The need to adapt to circumstances is a western Minnesota grain farmer’s forte, especially lately as environmental dollars are thrown at the owners of cropland. Anne and Peter Schwagerl are doing just that with a new oilseed called camelina. This hardy winter crop can be planted in the fall and harvested in the spring — and it is having a moment.

Winter camelina is just one of a suite of crops — perennials and annuals — that can sit on farm fields over winter and diminish the “big brown spot,” a pejorative reference by some in the industry to the satellite imagery of the corn belt, where summer months of green and golden crops cede way to the other nine months, when fields are virtually naked of plant life.

Environmental organizations, such as the St. Paul-based nonprofit, Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR), have described such farming practices as anachronistic in Minnesota’s farm country.

“The sight of a bare and exposed field in autumn, while now commonplace in the Midwest, is a somewhat recent historical development,” reads a recent report compiled by FMR, Ecotone and the University of Minnesota’s Forever Green Initiative.

But reversing that trend means speaking the language of farmers, which often means understanding their economic pressures.

Read the Star Tribune story.