As farming intensifies to meet global demand, we face critical challenges related to soil health, water resources, and wildlife habitat. Sand County Foundation is a national nonprofit providing farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners with urgently-needed agronomic and environmental data, and examples to follow, so they may make ethical land management decisions while they produce food and fiber.
Our team of scientists works in partnership with farmers and ranchers to conduct needed research and demonstrations of effective agricultural conservation techniques like cover cropping, managed livestock grazing, and pollinator habitat creation that can benefit the environment and the farm's bottom line.
Sand County Foundation's Leopold Conservation Award® recognizes farmers, ranchers and forestland owners for their conservation successes and leadership. Their stories inspire other landowners across the nation to consider conservation opportunities on their land.
We're also providing conservation mentors for historically-underserved farmers and ranchers nationwide through the Land Ethic Mentorship program.
Our Heritage:
Sand County Foundation was founded nearly 60 years ago on an idea advanced by America’s transformational conservation thinker, Aldo Leopold. In his visionary book, A Sand County Almanac, published in 1949, Leopold encouraged private landowners such as farmers and ranchers to adopt what he called "a land ethic" - a personal responsibility to take care of land, water, and wildlife. He understood that citizens who own and manage private land in the U.S. can lead the way to environmental improvement, and he recognized that a landowner’s profitability and economic growth are tied to conservation success. The conservation ideas he introduced are as relevant today as they were then.
In 1967, Sand County Foundation created a successful partnership among a group of private landowners to protect the land surrounding the famous “Shack” property of Aldo Leopold.
We’ve come a long way since mobilizing our first landowner partners around Leopold’s sandy farmland in Wisconsin. Today, as we work to advance the adoption of conservation-minded land management methods, our impact spans the U.S. and is a direct reflection of what our donors and partners can achieve when landowners are empowered to lead the way to improving our nation’s natural resources.
Our Vision:
We envision a future where there is widespread adoption of a land ethic based on personal responsibility, effective incentives, and science for the benefit of people and the environment.
Sand County Foundation looks at environmental challenges differently. Our entrepreneurial approach and ability to partner with organizations and communities across the spectrum has been our hallmark for nearly 60 years. Our sole focus is supporting voluntary conservation on working lands through ethics, science, and incentives. Values of liberty, voluntary action, property rights and civic duty are at our core.
We believe landowners have the ability to adopt conservation-minded land management techniques that benefit their business and the environment, and that collaboration, not litigation, leads to the most enduring environmental improvements.
Our work: