The North American prairie is an ecological marvel, a lush carpet of grass that stretches to the horizon, and home to some of the nation's most iconic creatures-bison, elk, wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and bald eagles. Plants, microbes, and animals together made the grasslands one of the richest ecosystems on Earth and a massive carbon sink, but the constant expansion of agriculture threatens
what remains
When European settlers encountered the prairie nearly two hundred years ago, rather than a natural wonder they saw an alien and forbidding place. But with the steel plow, artificial drainage, and fertilizers, they converted it into some of the world's most productive farmland — a transformation unprecedented in human history. American farmers fed the industrial revolution and made North America a global breadbasket, but at a terrible cost: the forced dislocation of Indigenous peoples, pollution of great rivers, and catastrophic loss of wildlife. Today, industrial agriculture continues its assault on the prairie, plowing up one million acres of grassland a year. Farmers can protect this extraordinary landscape, but trying new ideas can mean ruin in a business with razor-thin margins, and will require help from Washington, D.C., and from consumers.