MINNEAPOLIS — A conservation organization says it’s trying to raise $10 million for a fund meant to protect the Mississippi River and drinking water in the Twin Cities.

The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota announced Friday the creation of the Minnesota Headwaters Fund. Private money raised over the next three years would go toward conservation easements and stream bank protections on four tributaries of the Mississippi River.

The organization says the fund would back initiatives to protect water supplies from the impact of converting forests to urban and agricultural land. State officials announced Thursday a deal with a large potato farmer to scale back expansion plans to protect groundwater and pine forests in central Minnesota.

Doug Shaw, assistant state director of the Nature Conservancy in Minnesota, tells the Star Tribune that the group wants to prevent problems rather than have a “crisis.”