on the seed. These are extras that may not be needed and you don’t even know if you have a problem that these additives would address.” 

Early on in the neonicotinoid prohibition policy launch there was a sticky situation in which a small grain farmer (wheat, barley, etc.) was using seeds coated with neonicotinoids because his chemical and seed dealers made him believe he had to use the product. 

Grazing: For situations where grazing is being considered for a site, local WDNR staff request that Mary Anderson come out to assess the site.

“With the site assessment,” says Andersion, “we walk around and we look at what is good about this site and what is bad about this site. Is managed grazing a tool that is in their management plan? Is it in their master plan? Is it in their local working plan to utilize managed grazing to do X, Y, Z on a particular site?”

Once the assessment has been done and grazing appears to be a good fit in many ways, then the WDNR must find a producer. At some of the sites, the WDNR has been lucky enough to have producers available who are doing managed grazing on their own. 

“Getting a solid producer who knows and understands the principles of managed grazing is critical,” says Anderson. “We have had a couple of cases where at the end of this season, we knew we were going to be looking for a new person and had the justification to pull the contract and start again, because we got a lemon. But in most cases, we’ve had very, very positive experiences.”

The WDNR prefers to work with farmers who understand that the wildlife principles they will be asked to apply in their grazing will be somewhat different than the managed grazing principles that they use for production on their own properties. Predator pressure, for example, may make it unwise for the farmer to have fresh baby calves dropping at a remote WDNR site. 

Infrastructure needs must also be addressed at grazing sites. Because of some of the working partnerships the WDNR has with neighboring farmers, the WDNR has been able to utilize some NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funds to put in the needed infrastructure in combination with a longer term lease agreement of between six and ten years. Of the 40 current grazing sites, four have had infrastructure put in with EQIP funds, and the others either had existing infrastructure when the WDNR acquired them or infrastructure was added with other federal or state funding.

In most grazing lease situations, the WDNR starts off with a one-year agreement with the option to renew to see if the relationship will be a good one. The WDNR is especially cautious in finding the right grazing partners where the WDNR built infrastructure for the site for a joint effort. “Those are only going to be with someone,” says Anderson, “who’s already demonstrated that they have the skills and the desire to work with us in a longer term sense.”

On balance the WDNR believes that managed grazing of the kind they are doing gives valuable, cost-effective benefits to the land that no other management practice would. 

“The work of Grasslands 2.0 is finding that the reintroduction of the large ungulates, the large grazing animals,” says Anderson, “does something to the symbiotic relationship between the grass, the soil, the microbes. The grazing animals are doing a little bit of fertilization, of course, but most critical is that hoof action. It crushes the plant and causes phytochemical reactions that tell the plant – “I need to grow. I need to fix myself.” There is some reference to that in Andre Voisin’s Grass Productivity. There’s something that happens, and it’s becoming recognized.”

Of the 40 sites with grazing, four are certified organic.

Organic Grain Farming: The WDNR has some fields that have been certified organic for corn and soybean production. During the transition years, the WDNR reduced the annual lease rate.

Leasing System: Announcements about lease opportunities are currently shared in local communities in a variety of ways. These include posters at local feed and seed stores, word of mouth, and bringing information to farmer meetings. A request has been submitted to the WDNR’s IT section to create an interactive web page that would allow farmers to easily see what’s available in their neighborhood.

Leasing rates for particular properties are customized based on a variety of factors. Calculations begin with consideration of the average county rental rate. Onto that is layered an assessment by WDNR staff of the particular property’s characteristics. Then the WDNR staff consider what they would like the farmer to do in terms of conservation practices. This could be in-kind services by the farmer. There could be bartering of practices and expenses. An example might be the WDNR wanting the farmer to try a particular cover crop and offering to pay for the cover crop seed if the farmer agrees. In the end, the actual rental rate may be lowered in exchange for what the WDNR asks the farmer to do beyond conventional practices. “We believe,” says Anderson, “that this all builds community because then we’re both invested in what’s going on. We want them to have a level of success while we use them for our wildlife and habitat goals.”

There are three levels of approval for lease agreements. The first is the WDNR staff person (the habitat manager) who writes up the contract. Then the agreement goes to the property manager (in some cases, that can be the same person, but not usually). Finally, the contract goes to the district supervisor.

Hay Leasing: The ideal time to have the first hay cutting of the year when grassland birds are in question will depend on the species of plants in the field. One approach the WDNR is experimenting with is allowing an early hay cut by May 15 and then having it rest all the way into the middle of August. This gives grassland birds a longer nesting and fledging window. The WNDR does not promise the farmers they will get that same early cutting every year, but in some years, they will likely get it. “Hopefully, this will enable either a late first nesting or that second nesting with a longer duration,” says Anderson.

Farmers cutting hay on WDNR land are not supposed to sell that hay. By allowing them to get early cut off, they are getting pretty good feed because it hasn’t gone into the reproductive phase. The late cutting can be used for dry cow hay which can be valuable for bedding.