Couple’s conservation commitment preserves hillside farm in Kickapoo Valley

GAYS MILLS, Wis. — When Beth and Niels Jensen bought a steep, 39-acre hillside farm in Crawford County in 2014, they didn’t come armed with a conservation plan. What they brought instead was a shared agricultural heritage, a deep respect for the land, and a willingness to learn.

“I had hunted mushrooms and collected gooseberries,” said Beth Jensen, who spent childhood weekends on her grandparents’ farm in Illinois. “But we didn’t know much about land management.”

Niels Jensen, a native of Denmark, grew up farming with his family and later worked on farms in the United States. “We knew it wasn’t good farmland,” he said. “But we saw something special in the layers of the land.”...