I attended the 40th anniversary Farm Aid concert event this past September in Minneapolis— my third. Farm Aid concerts celebrate farmers and agricultural life while also serving as samplers for a wide variety of musical acts. Between each musical act, large screens on either side of the stage showcase photos of farm life. This year, they highlighted scenes of happy farmers with their livestock, fields with crops and haybales, and just about every other aspect of farm life you can think of. Every aspect but one—among the hundreds of photos displayed, I saw none depicting wetlands.
So, what gives with the lack of wetlands representing farm life at the Farm Aid concert?
Wetlands are often unassuming landscape features—they’re the low areas on the farm where no one goes. Despite being incredibly important to the health of Wisconsin’s agricultural communities, many farmers are not aware of the benefits they receive from their unassuming wetlands. Wisconsin Wetlands Association is working to change that.
Our aim is to help farmers understand that wetlands are important not only to ducks and frogs and pretty flowers, but to other things they already care about. To farmers, these things include clean water, healthy soil, and safe landscapes. Wisconsin Wetlands Association helps farmers and all people and communities to want to protect and care for wetlands because they know it’s in their best interest to do so. And when they want to care for their wetlands, we work to make it easier for them to do so.
Here’s why this is important. Historically, Wisconsin was a very wetland-rich state, with 25-30% of our land in wetlands. This translates (on average) to a wet foot every third or fourth step. We’ve lost half of our historic wetland acreage, so we need to work with everyone we can to protect what we have left and get enough of our lost wetlands back to make a difference in our communities.
And this is tall work. Read one example here, about our current work with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The new general permit we championed is designed to reduce the regulatory burden for farmers, landowners, and communities when they apply wetlands as solutions to the water issues they face. Our goal is to increase the number of those who want to protect and care for wetlands and provide a way for them to accomplish this.
So, when there’s a will and a way established across Wisconsin, wetlands will be on all our minds, helping us realize a future where wetland protection and care become the norm across Wisconsin.
To us, this future also includes enough farmers understanding the importance of wetlands so that wetlands are included among the between-band photo segments at Farm Aid concerts as symbols of the health of agricultural landscapes. Thanks to your support, we’re helping not just farmers, but all communities, care for the wetlands of Wisconsin.
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