LANSING, Mich. – A multi-faceted statewide effort to improve Michigan’s soil and surface water moved into a third year this summer with new grants to develop 12 local farmer networks.

“The regenerative funding grants continue to be a reflection of how important peer-to-peer networking is around implementation of soil health and how farmers can continue to be good stewards of the land,” said Tim Boring, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) director.

MDARD administers the nearly $500,000 program which was first implemented by the state legislature in 2024. Several aspects, including that it is embedded within a state agriculture agency, were modeled after a watershed protection grant program that was started in Wisconsin in 2016.

Nationally, a 2017 cropland inventory conducted by the USDA found that approximately 109 million acres, some 30 percent of all American cropland, were classified as highly erodible land. In the Great Lakes region, wind reduction has been reduced by 44 percent, according to a 2011 USDA report, but about 2.84 million acres remain at a high need for additional conservation.

Michigan’s program provides practical and scalable tools to manage rising input costs while building healthier soils, improving resiliency and strengthening long term profitability for farmers, Boring said.

“We continue to hear from farmers that technical information exchange is a barrier to helping farmers improve soil health practices,” he said. “Sometimes the best tools are talking to neighbors, seeing it done in the neighborhood, a farmer-to-farmer level of information.”

Boring pointed to strong research correlations between adoption of conservation practices and where investments in networking are made. Statewide investments better position all of Michigan for the future so that all farmers will be able to respond to challenges ahead.

“There is also a drive here to improve farmer economics,” Boring said. “We know from soil health practices that a lot of these conservation practices can have some very important impacts on input costs that farmers are spending on a per acre basis.”

While Michigan is making inroads into higher value markets and positioning growers for long-term success, according to Boring, the state is looking to grow new crops for consumers who are increasingly caring about how and where their food is grown. The regenerative practices also have a positive environmental impact on water quality and soil regeneration beyond the healthfulness of food.

Among this year’s grant recipients were programs providing free soil health assessments so farmers can identify management practices to boost their productivity, the establishment of a training farm to tutor veterans in farming in partnership with the VFW National Home in Eaton Rapids, Mich., and a program to improve soil quality among longer life plantings like fruit and orchard crops.

“What energizes us most is bringing together a community of farmers who share a passion for regenerative agriculture,” Joe Hetrick, a farmer in the grant recipient Regenerative Ecology and Livestock Integration Collective, said. “It’s a chance to trade ideas, support each other, and invite both consumers and fellow producers to see firsthand how regenerative practices create healthier land.”

Laura Ackerman, Oceana County Conservation District manager and another grant recipient, agreed. To promote better networking her agency offered three grant funded workshops in July and early August all centered on soil and water conservation.

One promoted regenerative practices among smaller production farms in western Michigan. A second provided information on pastures and livestock.

“One of the core principles of regenerative agriculture is leaving roots in the ground all year long,” Ackerman said. “Farmers who pasture livestock using rotational grazing practices support this goal and reduce feed costs associated with raising livestock.”

The workshop also demonstrated cattle being moved from one pasture to a new section of another as part of a rotational grazing schedule. Along with a demonstration of cattle watering systems, participants also learned how to conduct their own soil heath assessment.

Her organization also conducted a workshop promoting the use of cover crops to preserve soil. Crops such as cereal rye are valued not only for holding soil in place, but also for nutrient retention, water infiltration, soil biology, and long-term farm resilience.

A 2022 Michigan State University study found that only 9 percent of state harvested cropland was planted with cover crops. Nationally, cover crops occupied 18 million acres in 2022, only 4.7 percent of all U.S. cropland.

“There are programs that will pay cover crop costs for farmers to improve soil health,” Lynda Herremans, an Oceana Conservation District assistance program technician, said. “They take the risk out and help explain the whole idea of how valuable regenerative farming is and will be.”

Herremans also pointed to fuel and energy savings from regenerative practices in her county.

“Although it may take time, and every farm is different, improving soil health has been shown in case studies to result in yield increase,” Herremans said.

The field day also included a demonstration of drone cover crop seeding over asparagus fields, the county’s leading vegetable crop. The drone can access the asparagus rows in a way no other device is able to.

“We’re trying to encourage multi-species, like crimson clover, tillage radishes, and hairy vetch with cereal rye to improve soil diversity,” she said. The West Central Michigan Research and Extension center and MSU extension hosted and partnered the field day in their research orchards and asparagus fields.

Meanwhile, Boring said he is still involved in his family’s corn, soybean and wheat operation in south central Michigan and noted that social media networks between farmers have been a major piece in improving soil health practices on his farm as well as the rest of the state.

 “These farmer network grants are kind of an offshoot of that in a little way,” he said, “and how important that peer-to-peer communication can be.”