Cropland agriculture in the northern Great Plains is challenged by variable weather, agricultural intensification, and competing use for energy development. Innovative cropland practices that address these challenges are needed to ensure regional agriculture can sustainably meet future food, fuel, and fiber demand. In response to this need, the Northern Plains Long‐Term Agroecosystem Research network site established a cropland experiment in 2019 that contrasts prevailing and alternative practices at plot and field scales over a proposed 30‐year time frame. The experimental site is located on the Area IV Soil Conservation Districts Cooperative Research Farm near Mandan, ND. Cropping practices for the first 6 years of the experiment were developed with input from stakeholders and include a 3‐year crop rotation of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), corn (Zea mays L.), and soybean (Glycine max L.) with cover crops (alternative practice) and without (prevailing practice). The prevailing practice also involves the removal of crop residue, while a second alternative practice of perennial forages is included in the plot‐scale experiment. Biophysical measurements are made at both spatial scales at frequencies aligned with approved methods for each agronomic and environmental metric. Findings from the first 6 years of the experiment will help identify tradeoffs associated with cover crop use and residue removal in dryland cropping systems. In the future, the experiment will adopt a knowledge co‐production approach whereby researchers and stakeholders will work collaboratively to identify problems, implement research, and interpret results.

Social outcomes of agricultural practice adoption are often excluded from adoption studies, particularly outcomes related to community well‐being. In large part, this is because assessing the social well‐being outcomes of sustainable agricultural practices lacks a widely accepted framework. This study fills the gap by identifying community well‐being domains and attributes related to the impacts of agricultural management. Semi‐structured interviews via Zoom with 42 underrepresented producers across the United States during the winter of 2021 captured producers' perceived broader community well‐being outcomes of soil health management. Producers were selected to represent Long‐Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network sites and interests, a national network of diverse cropping, livestock, and integrated agricultural research sites. Two rounds of coding, first inductive and then deductive, were based on the community well‐being framework and the 4Cs of ecosystem assessment: conditions, capabilities, connections, and crosscutting. The data revealed three major domains of how soil health management contributes to the conditions, capabilities, and connections that underlie community well‐being, aligning with the 4Cs framework. Within these three domains, we identify 16 attributes specific to agricultural management, including sense of place, recreation and tourism, and community safety, among others. These domains and associated attributes notably expand the range of measurable outcomes of soil health practice adoption. The new data contribute to the development of social sustainability indicators and efforts to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion within agricultural innovation. Additionally, this research provides an empirical, theoretically based framework of social sustainability indicators for agricultural sustainability assessments across the LTAR network.

The pace of global change complicates the assessment of the outcomes of agricultural management, hindering decision‐making by producers, researchers, and consumers. The Long‐Term Agroecosystem Research Network (LTAR) is in a unique position to advance monitoring to inform decision‐making. Here, we describe how the network selected performance indicators designed to measure the trade‐offs from various farming and ranching approaches. Indicator selection was motivated by the need for common indicators that apply to the diversity of LTAR sites, but they are intended for widespread use by producers and other managers via the Agricultural Performance Indicator and Context Knowledge System (AgPICKS). An initial set of domains, attributes, and indicators was developed via synthesis of structured conversations at national LTAR meetings. Early use revealed the need for a systematically inclusive process toward improvement. We designed and implemented an iterative decision‐making protocol to reach a consensus for a new version. The indicator framework differs from others in its attention to production and social outcomes and its grounding in networked agricultural science. Next steps entail developing web tools and personnel for AgPICKS that use LTAR's data and knowledge ecosystem to guide users in setting benchmarks of the desired conditions for their prioritized indicators, collect data, and visualize data to assess how well their management meets their benchmarks, toward the accurate measurement of management outcomes in a changing world.

This study examines food agency of atsalugpiaq sub­sistence practices in the Indigenous community of Kuinerraq, Alaska. Food agency is the capacity of individuals or communities to define and achieve food and diet-related goals. While past research lit­erature has limited the theoretical scope of food agency to cooking and consumption, this study expands the concept to encompass pro­visioning, addressing a theoretical gap in the literature. Through participatory co-developed research led by Nalaquq LLC, oral histories with Alaska Native community members identify new components of food agency: ethics, science and knowledge, and autonomy. These findings build upon and extend the existing framework of food agency that empha­sizes individual skills, attitudes, and structural barri­ers, and offers a more holistic understanding of the drivers of food security in rural and Indigenous communities. Kuinerraq is committed to carrying forward yuugnagpiallerput (living a proper Yup’ik life) in response to environmental and social change to ensure their future generations’ prosperity. The study highlights that efforts to build food security must center on supporting cultural enrichment, relational values, and lived practices rather than relying solely on externally imposed metrics and theoretical concepts.