Save the Planet... No. Really.

Save the Planet… No. REALLY.

For those of you who don't know that what we're doing can actually save the planet, please watch this 4 minute award winning video from the 2013 MIT Climate CoLab Contest. It explains our work. http://tinyurl.com/l598yog

This is not some idea we just thought up. We have been working on this for 40 years. 40 YEARS of blood, sweat and tears. It WORKS.

Forest and wild flowers now grow where there was corn. Birds nest. Frogs, butterflies, spiders, flying squirrels all make their homes in our crop fields. Water runs in our creek again.

Children play safely in our fields. Horses and sheep peacefully graze. 

That is how we measure success on Badgersett. Join us. Be part of it.

Those frogs now breed in our pond and hibernate in the chestnut forest that we have created.

Those wild flowers, ones found only in the deep woods on state and national parks, grow freely in our fields where they feed butterflies and bees. Jack in the Pulpit, Mayapple, Violets, Jacob’s Ladder, Wild Geranium, Smooth Rose, Dutchman’s britches. They all grow in a field that produces as much food as corn and soy- because of the advanced crop genetics we have created.

All this happened because we produce our crops with no spray. No chemicals. None.

We handle our pests using whole ecosystem management. A crop system where there’s room for everyone, from the smallest mite to the coyote and hawk. 

Entire ecosystems exist here in a place that was once a corn and soybean desert. Because of us. Because of Badgersett.

And with your help this system can be brought to other farms.

We have developed these crops; new, advanced hybrid varieties of Hazelnut, Chestnut and Pecan that can grow and thrive in northern climates, over decades. They produce FOOD; oil, protein, complex carbohydrates . Enough food that they are competitive with annual agriculture. We’ve demonstrated it.

Badgersett has been working for 40 years. Its founder, Philip Rutter, created the American Chestnut Foundation from a plan to breed trees like farmers profitably breed cattle, and an iron will to what is now a powerful 3 million dollar annual conservation organization. Everyone told him that it was a fool’s errand. Tilting at windmills. A dead horse. But Philip found the dreamers still willing to believe, and brought them together. Together they saved the tree, one all experts agreed couldn’t be saved.

This is the determination that went into building Badgersett. It is a success story that we hope you will become a part of.

We already have 100’s of growers across the US and Canada, who believe in us, and rely on us year after year. We have been there for them, but we need your help to continue to support them.

We have partnered with universities across the US to fund crop development research. Our test planting at Oberlin College grew at an astounding rate and, as we have been promising, it produced nuts in 3.5 years. Those plants have borne heavier crops every year since.

 Our crops are not GMO.  They are simply hybrids of plants that have been separated since the continents drifted. By hybridizing them, we opened their potential in the same way our ancestors bred beans, squash and potatoes. That potential can in fact- feed the world.  It really could save the planet. 

Be a part of it.

Our farm fossil fuel use has been cut by 90%. Let me repeat that… 90%. In 2011 we used 600 gallons of fuel to mow and plow. Then we got our horses, and soon there after we got the sheep. They now do work once done by machines. They graze, dropping manure that feed the trees and grass as they go. Which makes the grass greener, the trees bigger and more productive, and the animals fatter. The system nearly feeds itself now. In 2016 we bought 55 gallons of diesel. 600 gallons reduced to 55. That’s amazing in anyone’s book. 

Now Badgersett needs your help to continue. Climate change is happening faster than anyone imagined. In the last 3 years we have faced warmer fall and winter temperatures, making crop storage difficult. We have faced crop killing droughts followed by floods. And windstorms so severe that it was as if a hurricane hit Minnesota. 

Our trees have survived this. We have survived this, but the damage and burden has slowed down our ability to continue our work.

Our machines and buildings need repair. Our mortgage needs to be paid. And most of our funding sources have dried up, because face it, quietly working for decades doesn’t bring in the headlines. 

So we are looking to you; people who still believe in a better world to help move Badgersett forward so our successes can continue for the next 40 years and beyond.

Please donate today. You will save the planet. Really.

Here, again is the link to our award winning video from the 2013 MIT Climate CoLab Contest. Please watch. 
http://tinyurl.com/l598yog


*Who will benefit?
The entire cosmos... (That is supposed to be humor, but true :-) )
Hundreds of farmers across the United States and Canada who grow our plants, and rely on us to breed better plants for them year after year.
Our workers and the work they do, improving our plants is so much less depressing than fixing something that broke for the 3rd time in a week. Trust me.
The frogs, birds and butterflies, none of which can live in a cornfield.

*What will the money do for Badgersett?
Pay the mortgage. 
Equipment that works.
New buildings to house expanding crops and keep our equipment out of the rain.
People.

*How soon can we use your help?
Now.

*What does your support mean to us?
Work that gets done.
Dreams that come true.
And we'll be able to sleep at night.

*How grateful are we for your help?
When the zombies come for you, we will take you in. That's how grateful.  :-)