NFWF Grant Profile

Over the past several years, some innovative producers in North Dakota have started testing new practices on their farms and ranches to build soil health, enhance productivity of croplands and grasslands, and increase operational sustainability. These practices include using cover crops and integrating livestock grazing on cropland acres. Many North Dakota landowners cannot mitigate the associated risk because of lack of available conservation programs that assist with grazing infrastructure on cropland acres. The Cover Crop & Livestock Integration Project was created by providing cost share implementing soil health practices. However demand and technical assistance was much greater than staffing available. With the assistance of this proposal, DU will increase biological support delivering soil health practices while adding capacity with a new agronomist position to provide much needed agricultural technical assistance for landowners interested in these sustainable practices.