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Green Lands, Blue Waters

Contact
Rachel W. Hopper
College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences
411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Upper Buford Circle
St. Paul, MN 55108
hopp0045@umn.edu
(612) 625-8721

On the Web: http://www.greenlandsbluewaters.org/

Activity: Green Lands, Blue Waters

Geographic location: The initiative is basin-wide, although much of our current activity is focused in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Learning groups and other on-the-ground activities are watershed-based, such as in the Upper Sangamon River Watershed (IL) and Greater Blue Earth Watershed (MN).

Brief activity description: Green Lands, Blue Waters is a long-term comprehensive effort whose mission is to support development of and transition to a new generation of agricultural systems in the Mississippi River Basin that integrate more perennial plants and other continuous living cover into the agricultural landscape. Continuous Living Cover systems are agricultural cropping and livestock production systems that maintain living cover throughout the year, and their supporting infrastructure from field to processing to market to consumption. This includes those based on perennial plants such as trees, shrubs, grasses, and legumes, as well as annual plants grown in combination. The vision is to improve water quality in the MRB, increase economic options and profitability for farmers, improve wildlife habitat, reduce flooding potential, strengthen vitality and quality of life of rural communities, and enhance human health.

Primary goals or focus:

• Nutrient reduction
• Sediment reduction
• Agricultural landscape change
• Wetlands restoration
• Water quality improvement
• Policy development
• Research/development for alternative crops
• Education/information sharing
• Organizing/networking/coordinating

Projected outcomes/impacts, if known: Examples of Ten-Year Outcomes • Enterprise Development: new economically viable cropping options for continuous living cover systems, including new perennial crops and cover crops for use with annual crops; new commercial products from perennial crops; expanded market opportunities for products derived from continuous living cover systems. • Implementation: significant adoption of continuous living cover systems in the Upper Basin. • Ecological: improved nutrient management at the farm level; reduced number of impaired waters in the watersheds; improved base flow of water at the watershed level; reduced nitrogen loading from agricultural production at the watershed level by 30%; increased migratory waterfowl and neo-tropical songbird populations at the watershed level by 30% or more; shrinkage of the hypoxic zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico from its 2002 level and reduced impacts of nutrification on coastal food webs.

Activity type:

• Research
• Policy
• Education
• Demonstration
• Implementation

Scale of activity:

• Watershed
• State
• Basin
• Regional
• National

Lead organization(s)/organizer(s): Green Lands, Blue Waters

Other partners and participants: • Land-Grant Institutions: The University of Illinois, Iowa State University, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin. • Non-Governmental Organizations: Audubon Society - Upper Mississippi Basin Initiative, Iowa Farmers Union, Illinois Stewardship Alliance, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, The Land Institute, Land Stewardship Project, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Minnesota Farmers Union, Mississippi River Basin Alliance, The Nature Conservancy - Upper Mississippi River Program, The Practical Farmers of Iowa, Trout Unlimited, Agricultural Watershed Institute, Rural Advantage

Timeline/duration: 10 years (minimum)
Projected or real startup time: 2006-2007
Projected ending time or goal deadline: 10 years

Funding sources:

• Federal government
• Foundations
• Research institutions/University

Follow-up activities that will/might result from this activity: • Enterprise research: Evaluate and develop new plant material selections along with associated production, harvesting, and processing technologies to meet market needs; discover and develop new uses for products of continuous living cover systems; devise cropping systems to meet multiple goals-economic, environmental, human health and social. • Market development: Develop new and strengthen existing markets for products of perennial crops. • Learning groups: Develop learning groups of stakeholders in key watersheds in participating Upper Basin states. Learning groups provide a forum for learning, innovation, and integration of different types of knowledge among stakeholders. The learning groups will identify the most promising continuous living cover systems, help design and carry out research and demonstrations, identify barriers to the adoption of perennial crops and the use of cover crops in annual crop systems and propose effective means to remove them, and evaluate related Federal farm policy. • Outreach: Support implementation of existing and new continuous living cover systems and their corresponding practices by transferring knowledge, providing necessary contacts, and advocating on behalf of the adopters. • Assessment: Develop indices and measure the environmental outcomes on water quality, wildlife habitat, flood control, and nutrient cycling in local watersheds, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico; social and economic outcomes at the farm level and beyond; human health impacts related to changes in water quality, chemical exposure, healthy foods, and health supplements; and changes in stakeholder perception and action related to the concept of continuous living cover.