Supporting Wild Farm Alliance with a tax-deductible donation is more important than ever before. Your donation will help farmers across the country create critical habitat for wildlife, protect precious water resources, and ensure the integrity of our agricultural lands for future generations. 

Learn about Wild Farm Alliance's accomplishments in 2016 and our plans for the upcoming year. 

Many things have changed over the last week. And while we prioritize our work for the next year, I have to be honest, there is a lot of uncertainty right now.

The cultivation of trees on agricultural land helps to enrich soils, maintain soil moisture and stop erosion, provide vital habitat for wildlife, as well as store carbon. This practice, where tree and shrub cultivation is incorporated among crops or pasture, is called agroforestry and is the center of attention in a recent study looking at how to reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture. 

As the days are getting shorter, leaves are changing colors and falling to the ground, and animals are looking for the winter resting spots, I think about how all of these natural, wild processes are connected. How the shorter days signal to plants to wind down photosynthesis; how the leaves falling fertilize the soil below; how hibernating animals slow their bodies' rhythms to conserve energy and make it through a food scarce season. 

Upcoming Webinar: How to Implement and Verify Biodiversity Conservation Activities in Organic Agricultural Systems

Click here to register for this important webinar on October 5th 2PM Eastern Time (1PM Central, 12PM Mountain, 11AM Pacific Time).

A note from WFA’s Assistant Director, Shelly Connor

I grew up in the Midwest and recently moved back to the area. I remember the fields surrounding my childhood home in the country filled with thousands of milkweed plants; watching the striped monarch butterfly caterpillars slowly inching up and down the plants looking for a place to transform; and finally seeing the emerging orange and black beauties encircling the fields on their way north. It was a regular summer occurrence. I looked forward to witnessing the magic every year.

Article written by Jo Ann Baumgartner, Wild Farm Alliance and was printed in Planet Drum June 2016 newsletter. 

We support what is beautiful and what we love—songbirds singing out their names, fat bumblebees busy sampling an array of gorgeous native flowers, and the majestic oaks towering over us—these species can and do live on farms. Are they what make a farm beautiful?