Diversifying the simplified landscape of corn and soybeans in the Midwest is an emerging priority in both the public and private sectors to reap a suite of climate, social, agronomic, and economic benefits. However, little research has documented the perspectives of farmers, the primary stakeholders in diversification efforts. This preliminary report uses newly collected survey data (n = 725) from farmers in the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa to provide descriptive statistics and tests to understand what farmers in the region think about agricultural diversification, including their perspectives on its benefits, barriers, and opportunities. For the purposes of the study, we define diversification as extended rotations, perennials, horticulture, grazed livestock, and agroforestry practices. We find that a majority or plurality of farmers in the sample believe that diversified systems are superior to non-diversified systems at achieving a range of environmental, agronomic, and economic goals, although many farmers are still forming opinions. Farmers believe that primarily economic barriers stand in the way of diversification, including the lack of affordable land, low short-term returns on investment, and lack of labor. Farmers identified key opportunities to increase diversification through developing processing capacity for local meat and specialty crops, increasing demand for diversified products, and providing more information on returns on investment of diversified systems. Different interventions, however, may be needed to support farmers who are already diversified compared to non-diversified farmers. Building on these initial results, future studies using these data will develop more detailed analyses and recommendations for policymakers, the private sector, and agricultural organizations to support diversification.

As regional chronologies become better defined, we are better able to track large-scale population movements and related cultural change. A dataset of 156 radiocarbon dates from the Middle Cumberland Region (MCR), evaluated with 199 more dates from the Ridge and Valley portions of northern Georgia and East Tennessee, enable modeling of population movements from the Central Mississippi Valley into the MCR, as well as subsequent movements and effects in the Ridge and Valley between AD 1200 and 1450. The dissolution of Cahokia is of particular interest, because the MCR falls geographically between the American Bottom and the Ridge and Valley province. This large-scale chronological perspective places key events in this part of the Southeast and Midwest into a unified historical framework that increases our understanding of the timing of cultural events. A related goal is to sort out possible external events and influences that may have affected this large region. This study makes apparent the relationships between cultural events and natural events, such as the drought sequences reported for the Central Mississippi Valley and beyond.

While grain farming has seen a major shift toward organic production in recent years, the USA continues to lag behind with domestic demand continuing to outpace domestic supply, making the USA an all-around net importer. The Midwestern USA is poised to help remedy this imbalance; however, farmers continue to slowly transition to organic production systems. Existing literature has identified three prevalent narratives that farmers use to frame their organic transition: environmentalism, farm-family legacy and economic factors, in addition to a four and untested religiosity narrative. This study sought to better understand how these different narratives frame grain farmers’ thought processes for transitioning from conventional production systems to certified organic production systems. We co-created narratives around organic production with farmers, which resulted in four passages aligned with the literature: farm-family legacy, economic values, environmental values and Christianity and stewarding Eden. Then, we mailed a paper survey to conventional, in transition and certified organic Indiana grain farmers in order to test how these different narratives motivated organic production. We found that the most prevalent narrative around organic production is the farm-family legacy, which specifically resonated with midsize farmers. We also found that the religious stewardship narrative resonated with a substantial number of organic and mixed practice farmers, which is likely due to Amish farmers within the sample. These results shed light on the role that narratives and associated values play in organic practice use and can inform the organic efforts of agricultural professionals.

Intensive vegetable crop rotations can have detrimental effects on soil health, draining soil of organic matter reserves and necessitating nitrogen (N) inputs. In addition, many vegetable crop rotations leave little time or space to integrate beneficial arthropod and pollinator habitat into crop rotations; the lack of habitat may cause declines in beneficial arthropods, which can lead to insufficient pollination services and increased pest pressure. Nine treatments, each containing one to seven species of cover crops, were evaluated for flowering, aboveground biomass production and N content, soil ${\rm NO}_3^-$-N contribution after biomass incorporation, and beneficial arthropod visitation. A seven-species mix composed of oat (Avena sativa L.), field pea (Pisum sativum subsp. Arvense L.) and five clover species (Trifolium spp.) added the largest amount of biomass (8747 kg ha−1). Likewise, this mix contributed the most organic N (265.6 kg N ha−1), and increased soil ${\rm NO}_3^-$-N after biomass incorporation (10.9 mg ${\rm NO}_3^-$-N kg−1 of soil). Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) and phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia Bendth.) monoculture produced most abundant floral resources. Beneficial arthropods observed included pollinators (native, honey and bumblebees), predators (syrphid flies and green lacewings) and parasitoids. Increased floral diversity was associated with abundance of flies in the Syrphidae family. Phacelia monoculture was most attractive for bees in the Apidae and Halictidae family, both of which may provide pollination services. These results highlight floral visitation patterns as an indicator for beneficial insect community support and conservation, especially in summer months, when greater insect reproduction occurs. Summer-planted cover crops are an underexplored rotation option for organic farming systems in the Upper Midwest, and may provide a wide range of ecosystem services including increases in available soil N and beneficial arthropod populations.

The 1983 Chicago mayoral election, which polarized Black and white voters, left the nascent Latino electorate in an uncertain position. A reevaluation of this election clarifies the impact of Black mayoral candidate Harold Washington, whose candidacy laid bare significant political divisions and anti-Black sentiment among Latinos as they grappled with their relationship to whiteness. Divisions aside, Washington's effort to court the Latino vote helped legitimate a monolithic, panethnic label in Chicago politics, as evidenced by organizational records, campaign advertising, electoral data, and bilingual media coverage. Reframing the 1983 election as a dual process of race making and panethnic labeling bridges scholarship on Black mayors, Latino politics, and urban history, and questions an enduring political memory of 1983 that has obscured both Latino anti-Blackness and the fragility of Latino unity.

Stable isotopes of mammoths and mastodons have the potential to illuminate ecological changes in late Pleistocene landscapes and megafaunal populations as these species approached extinction. The ecological factors at play in this extinction remain unresolved, but isotopes of bone collagen (δ13C, δ15N) and tooth enamel (δ13C, δ18O, 87Sr/86Sr) from midwestern North America are leveraged to examine ecological and behavioral changes that occurred during the last interglacial-glacial cycle. Both species had significant C3 contributions to their diets and experienced increasing levels of niche overlap as they approached extinction. A subset of mastodons after the last glacial maximum exhibit low δ15N values that may represent expansion into a novel ecological niche, perhaps densely occupied by other herbivores. Stable isotopes from serial and microsampled enamel show increasing seasonality and decreasing temperatures as mammoths transitioned from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e to glacial conditions (MIS 4, MIS 3, MIS 2). Isotopic variability in enamel suggests mobility patterns and life histories have potentially large impacts on the interpretation of their stable isotope ecology. This study further refines the ecology of midwestern mammoths and mastodons demonstrating increasing seasonality and niche overlap as they responded to landscape changes in the final millennia before extinction.

Speleothem carbon and oxygen isotopic records from Onondaga Cave, south-central Missouri, and Beckham Creek Cave, north-central Arkansas, are compared with the Cupola Pond and Oldfield Swamp pollen series from southeastern Missouri and the Rodgers Shelter and Modoc Shelter vertebrate biostratigraphic sequences from central Missouri and southwestern Illinois. Similar, and roughly contemporaneous, shifts between deciduous forest and steppe indicators throughout the Holocene are revealed in each database. These independent proxies record steppe conditions between approximately 9000 and 1500 cal yr B.P. A shift toward lighter speleothem carbon may reflect a change from warm and dry to cool and dry conditions between 4500 and 3000 yr B.P. The sensitive response of speleothem δ13C to changes in vegetation emphasizes their importance as paleoclimate records in an area containing few other millenial-scale climate proxies.

Many paleoclimate and landscape change studies in the American Midwest have focused on the Late Glacial and early Holocene time periods (~ 16–11 ka), but little work has addressed landscape change in this area between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Late Glacial (~ 22–16 ka). Sediment cores were collected from 29 new lake and bog sites in Ohio and Indiana to address this gap. The basal radiocarbon dates from these cores show that initial ice retreat from the maximal last-glacial ice extent occurred by 22 ka, and numerous sites that are ~ 100 km inside this limit were exposed by 18.9 ka. Post-glacial environmental changes were identified as stratigraphic or biologic changes in select cores. The strongest signal occurs between 18.5 and 14.6 ka. These Midwestern events correspond with evidence to the northeast, suggesting that initial deglaciation of the ice sheet, and ensuing environmental changes, were episodic and rapid. Significantly, these changes predate the onset of the Bølling postglacial warming (14.8 ka) as recorded by the Greenland ice cores. Thus, deglaciation and landscape change around the southern margins of the Laurentide Ice Sheet happened ~ 7 ka before postglacial changes were felt in central Greenland.

Several states in the Midwestern United States are using risk assessment to determine the invasiveness of introduced plant species, and each assessment process is different. This may lead to differences in results for the same species between states, creating concern about credibility by those using the assessments. In this study, risk assessments for six Midwestern states were compared, examining format, content, and assessment committee membership. Case studies were conducted for four species for which at least five of the six states in the study completed a risk assessment; results were compared in the context of general differences in assessment content and those specific to each species. Furthermore, 14 species for which only four of the six states completed assessments were briefly examined for outcome differences only, and possible reasons for these inconsistencies. Overall, differences in assessments did not result in incompatible conclusions for the species compared, suggesting that unique assessments in each state can provide consistent and credible results. We propose that these Midwestern states share species resources with each other to further improve consistency between the assessments.

Large carnivores are recolonizing parts of North America and Europe as a result of modern management and conservation policy. In the midwestern USA, black bears Ursus americanus, cougars Puma concolor and grey wolves Canis lupus have the potential to recolonize provided there is suitable habitat. Understanding where large carnivores may become re-established will prepare resource professionals for the inevitable ecosystem effects and potential human–carnivore conflicts associated with these species. We developed individual and combined models of suitable habitat for black bears, cougars and wolves in 18 midwestern states, using geospatial data, expert-opinion surveys, and multi-criteria evaluation. Large, contiguous areas of suitable habitat comprised 35, 21 and 13% of the study region for wolves, bears and cougars, respectively. Approximately 12% of the region was considered suitable for all three species. Arkansas, Minnesota, Texas and Wisconsin had the highest proportions (> 40%) of suitable habitat for black bears; Arkansas, Michigan, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin had the highest proportions (≥ 20%) of suitable habitat for cougars; and only in four states in the study region was < 29% of land suitable wolf habitat. Models performed well when validated by comparing suitability values of independent sets of known carnivore locations to those of random locations. Contiguous areas of suitable habitat typically spanned multiple states, thus coordination across boundaries and among agencies will be vital to successful conservation of these species. Our models highlight differences in habitat requirements and geographical distribution of potential habitat among these carnivores, as well as areas vital to their persistence in the Midwest.

Approximate profit functions are estimated using time-series, cross-sectional, county level data for 12 midwest states. Measures of climate variability are included in the profit functions. Simulated impacts of climate changes on profits are derived. Results show that inclusion of measures of climate variation are important for measuring the impact of changes in mean temperature and precipitation levels. Failure to account for the impact of differences in variability leads to an overestimate of damages. If global warming increases diurnal variation, such increases would have negative impacts on the profitability of midwest agriculture.

Urbandale Farm (Lansing, MI) has much in common with other urban agricultural projects throughout the US and especially those in the rust-belt cities of the Midwest. It raises food for an economically challenged neighborhood. It offers opportunities for local participation, education and job creation, and it is supported by diverse public and private institutions. By all official accounts, Urbandale Farm is good at what it does. Its acreage, production, income and entrepreneurial activities are all increasing, and it has become a poster child for urban agriculture throughout the city. However, despite its good work (or possibly because of it), Urbandale Farm, and urban agriculture more generally, may unwittingly be helping to rationalize the displacement and continued social and political inequity of urban neighbors rather than reinforcing greater place-making, neighborhood empowerment and sustainability. Using Urbandale Farm as a case in point, this paper critically explores how urban agriculture is being used by some scholars, activists, governmental offices and agencies to transform fragile neighborhoods. It questions some of the movement's underlying assumptions as well as some of its actual benefits and beneficiaries. The paper also offers suggestions—for the purpose of initiating a more nuanced conversation—on how urban agriculture can be reconfigured philosophically and practically to shed its neoliberal tendencies and contribute to a more structurally based social and political transformation.

The following study assesses cold-season hoop house lettuce production in the context of local food systems’ relative environmental effects. For this purpose, we compare the carbon footprints of leaf lettuce production in two climatic zones, one close to the consumer market and one distant, via environmental impact modeling in SimaPro 7.3. A site-specific scenario is first detailed with organic leaf lettuce locally grown in an East Lansing, Michigan hoop house. This is compared to a hypothetical scenario, modeled using average industry data, with leaf lettuce conventionally grown in California then shipped to East Lansing. The system boundaries used in this analysis extend from manufacturing of farm production inputs to a hypothetical retail gate. We assumed that the consumer drove the same distance to the retailer in each case. The functional unit used is 1 kg of leaf lettuce. Results demonstrate that the distant system exhibits 4.3 times the CO2 ‘footprint’ per kg of lettuce. This nonlocal system also resulted in higher resource depletion, health impact and ecological damage potential as demonstrated via the SimaPro simulation. This study concludes that unheated, hoop house lettuce production, given the assumption on within-area travel, has a smaller carbon footprint than outdoor, distant production, and speaks to both the potential value of more localized food systems and the need for a more diverse set of scenario modeling to understand the boundaries of this value.