Iowa Farmers Are Restoring Tiny Prairies for Sustainability Boons

The little tracts of wilderness grow on Maple Edge Farm in southwest Iowa, where the Bakehouse family cultivates 700 acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa. Set against uniform rows of cropland, the scraps of land look like tiny Edens, colorful and frowzy. Purple bergamot and yellow coneflowers sway alongside big bluestem and other grasses, alive with birdsong and bees.

The Bakehouses planted the strips of wild land after floodwaters reduced many fields to moonscapes three years ago, prompting the family to embark on a once-unthinkable path.

They took nearly 11 acres of their fields out of crop production, fragments of farmland that ran alongside fields and in gullies. Instead of crops, they sowed native flowering plants and grasses, all species that once filled the prairie.

The restored swaths of land are called prairie strips, and they are part of a growing movement to reduce the environmental harms of farming and help draw down greenhouse gas emissions, while giving fauna a much-needed boost and helping to restore the land.

As the little wildernesses grew, more and more meadowlarks, dickcissels, pheasants and quail showed up, along with beneficial insects. Underground, root networks formed to quietly perform heroic feats, filtering dangerous nutrient runoff from crops, keeping soil in place and bringing new health to the land.

“We’re thinking about our farm as a small piece of the overall good puzzle,” said Jon Bakehouse, on a visit to the family’s fields one sunny morning earlier this summer. “On a larger scale, we’re all in this together.”