A new program that promotes land conservation efforts through training sessions for female landowners will have its first three events this fall.
The Women Landowners Leading Regeneration project is planning to educate female landowners in the Midwest by offering training sessions and outreach activities.
The project is co-led by University of Missouri faculty member Olivia Caillouet. She wants the project to not only teach landowners about proper conservation practices, but also how they can be an active part of sustaining their agriculture, even if they are not the ones farming it.
“A lot of the land that's owned in the US is rented to farmer tenants,” Caillouet said. “We want to work with these [female] landowners to help them have conversations with their farmer tenants that incorporate conservation minded practices, like reduce tillage, cover crops, and how they can incorporate those practices onto their land when they're not the ones farming.”
Jean Eells joined the project as a trainer and will serve as a facilitator for the training sessions.
Eells stresses the importance of landowners understanding proper conservation practices. She notes that the sessions are designed to address long-standing land management challenges that the heads of the project have noticed.
“They can be very complicated, and it can help them solve problems on their land that some have had troubles with for decades,” Eells said. “They can help address erosion, gully erosion, other kinds of erosion on the land, stream bank erosion, water quality… the list kind of goes on and on. So it's a way of matching resources to the issues that people are concerned about and would like to address on their land.”
The leaders of the program have discussed broader aspirations for the project as well.
“We're really working with our women landowners to help them develop best management practices and really see those practices being adopted through their tenants,” Caillouet said. “Beyond that, we're really excited to see our women landowners start hosting their own women-learning circles in their communities.”
The project is expected to continue through 2027.