Igniting Change: Nicole Tautges, PhD
Igniting Change is a the new rebrand of Ten in Two, an original series from WEHN. We engage with people across Wisconsin, share stories about their activism, what inspires them, and their hopes for how their work will change the public health landscape in Wisconsin.
We hope their words will spark ideas, generate hope, and inspire you to take action on climate change.
Name and Job Title
Dr. Nicole Tautges, AgroEcologist
1. the Wisconsin community you call home and why?
East Troy is a town of about 6000 people. It’s at the south end of Kettle Moraine Forest. We have a lot of families in the area who have been here for 5 or more generations, and they’re still farming.
It’s also home base for the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, which owns about 210 acres of certified organic farm land. We have an ethic of caring for the land and environment.
2. How did you find your way to this work on Kernza?
Nicole Tautges in a Kernza field in rural Walworth county. Photo from WUWM 89.7FM
I always joke that I’m in agriculture because I don’t want to sit at a desk. My family did not own a farm or really do much agricultural activities to be honest. I went to UW Madison, and got a summer job as an agronomy intern in the sustainable agricultural lab. I loved it because it exposed me to organic, got me thinking about health and chemicals, and protecting the environment. After earning my Master’s in agronomy and PhD in organic agriculture, I found a post-doctoral research opportunity at the University of Minnesota working with Kernza.
When I started working at Michael Fields, we housed a research site under Kernza CAP (Coordinated Agricultural Project), a $10 million USDA funded project. Over 20 institutions and organizations are participating.
To address runoff and soil erosion, we planted 18 acres of Kernza on our farm. We harvested the grain and are working to commercialize it now. I’m trying to help grow the supply chain and figure out how people can get the raw grain to food markets in ways that can be profitable for growers.
3. Describe why crops like kernza are important in the fight against climate change
Agriculture accounts for about 12% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).
In the early aughts and 90’s, scientists seized on no-till, because tilling land releases a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. No-till was important for reducing GHG emissions and improving soil health, but the major trade off is it requires a lot of chemical interventions for weeds, pest control, and diseases.
As we've gotten better at the science, we realized that no-till is not the panacea it was once believed to be. It’s not leading to long term significant carbon storage in soils, which would aid in a process called Drawdown.
The practice of maintaining perennial grass cover is the only consistent strategy over geographic areas and management types and weather that increases soil carbon. The areas richest in black soil are those that have had tall and short grass prairies for millennia. It only makes sense that’s the practice that works nowadays too.
So what can we produce from perennial grasses? Along comes the idea of perennial grains. The great thing about perennial grains like Kernza is they can be dual-use crops. We can harvest grain and we can also use them to graze cattle after the grain is harvested.
The breeding program at The Land Institute is improving yields over 10% per year. In comparison, the annual increase in wheat yields is 4%. We are making way more progress than annual crop breeding programs.
Growers want to use Kernza to stabilize steep areas and avoid soil erosion, to plant along hedge rows where it doesn’t make sense to plant annual crops. So that’s what we’re working on in the midwest and there are efforts in other regions of the country as well. We are making progress.
4. How will commercializing a grain like Kerna improve public health?
We don’t talk a lot about the health benefits of these grains, but we know that Kernza has more fiber and protein than similar small grains. We had nutritional analysis done, so we know the protein, fiber, and iron are higher.
Buying flour that’s stone-milled and has a lot more of the bran retained—”whole grain” flours, those are always going to be better for you.
5. What is the most important thing that you want people to know about Kernza?
I think what is important to talk about with Kernza is that it tastes really good. It definitely brings something extra to the party beyond wheat flour, which is the default in baking and home use. It’s often described as having a cinnamony or nutty flavor, and it comes through in all sorts of baked products.
Things people have successfully made and sold with Kernza include naan, the Indian flatbread, crackers and pasta. We have a bakery in Lake Geneva that is using Kernza in their crackers, which are glorious, then they’re crumbling them and adding them to chocolates.
Kernza Community Bake by Coral Weinstock and Nicole Tautges.
The average home cook doesn’t think about flour. They buy the bag of Gold Medal and they don’t think it brings taste. As you start to delve into the flour world, and think about grains a little more, it can actually do a lot to improve the health of what you’re eating.
People say that they try Kernza because of the environmental benefits, but they come back for more because they enjoy the taste.
6. How can people get involved or support the commercialization of the grain?
The biggest thing you can do to support Kernza is to buy it.
If you know anybody producing flour or if you’re buying flour locally, talk to the person growing your flour and ask them for Kernza. Consumer demand will drive adoption. There are a lot of grain growers considering planting Kernza, but they’re not sure they can sell it. Good places to get Kernza right now are the Perennial Pantry and Sustain a Grain.
Our primary challenge is pricing. Producers need to make the yields high enough and the price low enough that people can afford to buy it over and over again.
7. How is your work in agriculture moving the needle in the right direction on climate change and public health?
To be honest, we’re a little stuck right now at 4,000 acres. We want adoption of perennial grains to be tens of thousands of acres within the decade.
We are working with large food companies to adopt Kernza and help drive demand. That work will continue.
In terms of health, we know that one of the most important factors in the nutritional benefit of food is freshness. If we are grinding grain into flour two weeks before it sits on store shelves, that’s going to make a huge difference in nutritional benefit and public health. We can restore small mills that know what they’re doing, and produce flours with different levels of bran retention. There are some applications where you want a white flour, and that’s fine, but we don’t all need to be eating white cake equivalent all the time. So if we can restore milling as a craft that is practiced by more than 50 people in the entire country, that will go a long way toward restoring health.
8. where do you draw inspiration from to continue this work?
Last year, I had wheat in one field next to Kernza in an adjacent field. We harvested the wheat in July and the Kernza in late August. I went out to the fields in late September. and there’s a bunch of green growth in the Kernza. I was standing there and thought, “This is so cool. I have this green field, and I have giant bins of grain in the shed. This plant just keeps going.”
It’s something we don’t normally see in agriculture.
9. what impacts do you hope to have?
I want to figure out how to make Southern Wisconsin a Kernza hub where we have a group of growers who rely on processors, cleaners, and millers to get the product to local markets. That way we’re not shipping this local grain all over the kingdom, blowing off all the carbon we stored while growing it.
I’m interested in working with folks in the Artisan Grain Collaborative—small business owners, chefs, bakers, brewers, distillers, maltsters, etc. Breaking out of the commodity economic cycle means growers have a better experience, the consumer gets a fresher product, and more people are participating in the grain chain.
10. If you could change one thing about the agricultural system in the US, particularly as it relates to climate change or public health, what would it be and why?
Decentralization of the grain supply chain. Centralization and the commodity grain system has made food cheaper for the consumers, which is important, but it reduced what growers make on their crops. They take a huge amount of economic risk to produce these crops, it damages their livelihoods—we’ve all read about the epidemics of farmer suicides.
The organic and local food community has made a ton of progress in getting people to buy fruits and vegetables directly from farmers. Now we want to do it for grains. Your purchase decisions for grains are impacting hundreds if not thousands of acres.