Publication

This paper opens the debate about the future of the upper Midwest landscape. It addresses options that can truly reinvent the agricultural systems of the Corn Belt, (coinciding with the Upper Mississippi River Basin) moving this area from one dependent on a grain economy with low economic returns and high nutrient and sediment runoff, to a more ecological based landscape containing nutrient sinks, especially for nitrogen, a legume base for supplementing nitrogen fertilizer, and a high level of management that minimizes nitrogen and phosphorus runoff to the rivers while supporting family farms and strong rural communities.