The Great Plains PlowPrint

The purpose of the plowprint is to track annual grassland conversion to cropland across the Mississippi River Basin and Great Plains region, and to provide a way to measure the loss of this important habitat type, against which annual changes can be compared. This report tracks changes at the sub-regional scale, as well as in the context of the broader geography, and highlights key elements of change each year. The focus of this report is on changes in grassland conversion from 2014-2015, based on data from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Cropland Data Layer and the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Annual Crop Inventory. For this analysis, cropland is defined as any annually planted agricultural commodity (e.g., corn, soybeans, wheat, etc.) or fallow agricultural land.