2026: Collaborative Adaptation
The Farm and Forest Growers Cooperative is a group of small-scale farmers and growers working collectively to produce climate smart tree seedlings for Minnesotans engaged in tree planting and forest restoration efforts.
The rapidly changing climate across northern Minnesota is leading to a host of new pressures on forests: disease, pests, droughts, floods and fires.
The cooperative focuses on fostering broad genetic diversity by gathering seed from native trees across southern and central Minnesota — and from multiple populations of each species.
The seedlings are grown out by the cooperative’s network of growers and then planted more than 200 miles north of the mother populations.