Making CLC Happen

• See GLBW’s Midwest Perennial Forage Working Group site!

• Opportunities: Midwest Bioenergy Crop Coalition – American Farmland Trust, April 2025

These materials* provide an introduction to virtual fencing for NRCS field staff, grazing educators and other conservation professionals.

All of these materials are available for you to use for free. We encourage you to use them individually or as a group. The presentation was designed so that anyone can review and deliver it. The pre-recorded webinar provides an opportunity to see the presentation delivered by the authors to assist others in delivering to their audiences. The webinar recording can also be used as is, to be shared directly with an audience.

• Press Release – Virtual Fencing Now Available to US Producers
• Fact Sheet – 1-page summary of virtual fencing basics; pdf format
• Presentation – Virtual Fence 101 presentation covering virtual fence technical basics, opportunities, challenges, vendors, costs, implementation considerations, and NRCS support; pdf format
• Webinar – Recording of the Virtual Fence 101 presentation delivered to a cohort of grazing specialists, state technical committee members and producers; includes a verbal Q&A section
• FAQ – Intended as a starting point for producers/graziers interested in virtual fencing to start conversations with their local NRCS agents, and with virtual fence vendors; includes a list of NRCS offices, VF vendor contacts and additional resources
• NRCS Virtual Fence information – Dec 2024
  • Fact Sheet
  • Presentation
• Virtual Fence User Guide – a series of factsheets, recording/handouts from webinars, videos, an FAQ section, and more from the University of Arizona virtual fence team, with additional resources from the Virtual Fence Working Group.

*Any and all references in these materials to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

One of the most obvious and important levers for getting more CLC crops planted in farm fields and across the landscape is markets for the crops. In between the farm field and a final consumer, there is often a complex web of interactions that can include processing, storage, aggregation, distribution, wholesale purchasing, marketing, and other tasks of value chain coordination. Across the Upper Midwest, an active network of GLBW partners and allies are working hard to create values-based supply chains for CLC crops. Centering farmer economic viability and community wealth building, this work is meant to create functional supply chains for crops while moving beyond the traditional transactional nature of supply chains — elevating the importance of relationships, integrity, transparency, and social and environmental components and impacts. A few tools and resources related to value chains for CLC crops can be found below.

• CLC Value Chain Case Studies. June 2025 rev, December 2024.
  • These three case studies highlight ways that Continuous Living Cover value chains have been advanced through investment from public, private, and philanthropic funding sources and in-kind contributions. The pieces focus on Midwest hybrid hazelnut processing, the Minnesota Developing Markets for CLC Crops grant program, and marketing perennial products.
• MDA funding for Developing Markets For CLC Crops. Updated March 2023
  
  • MN Value Chain Development Fund – In 2022, the MN Legislature approved funding to develop enterprises, supply chains & markets for CLC crops in the early stage of commercial development. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture announced competitive grants in early 2023 (link above).
• Growing beyond the research realm: Green Lands Blue Waters reflections on early-stage commercialization and farmer adoption of Kernza® perennial grain. December 2022
  • This narrative reflection chronicles GLBW staff perspectives on several years work with early value chain coordination for Kernza and offers lessons learned to inform future innovative crops and cropping systems. December 2022
• Celebrating 40 years – Kernza Perennial Grain in 40 Milestones. June 2023
  • This collaboratively developed timeline was created to spotlight and celebrate the past 40 years of integrative, cross-sector work on Kernza, focused in the United States.
• Shared values as we strengthen the food system through value chain coordination. December 2022
  • This graphic was created by Amy Sparks and developed jointly by a group of peer organizations building value chains for perennials and other crops that provide living cover on the farm landscape: Artisan Grain Collaborative, Forever Green, Grassland 2.0, Green Lands Blue Waters, Savanna Institute, and Wallace Center at Winrock International. It shows the shared vision of what we are collectively working toward with an aim for greater connectivity across and impact in value chain coordination work at the landscape-scale in the upper Midwest.
    

• Fact Sheet: Opportunities to Prioritize Funding for CLC and Agroforestry in NRCS Practices – GLBW, Apr 2023 
• Fact Sheet: Opportunities to Prioritize Funding for CLC and Perennial Grains in NRCS Practices – GLBW, Jun 2022
• Series of case studies sharing examples of farmers using Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) programs to implement continuous living cover on farm. Learn how these farmers are using EQIP, CRP and CSP to support perennial pasture, livestock, agroforestry, shelterbelts, perennial buffers and more.
• Report: NRCS State Opportunity Reports – GLBW, Jul 2021
  • This report summarizes GLBW interviews with state NRCS staff from Illinois, Iowa, and  Minnesota and includes highlights about building awareness, education, and implementation of CLC practices into NRCS programs.
• Fact Sheet: Examples of NRCS program support for CLC farming – GLBW, Oct 2020
• Paper: Summary of the activities of the GLBW NRCS Continuous Living Cover Cohort, 2018-2020 – GLBW, Oct 2020
• Fact Sheet: NRCS and the Benefits of Agroforestry – Savanna Institute and WI NRCS, Nov 2019
• Paper: NRCS Opportunities for Increasing Continuous Living Cover Farming Systems – GLBW, Jun 2018
• Fact Sheet: Recommended Actions to include Continuous Living Cover Farming Systems in the Environmental Quality Incentives and Conservation Stewardship Programs – GLBW, May 2018

Summer 2023: New technical resources for Kernza Growers! See the links below for a 2023 Updated Kernza Grower Guide and a Kernza grazing write up highlighting practical tips and economic analysis based on on-farm research on dual-use Kernza production for grain and grazing.

• • 2023 Kernza Grower Guide featured on the Grower Resources page of kernza.org. A direct link to the pdf can be found here. July 2023
  • Kernza Grazing Write Up. July 2023

November 2022 Update: GLBW and the Conservation Professional Training Program (at University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension) are excited to announce the launch of a training development project, Continuous Living Cover 101 – Building a Foundation for Early Career Conservation Professionals. This project is funded by a 2022 North Central SARE Professional Development Grant. Ultimately, the training will empower those working with landowners to increase successful implementation of Continuous Living Cover (CLC) in the Upper Midwest. A self-paced, online training will be created through this grant, delivering accessible introductory Continuous Living Cover (CLC) training materials that meet current professional development needs of early career conservation and technical advisors. It will explain CLC strategies and benefits and how they integrate with soil health principles, giving trainees confidence in communicating CLC practices to farmers and identifying CLC resources. Stay tuned for information on this future training!

For several years, Green Lands Blue Waters and partners have been asking questions like –

How can we help more farmers get the information they need to increase continuous living cover?
Who will be the next generation of technical assistance (TA) providers?
How do we ensure that those providers are adequately trained, and that funding and policy supports increased capacity for these TA providers to reach farmers, leading to the changes we want to see on the landscape?

We’ve been working hard to help answer these questions. In 2022 we created a conversation starter and basic information guide full of ideas and contact information for staff at NRCS and SWCDs who run training programs, and for others who share our goals of increasing CLC training opportunities for conservation professionals. All contact information has been shared with the permission of those listed; please reach out directly if you’d like to work with any of the listed contacts to give or receive CLC-related training information.

• • Partnering with NRCS and SWCDs to offer Continuous Living Cover-related training to staff. April 2022

We’ve also co-hosted small group conversations with Midwest Row Crop Collaborative and others on working with Certified Crop Advisors/ ag retailers. A summary of that work is below.

• • Midwest Status Update: Equipping CCAs/ Ag Retailers to deliver CLC-related farmer support. June 2022

Further background. From 2020-2021 we asked CLC leaders in our networks to help us answer these questions through a series of interviews, a 10 question survey, and a virtual post-it-note type exercise. We are using the term “technical assistance providers” intentionally broadly. What we are driving towards is what channels are currently or could in the future be effective in reaching farmers with good resources, information and skill building on CLC crops and cropping systems. You’ll find the synthesis of what we heard below.

• Continuous Living Cover (CLC) Technical Assistance Training Gap Analysis & Roadmap 6.1.2021

Throughout the spring and summer of 2021, a talented capstone team of masters students from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs continued this work through background research and a series of interviews with county-level staff, CCAs (Certified Crop Advisors), and soil health consultants and trainers across the Upper Midwest. Their work can be found in the report and the presentation below.

• Technical assistance for continuous living cover agricultural practices; Peters, Barrett, Stinogel 2021 – Full Capstone Report
• Technical assistance to improve living cover in agriculture – 2021 Capstone Presentation

Use the links below to access the Green Lands Blue Waters Continuous Living Cover Manual.

This manual was originally produced in 2015 with support from a North Central Region SARE Professional Development Program grant (NCR-SARE-PDP) by Jane Grimsbo Jewett and Sadie Schroeder.

Full Continuous Living Cover Manual (248 pages, opens in new browser tab)

CLC Manual Chapters:

Acknowledgments

Continuous Living Cover Introduction

Continuous Living Cover Practices

Continuous Living Cover Funding Opportunities

Perennial Forage in the Crop Rotation

Cover Crops

Agroforestry

Perennial Grains

Biomass

Cultivating Leadership

EQIP, CSP, and CLC

Integrating Livestock

Placement of Continuous Living Cover

Prevent Gully Erosion

Sensitive Lands

Stacking of Continuous Living Cover Strategies

Tools of the Trade

Farmer Profile Library

Farmer Profiles:

• • Brad, Sue, and Andrew Johnson
  • Fred Abels
  • Gene Schriefer
  • John & Beverly Gilbert
  • Kent & Linda Solberg
  • Pastures A Plenty
  • Prairie Horizons Farm
  • Ted & Gretchen Johnson
  • Tom & Irene Frantzen
  • Tony Thompson & Sonya Buller

Bibliography

Appendices

• • Basics of Contract Grazing
  • Pasture Rental and Lease Agreements
  • Evaluating Land Suitability for Grazing Cattle
  • Rates Charged for Contract Grazing Arrangements
  • Practices to Improve Water Quality
  • Income Opportunities with Agroforestry
  • Energy and Economic Returns by Crop Rotation
  • Long Term Effects of Crop Management: Profitability
  • Long Term Effects of Crop Management: Soil Quality
  • Long Term Effects of Crop Management: Yield
  • Small Changes, Big Impacts: Prairie STRIPS
  • Cost of Prairie STRIPS
  • Impact of Prairie STRIPS

Green Lands Blue Waters is involved in four current USDA-AFRI-funded Sustainable Agricultural Systems Coordinated Agricultural Projects (SAS-CAPs)

Grassland 2.0

Decades of research has shown that one of the best opportunities to build soils, nutrients, and carbon in agricultural production while providing farmers and society with profitable and productive outcomes is with grazed perennial grasslands. This collaborative project is working to develop pathways for increased farmer profitability, yield stability and nutrient and water efficiency, while improving water quality, soil health, biodiversity, and climate resilience through grassland-based agriculture.

KernzaCAP

KernzaⓇ is the trademark name for the perennial grain harvested from new varieties of intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium), a forage grass that has been used by farmers across the US for decades. As a perennial, Kernza is planted once and provides several years of harvestable grain and can also be used as a forage crop. Kernza has a deep root system that provides multiple environmental benefits, including improving water and soil quality and reducing soil erosion. KernzaCAP is about further developing and deploying this perennial grain to improve environmental quality and rural prosperity, as well as developing a blueprint for US agricultural systems to shift from annual row crop production to more perennials. 

RegenPGC

“Regenerating America’s Working Landscapes to Enhance Natural Resources and Public Goods through Perennial Groundcover” is a transdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers with a shared vision of making year-round groundcover on working lands the norm, rather than the exception, for Midwestern US agriculture and beyond. 

RCAP 

The Resilience Coordinated Agricultural Project is a collaborative effort aimed at improving resilience of agricultural systems by 1) discovering adaptive production and socioeconomic strategies that help shield producers from impacts of climate change and market shocks; and 2) encouraging adoption of perennials, diversification, and integration of livestock with forage and crop production for greater agricultural resilience from field to farm scales.

• Integrating Conservation into Farmland Transfers, 2020
• Executive Summary Integrating Conservation into Farmland Transfers, 2020