What we’re doing at EcoSun farm is bucking a national trend. The conversion at EcoSun farm of corn and soybean fields back to native grasslands, healthy prairie and 30 wetlands is the exact opposite of what’s happening around us. Research shows that 23.7 million acres of grassland, wetlands and shrub land in the United States were converted to grain-growing fields between 2008 and 2011. Of the 23.7 million acres, more than 8.4 million were planted to corn, more than 5.6 million raised soybeans, and nearly 5.2 million grew winter wheat. Some of the most extensive and widespread conversion of grasslands to grain-growing ground occurred in South Dakota. In both Dakotas, more than 3.2 million acres of waterfowl habitat were destroyed between 2008 and 2011. Experts estimate that 1.4 million small wetlands in the eastern Dakotas, which are especially important for breeding ducks, are at high risk of being drained, and this could result in breeding duck populations dropping by more than one-third. Replacing wetlands and grasslands with crops such as corn has secondary effects, including polluting nearby rivers and lakes by eliminating buffers that filter farm runoff and by increasing the use of fertilizers and chemicals. From 1965 to 2010 the use of nitrogen fertilizer on U.S. corn crops nearly doubled to 140 pounds per acre, according to USDA. Without wetlands or grasslands to filter runoff, much more of those nutrients washes into streams, ultimately polluting waterways, destroying fisheries and increasing the cost of purifying drinking water.

We think that EcoSun’s approach to agriculture –growing perennial, tallgrass prairie without using inorganic fertilizers, and the infrequent and sparse use of biocides, and then marketing products yielded by tallgrass- is sustainable, ecological and profitable.