According to Forbes, Mad Agriculture just raised over $1 million in partnership with Whole Foods to launch Wilding, a three-year project transforming more than 1,000 acres of struggling Wisconsin cropland into native grasslands. The initiative involves 20 food companies including Bob’s Red Mill, Oatly, Olipop, Patagonia Provisions, and national distributor UNFI. Scientists have determined farms need 20-25% natural habitat to function properly, but America’s conservation approach has traditionally kept nature separate from farmland. The Wilding project aims to reconnect fragmented landscapes by integrating prairie strips and native grasslands directly into working farms. Early research shows this approach reduces erosion by 95% while doubling bird and pollinator populations. Whole Foods sees this as crucial for building resilient food systems despite the restored land not directly supplying their stores.
Why This Matters Now
Here’s the thing – we’ve been farming all wrong for decades. The idea that you need to keep nature off the farm to succeed? Basically, it’s been destroying the very systems that make agriculture possible. Bees can’t pollinate if they’ve got nowhere to live. Soil washes away when there’s nothing holding it together. And beneficial insects can’t control pests if we’ve killed them all with pesticides.
But what’s really fascinating is the timing. We’re hitting multiple crises at once – biodiversity collapse, climate instability, and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. Animals and plants can’t migrate to new habitats when everything’s fragmented. They’re stranded. Birds can’t follow their routes. Seeds can’t spread. The whole system grinds to a halt.
The Business Case
Now, you might be thinking this sounds expensive or impractical. But the data says otherwise. When farmers plant prairie strips in those marginal areas where they’re already losing money – rocky corners, flood-prone strips, low-producing patches – something amazing happens. The native prairie, once established, needs almost nothing. No fertilizers, no pesticides, barely any maintenance.
And it actually saves farmers money. Omar de Kok-Mercado, who ran prairie strip research at Iowa State, found erosion dropped by 95%. That’s huge when you consider how much topsoil we’re losing annually. But here’s the kicker – the pollination improvements and natural pest control mean farmers spend less on inputs while getting better yields.
The revenue potential goes beyond traditional farming too. Farmers could lease grasslands for grazing (cattle actually gain weight better on native prairie), offer hunting leases, or even develop recreation like hiking trails that connect across farms. For young farmers who can’t afford land, this opens up entirely new business models without the massive upfront costs.
Big Food Buying In
What’s really telling is who’s backing this. We’re not talking about small environmental groups – this is Whole Foods, Bob’s Red Mill, Oatly, and one of the nation’s largest distributors in UNFI. These companies don’t throw money at feel-good projects unless there’s a solid business case.
Caitlin Leibert from Whole Foods put it bluntly: “Biodiversity loss is really one of the biggest threats to agriculture. Without nature, there really is no agriculture, no food.” And they’re putting their money where their mouth is – 34% of everything Whole Foods sold last year was organic, hitting 61% for fresh produce. Customers are voting with their wallets.
The Bigger Vision
But this Wisconsin project is just the start. De Kok-Mercado imagines something much larger – a “Wild Grid” of 65 million acres of connected wildlife corridors across America. He calls it “America’s next great infrastructure project.” Think about that scale for a moment.
This would require coordination across agriculture, energy, and transportation sectors. Highway alerts for migrating animals, rail systems designed around wildlife movement, power line corridors doubling as habitat connectors. We’re talking about fundamentally redesigning how we think about landscape management.
The human dimension matters too. Farming is incredibly difficult work with thin margins and increasing uncertainty. Wilding offers something back beyond just ecological benefits – the beauty of birds and bees buzzing, enhanced aesthetics, and reconnection to the land. It’s about remembering that nature and agriculture have always coexisted – we just need to relearn how to let them thrive together again.
