In 2018, General Mills announced it would help convert a South Dakota farm to organic. Things aren’t going great so far.
In March 2018, General Mills made headlines by announcing that it would help to convert 53 square miles of South Dakota farmland to organic. However, neighbors and experts familiar with the Gunsmoke Farms project recently told NPR it may be missing the mark on healthy soil management. Organic farms often rely on a practice called tillage to chop up weeds and prevent their spread, since the use of herbicides is more restricted. But because the soil at Gunsmoke Farms is particularly fragile, tilling has caused big dust storms and erosion that may be hard to reverse, said one soil scientist in the region. Another expert added that the farm didn’t follow soil conservation measures that he suggested and described the project conditions today as “a really good sign for failure.” Guess it’ll be a long wait for organic Lucky Charms.
