ONEIDA, Wis. – “Land management traditionally has been perceived as a man’s role but the percentage of women landowners in Wisconsin is growing,” says Julie Peterson, a Pheasants Forever farm-bill biologist. “And it’s imperative we connect with them. Women learn well peer to peer; they communicate differently than men.”
Pheasants Forever is motivated to be a partner in Wisconsin Women in Conservation because, she said, Pheasants Forever is dedicated to creating a community for women to be dynamic conservationists. The organization is working in Wisconsin and across the country to implement its Women on the Wing initiative.
Wisconsin Women in Conservation is a new statewide collaborative effort led by the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, in partnership with Renewing the Countryside, the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, and the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
Wisconsin Women in Conservation is a three-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. It officially began in March 2021 with eight regionally organized Zoom workshops that enabled participants to network as well as to express their areas of interest.
Topics of most interest among those participants will be covered in a Conservation Summer Camp Lunch Series beginning May 27. The programs are designed to connect women landowners to experienced female conservation coaches and agency professionals. Two of Peterson’s colleagues – Britta Petersen and Carissa Freeh, also Pheasants Forever farm-bill biologists at Pheasants Forever – will be making presentations during the summer series.
Peterson met Patti Schevers about five years ago at a conservation-related field day. Schevers had been working with Julie Hager, a soil conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Brown County, Wisconsin. Hager helped Schevers source USDA programs she could use to establish grasses and forbs. Peterson’s role was to make recommendations regarding specific grasses that would work best for Schevers’ soil types, and to explain processes involved with establishing pollinator habitat. The work is an example of how women are working together to accomplish conservation goals.
“Patti is dedicating 90 acres to grasses and forbs and shallow wetlands restoration,” Peterson said.
Schevers is the fourth generation on her 100-acre farm.
“The original farm deed was in my great-grandmother’s name after my great-grandfather passed in 1922,” she said. “It then transitioned to her son and then to my father until 1997, when it returned to my mother. I’m proud to be the next generation of women to steer the property into a different future.”
The farm had been home to dairy cows, hogs, and later cash crops and beef cattle. Currently Schevers raises vegetables, herbs, raspberries, blackberries and exotic poultry. She recently started planting elderberries with hopes to make syrup in a few years, she said. And she may also eventually keep bees.
Schevers earned in 2020 a degree in sustainable agriculture from Northwest Wisconsin Technical College.
“I’ve decided to go the conservation-farming path,” she said. “My goal – with support and agreement from my mother, sister and aunt – is to transition the entire property into native grasses, pollinator habitat, wildlife corridors and pond scrapes for waterfowl. I want to use our little ‘block’ of land to be a place for our family to enjoy and nature to flourish for generations to come.”
She also wants the farm to produce diverse income streams, she said. She and her fiancé, Brad Berger, both work full-time off the farm. She’s manager of the Downtown Green Bay Farmers Market and he’s a herd manager for a beef operation. She eventually wants them to have a farm stand or sell at a farmers market.
She’s also considering hosting farm stays as an extra income stream. But that’s probably at least five years from now, she said.
“My goal is to keep the farm going and make my family proud,” she said.
One of her biggest challenges with establishing pollinator habitat is managing invasive species, she said. She’s following Natural Resources Conservation Service protocols to manage them, such as prescribed mowing and prescribed burns.
She hopes to host field tours on her farm in 2022, she said. And she’ll share what she’s learned, as a conservation coach in the Wisconsin Women in Conservation program. As a coach she first wants to help women be able to navigate all the USDA resources, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Conservation Reserve Program. She wants to help make conservation journeys easier. But she’s already impressed by the amount of knowledge in the Wisconsin Women in Conservation group.
Schevers is one of 14 conservation coaches who are available to provide mentoring for other women landowners. She’s focused on pollinator habitat, but there also are conservation coaches experienced in grazing and sustainable dairy operations.
Visit wiwic.org for more information.
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