Since he began to farm while in high school, Greg Thoren has worked to keep soil in place. “Erosion is a very large factor. [There are] a lot of waterways, a lot of conservation practices that have gone in place in our county,” said Thoren, describing Jo Daviess County in the hilly northwest corner of Illinois. “By no means we’re ‘flat and black,’” he said.

But the practices that help secure his soil improve his land in other ways. “Trying to prevent the erosion aspects of what we’re doing in our fields,” he said, “benefit us in so many different ways.”