May 1st, 2020
American Farmland Trust Promotes Kris Reynolds to Midwest Regional Director
WASHINGTON, D.C. – American Farmland Trust, the organization behind the national movement No Farms No Food®, announces the promotion of Kris Reynolds to Midwest Regional Director. In this role, Reynolds will lead AFT’s programs in Illinois and neighboring states, working to advance AFT’s efforts to promote sound farming practices to protect water and combat climate change, protect farmland and bring a new generation of farmers on to the land. For the last three years, Kris has served as AFT’s Midwest deputy director and Midwest natural resources conservationist.
“We are excited to have Kris step into this leadership role within our Midwest program,” said David Haight, vice president for programs at American Farmland Trust. “He brings credibility with farmers along with a deep understanding of the opportunity for the landscape-scale change that is needed to protect water and aid in our fight against climate change.”
Kris, a fifth-generation farmer, currently works with his family to raise corn, soybeans, and cover crops on 700 acres in south-central Illinois. His passion for conservation began at an early age in 4-H and FFA programs. He spent the early part of his career working directly with farmers, developing conservation plans and encouraging the adoption of conservation cropping system practices like nutrient management, no-till and cover crops.
As Midwest Deputy Director, Kris led AFT programs in Illinois that worked with farmers, landowners, agricultural and conservation agencies, and organizations to help farmers adopt conservation cropping systems to restore the soil. Notably, he played a major role in the introduction of the Fall Covers for Spring Savings program—a crop insurance premium discount program for cover crops in Illinois. He helped secure $300,000 in the Illinois Department of Agriculture FY2020 budget to fund the program, which successfully funded cover crops on 50,000 acres in its first year.
In 2019 Kris received the Association of Illinois Soil and Water Conservation District’s “Friend of Conservation” Award. This coming June, Kris will be a graduate of the 2020 Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation.
“The Midwest is where I live and work, and there is a lot to get done to improve water quality and the health of our soils,” said Reynolds. “I am looking forward to leading AFT’s work to ensure that farmers have the funding, resources and technical assistance they need to implement sustainable agricultural practices at the rate and scale necessary to make an impact.”
Kris will be based out of his home office in Nokomis, Illinois, but will continue to spend a great deal of time working across the region in coordination with farmers, conservation partners, land trusts, policymakers and others. In his free time, you can find him spending time with his family, hiking, woodworking and upland game hunting with his bird dog, Thor.
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American Farmland Trust is the only national organization that takes a holistic approach to agriculture, focusing on the land itself, the agricultural practices used on that land, and the farmers and ranchers who do the work. AFT launched the conservation agriculture movement and continues to raise public awareness through our No Farms, No Food message. Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 6.5 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on a half million additional acres and supported thousands of farm families.