RCP cohosts a Learning Journey in rural Wisconsin for partners

Distinguished by its hilly landscapes, the Driftless Region in southwest Wisconsin is a hotbed of exciting regenerative agricultural innovations and rural thought leadership. 

The Rural Climate Partnership, in collaboration with Funders for Regenerative Agriculture (FORA), recently hosted a Learning Journey to the region for funders and collaborators to see regenerative agriculture innovations firsthand.

During two action-packed days, we visited eight sites across the Driftless Region – tasting pasture-raised cheese and eggs, touring an artisan mill that makes flour from perennial grains, and engaging in meaningful conversations with numerous farmers and rural nonprofit leaders. We were glad to feature the impressive work of RCP’s Midwest grantees on the tour, including the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship, Grassworks, the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition, Clean Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Farmers Union. 

Below are some highlights from the farm tour for those who were unable to join us in Wisconsin.

Brothers Michael and Frank Dolan are committed to stewarding the land and producing high quality, organic meat at Seven Seeds Farm.

Grazing for better soils 

At Seven Seeds Farm, seventh-generation farmers (and brothers) Michael Dolan and Frank Dolan are thinking about how to be long-term stewards of the family land. The farm looks vastly different from the monoculture corn crops that spread out in all directions at other farms around Seven Seeds. Instead of this, the Dolans have developed a pasture-grazing method that allows the cows, pigs, and chickens they raise for organic meat to regenerate the land and build back soil health. 

They also planted trees across their farm that help sequester carbon and retain water with federal funding through their local NRCS chapter and support from nonprofit partners like the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute. The 700-acre certified organic farm refrains from using any fertilizer, instead substituting manure from the livestock that graze the fields. That’s important because the nitrogen commonly used in fertilizer can be tied to increased nitrates in the Wisconsin water supply, threatening local families with dangerous chemicals. 

“We wanted to stop using chemicals on the land,” said Michael. “We wanted to produce our own food for our family and our community.”

Pasture grazing is important to dairy farmer Scott Mericka, too. At Uplands Cheese, he and his business partner Andy Hatch graze cattle that produce the country’s most award-winning cheese, Pleasant Ridge Reserve. The delicious flavor of their cheese comes, in large part, from what the cows eat and where they live: they graze on 600 acres of rolling hills outside of Dodgeville, Wisconsin. 

“I want to see nature do her thing,” said Scott. “I want to keep my farm simple. I just want to enjoy my life and keep my cows moving around.” RCP grantees the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship and Grassworks have both worked with Uplands Cheese to help them develop and refine their pasture-grazing practice.

Cows at Uplands Cheese leisurely graze rotating pastures in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

Stewarding the land and providing for communities

The importance of community was center stage throughout the farm tour. This was especially true in stories shared by the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition, a current RCP grantee.

Carolee Dodge Francis details the importance of providing healthy nutrition to Tribal elders across Wisconsin’s 11 federally recognized Tribes.

Over a locally sourced dinner prepared by Indigenous chiefs, Coalition leaders Carolee Dodge Francis and Dan Cornelius shared about how they are healing their communities by strengthening Indigenous food networks. Nearly one in four Native Americans experience food insecurity, and Tribal Elders are particularly vulnerable. Through the Tribal Elder Food Box program, the Coalition supports Tribal Elders as well as local native and non-native producers and small businesses across the state. 

Over 70 native and non-native farmers sell to the Tribal Elder Food Box program, which gives them a stable, regular market for their products, like fresh vegetables, fruit, grains, and meat. The Coalition uses these products to create weekly food boxes with healthy, local, and culturally appropriate food to send to Tribal Elders. In 2023 alone, the Coalition delivered 28,500 food boxes to Elders in all 11 of the federally recognized Tribes in Wisconsin. 

Halee and John Wepking of Meadowlark Organics are non-native producers in the Tribal Elder Food Box program. On our second day, we toured their grain mill and learned how they grow their grains with regenerative practices, buy grains from like-minded farmers in the region, and create nutritious flours right at their facility. Working with a small dedicated team, Meadowlarks Organics creates a high-quality that is good for the land and good for people. “What you put in is what you get,” said Mill Manager Wes Garner. 

Scott Laeser, Senior Working Lands Advisor at RCP, is intimately familiar with that concept, too. Scott and his wife Chelsea Chandler, the Climate, Energy & Air Program Director at Clean Wisconsin, operate an organic vegetable farm. With their two young kids in tow, Scott and Chelsea generously toured us around Plowshares and Prairie Farm. We sampled organic vegetables in their high tunnels and walked through the native prairie they have carefully restored using USDA conservation funding.

On just a single acre of land, RCP’s Scott Laeser and family grow all manner of veggies for their Community Supporter Agriculture (CSA) boxes.

Scott was instrumental in organizing the Learning Journey with FORA and we’re so grateful for his leadership in the field – and on our team. 

There were just too many special moments from the farm tour to capture in a single blog post. As a placeholder for these moments, please see the pictures below to get a sense for some of our other stops!

The Tyto Solar Project supplies energy to 1,200 nearby homes and provides the double benefit of providing land access and shade for a nearby farmer to graze sheep.

The Savanna Institute shares about the agroforestry practices they use on their demonstration farm where they grow native, perennial fruits and nut trees.