VIEWPOINT: Arm South Dakota farmers with conservation tools

Guest op-ed by Travis Entenman, Northern Prairies Land Trust

While people from around the country think of South Dakota as the home of Mount Rushmore, Badlands National Park and the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, we are at our core a state powered and defined by our farms and ranches. Agriculture is South Dakota’s top producing industry, generating almost $12 billion for the economy each year and supporting one in five jobs across the state.  

Unfortunately, the climate conditions that agriculture requires to thrive are becoming less predictable and more extreme. From the Missouri River to the Black Hills and the grasslands in between, South Dakota will experience wetter springs and hotter and drier summers, in addition to heavier blizzards, followed by rapid snowmelt.

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It’s a daunting reality that will require collaboration between private landowners and the public sector to ensure that our farmlands not only survive but remain successful for generations to come. 

As anybody who is familiar with farmers knows, they are not ones to lie down and give up – adapting is in their blood. Many are already buying into what is broadly categorized as “sustainable agriculture,” which refers to a variety of conservation practices which preserve the environment for future use. This includes tactics like cover cropping, crop rotation and no-till farming.