Michael Fields Agricultural Institute

The Institute's education & outreach programs include conferences, webinars, workshops, field tours, and outreach activities for adults and youth in-person and virtually. The Institute's educational programs included virtual workshops (farmers' legal issues, farm management, grant writing, seed swap), working and collaborating with our local schools, colleges and universities and educating low-income youth in the madison area. All educational activities are considered as outreach to the community, students, gardeners, farmers, and other food related businesses. The Wisconsin women in conservation (wiwic) program also conducted several virtual webinars providing educational resources to women on various topics of sustainable agriculture and conservation. In-person learning circle events and field days were also a part of the education strategy to provide information to women on conservation, various resources available for implementation or adoption of conservation practices and providing technical help for the same. This program specifically serves an underserved population - women. Conservation educators of Wisconsin were also provided with opportunities to network and learn about resources available to them for professional growth and obtaining grants, through in-person events in different parts of the state, and through virtual meets. Through the wiwic program, more than 1200 women were served in 2022 in different parts of Wisconsin. Midwest grit (grains resource immersive training), another mfai education program that is grant-funded by usda beginning farmer and rancher development (bfrdp), enrolled 30 beginning farmers in a one-year educational program that's met at least twice monthly over zoom and included in-person field learning opportunities. The program included curriculum on food grade grain agronomy, equipment management, marketing, farm finance, and other topics. The program catalyzed adoption of small grains production among 10 producers in the program in its first year and has contributed to community building around development of a midwest regional garnished, enhancing local food production and marketing. Additional regional relationship building and partnerships have been developed through bfrdp programming, including non-profits such as renewing the countryside, the land connection, the land stewardship project, center for rural affairs, Michigan Agricultural advancement, agraria center for regenerative practice, and more, which strengthens regional farmer-networks and access to farmers support.

Mfai's public policy activities included educating farmers and others about the farm bill policy process, coordinating uplands watershed group in sw wi & holding 2 virtual field days on weed management systems and 3 in-person field days on 1) small ruminant pasturing approaches; 2) streambank protection and restoration; and 3) soil health practices; conducted workshops on grant-writing and using federal & state programs; distributed our guide to federal programs supporting sustainable agriculture; conducted outreach to farmers about fsa programming; provided free grants advising to more than 40 farmers and other potential grant applicants; conducted focus groups on 2 farm bill policy topics - constraints to adoption of small grains and constraints to adoption of perennially Agricultural systems, and successfully submitted paper to national conference on some of that work; convened a national group to assess societal benefits from soil health practices, resulting in completion and presentation of two papers at national soil health conference; completed the final year of the cover crops research & outreach project and helped guide its transition to a five-year soil health collaborative; launched the midwest farmers of color soil health network supporting 6 bipoc-led groups that help beginning bipoc farmers use soil health practices in starting farming enterprises; continued our cover crops citizen science research collaboration in Wisconsin; led successful wi legislative campaign to pass a bill to increase cover crops adoption; led successful funding of federal grazing technical assistance program, worked with usda on its implementation and assisted a bipoc group in applying to that program; participated in grassland project including coordinating a "learning hub" within sw wi with which we created programming to enlist lenders in grazing outreach and helped support programming to increase meat processing in sw Wisconsin; advanced farm bill provisions that support managed grazing, cover crops, racial equity, and improved conservation, cover crops, and credit policies; co-chaired conservation committee and assumed leadership position on governing body of federal coalition supporting sustainable agriculture policy; chaired nc-sare's hero awards program; collaborated to develop new structures to increase private & public funds supporting regenerative farming practices.

Mfai research continues measuring impact of ag practices on soil health & productivity through cover crops, no-till organic farming and conservation practices, economic resiliency & biodynamic practices. Mfai's work with cover crops educates the importance & benefits for protecting & enhancing the soil, reducing erosion, increasing infiltration & slowing surface water movement, increasing soil strength and to sequester atmospheric carbon to counter climate change. Also, new lines of cover crops were tried for evaluating their suitability and viability in Wisconsin. Mfai participated as a partner with the midwest hemp research team that was collaborating with uw madison, Michigan state university, purdue, and university of Illinois, and was successful in applying and receiving a usda nifa grant for varietal evaluation, agronomic practices and extension activities in grain and fiber hemp. Alternate crops that have potential for Wisconsin were also evaluated (mung beans, buck wheat, chickpeas, and millets). Millets have a greater scope in terms of climate resilience. Corn research continues to analyze & select breeding for high methionine & gametophytic incompatibility which protects organic hybrids from gmo contamination.

The Institute's farming systems activities included virtual workshops, cover crop & small grains field days. Farm and research field days took place as part of the Institute's research and policy program work. Technological tools and solutions to enable production of healthy food with the least amount of chemicals and environmental impacts, while maximizing the quality of food products and rural livelihoods is key information mfai incorporates in discussions. Included in the research program is work for the ccrop project, where warm-season annual cover crop species and mixes were formally trialed on mfai research ground. Four cover crop species and several combinations of species were planted and evaluated for biomass production, forage quality, and soil health impacts, and compared with a no summer cover (summer fallow), in three reps over 2 years. The cover crop year was followed by wheat in rotation to assess carryover rotation effects of summer cover cropping. Field work and data collection has been completed, and results will be compiled into a grower outreach document and a peer-reviewed journal article. The research program also includes a kernza-cap funded project evaluating different fertilizer management strategies for kernza, a new perennial grain crop. The kernza work also includes a variety trials. Kernza was established in fall 2021, with 26 treatments total being evaluated in 8 replicates. This work is part of a nationwide collaboration with over 20 different institutions and will continue through 2026.