An effort to link farmers interested in learning about soil health with other farmers has grown to include other land management practices, such as agroforestry and snow fences.

The University of Minnesota’s networking tool, known as Farmmaps, provides case study information on each participating farm and owner, practices implemented and lessons learned when adopting new practices. Interested landowners can contact those farmers directly and visit their farms to learn more.

“The idea of the case studies and Farmmaps as a database was to promote farmer-to-farmer exchanges and networking,” says Dean Current, director of the U-MN Center for Integrated Natural Resource and Agricultural Management. Four years ago, Extension and natural resource specialists were exploring ways to share success stories about farmers who adopted soil health practices. They wondered why adoption levels were low for soil health practices, given that farmers who implemented specific management experienced reduced cost and increased productivity. They noted that trainings and presentations only go so far. The next step, they figured, was to pull together case studies to tell individual stories and to make them available online — with permission first from participating farmers.

“Farmers like to hear from their peers what works and what does not, and what they have done to make changes to the systems to make them suit their specific needs,” Current says.

Farmmaps provides a one- to two-page PDF on each case study and a link to a Google map to get directions to the farm. Check it out at farmmaps.umn.edu.

MnDOT involvement

The Minnesota Department of Transportation recently tapped into Farmmaps when staff were looking for ways to expand communication and participation in its living snow fence program. The program provides financial incentives to eligible property owners to either leave standing or piled crops in fields, or to install living snow fences.

Minnesota spends close to $100 million annually on snow equipment and maintenance, de-icing material and labor to clear snow and ice from the roads.

A farmer considering adopting a snow fence can go online to Farmmaps and learn what other farmers have done. They can learn more about it from a farmer-landowner perspective — not just from the agency or Extension perspective, Current says.

“MnDOT can save significant amounts of money with fences by lowering winter maintenance costs, especially during major snow events while they keep roads open and improve public safety,” he adds. “One of the neat things about snow fence cases is that MnDOT has included drone footage that demonstrates how the snow fence captures and holds snow.”

Learn more about the living snow fence program at dot.state.mn.us/environment/livingsnowfence.