The official newsletter of the Land Stewardship Project
SEPTEMBER 1996 VOL. 14, NO. 4
A term such as `industrial park' is an oxymoron. Here's one example of how we can prevent `ecological farm' from becoming a similar contradiction.
By Brian DeVore
Tucked away on the South Dakota farm of Dennis and Jean Fagerland is a 20-acre example of how agriculture can be productive while protecting water quality and providing habitat for wildlife. It's a hopeful sign that food and fiber production does not have to be some sort of industrial process set apart from nature, surrounded by a moat of mono-crops, bio-security areas and "manure management structures." Much can be learned from the Fagerland's experience of turning a serious problem into an economic and ecological benefit.
Dennis remembers some of the old timers talking about the slew of fish they used to pull out of a lake that adjoins the roughly 3,000 acres he and Jean farm near Langford, in the northeast part of the state. But the fishing hasn't been that good for quite some time, and when the lake was tested some 15 years ago, the results showed abnormally high levels of nitrate.
"They said no fish could survive that," recalls Jean. So the Fagerlands set out to discover the source of the excess nutrients. To their chagrin, they soon learned the contamination was manure runoff from two of their own cattle feedlots -- both within a mile of the 130-acre lake.
Fortunately, the Fagerlands' crop and livestock operation is smack-dab in the middle of a world-class waterfowl nesting area. Fortunate because that meant there was cost-share money available from Ducks Unlimited and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish small check dams that would catch rain water long enough to provide nesting habitat for ducks and geese. The structures are little more than culverts with iron gates that can be established in low areas where water tends to flow. In return for the cost-share assistance, the Fagerlands have agreed to keep the gates down during spring nesting each year.
The seven catch basins (the last one was put in three years ago) serve as areas where water can percolate through heavy, permanent vegetation, filtering out excess nutrients and other contaminants. That vegetation slows and filters the runoff, even when the gates are open. As a result, recent sonar readings of the lake show "fish in it from one end to another," says Dennis.
In addition, such structures slow the water and give the land a chance to absorb it during heavy rains. This is important in that part of the country: The Fagerlands farm on top of the Coteau Hills, a series of ridges that drop 600 feet to the South Dakota lowlands. When the results of a cloud burst starts rolling down that kind of elevation drop, it can cause major flooding damage.
The waterfowl are showing their appreciation for these temporary, but top-notch wetlands by nesting there in droves. Dennis starts to name the species of ducks he's seen in the area in recent years but then gives up in exasperation: "It'd be easier to name the species I haven't seen."
Here's where the kind of payoff that determines whether farms can truly be ecological havens long into the future comes in. The agreement the Fagerlands signed requires them to maintain the catch basin gates for 10 years. After that, the government's goal of cleaning up water or a conservation group's desire for wildlife habitat may pale in comparison to the farm family's need to turn a profit.
So the Fagerlands were excited to discover that once those catch basins are drained in June, the ground remaining behind provides an economic bonus: The reed canary grass that was planted above the catch basins thrives in flooded conditions and makes good hay.
The 20-acre spot mentioned produces eight tons of dry matter per acre -- that's triple the average per-acre hay production in the area. That was a pleasant surprise to the Fagerlands, especially after they sat down and penciled out that during 10 years of planting those 20 acres to row crops like wheat or corn, they had produced only three successful harvests. The astounding production they get on the "naturally irrigated" land allowed the Fagerlands to take another field out of hay production and put it into row crops, thus making better use of their land.
"Those three years you got crops it was beautiful," recalls Dennis. "But it didn't average out. Now I get a triple hay crop every year on those 20 acres."
Can such a balancing act between economics and the environment be transferred to other parts of the farm? The Fagerlands will soon find out. They are converting some 850 acres of land into grazing paddocks for their 220-head cow-calf herd. The land, which is currently laying fallow under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), will provide the basis for a management intensive grazing system once the 10-year CRP set-aside contract expires in two years. Such a system can allow cattle to forage based on the natural growing cycle of the grass. These systems naturally distribute nutrients on the land while saving massive amounts of inputs such as energy, time and equipment.
The keystone of this grazing system is a series of "natural" water sources for the cattle. These are in the form of wetlands -- each half to three acres in size -- the Fagerlands have established at the end of each 80-acre paddock by blocking water flow ("Just add water and you have cattails," quips Dennis). This will cut down on the amount of walking the cattle need to do to graze, making their feed intake more efficient while reducing the occurrence of "cow paths" and tracked- up watering areas that lead to erosion.
The Fagerlands are confident the wetlands make it possible for cattle and waterfowl to be good neighbors. A myriad of ducks and geese have already found the established marshes and Jean says their experience shows cattle will graze around the waterfowl nests.
And if the wetlands dry up temporarily, Dennis says the cattle will find some good grazing until the moisture returns.
Dennis says that without the "natural" watering holes provided by the wetlands, they probably could not have afforded to set up the grazing paddocks (rotational grazers often have to invest in piping systems to prevent cattle from walking long distances to drink). As a result, the 800 acres would become just one big pasture, which means some parts would have been overgrazed, and others undergrazed. This can be hard on the land and the cattle, while resulting in severe weed problems. It's not just the ducks and cows that will benefit from the cattails and canary grass. The Fagerlands enjoy waking up to the noise of marshland wildlife. To them, it's a reassuring sound that they're beginning to strike a balance between productivity and stewardship.
"Years down the road I hope we can look back and say it was the right thing to do," says Dennis. "I think it was."
A look ahead
While studying animal science in his native Germany, Altfrid Krusenbaum had some strong ideas about what a farm should be like.
"Being from the city, I had a romantic notion of farming as a place of [environmental] purity," he recalls.
He soon learned that conventional agricultural practices often leave little room for ecological health. But Krusenbaum refuses to believe that commercial farming and a natural environment are two separate entities. Now when Krusenbaum walks his 240-acre ridge-top dairy operation 40 miles southwest of Milwaukee, Wis., he sees a farm that will be profitable as well as a part of the natural world. Since moving to the farm in 1990, he and his wife Sue have converted it to grass-based milk production with a herd of 80 cows. Krusenbaum thinks that with this low-cost system, they're already on the right track toward making a living off the land. The next step toward creating the kind of farm they want may not be as easy. Decades of moldboard plowing and chemical use have taken a toll on the land.
"The land just cries out for more trees," he says. "I'd like to see in the future a farm that's more like a park. I'd like to make it a place where people will come and take a stroll, and yet it is still a productive farm. I would like my place to be a farm where people who live next to it don't say `Oh no, he's spreading manure again.' I want it to be a pleasant place to live next to. It's going to take time. But I'm very patient by nature."
EDITOR'S NOTE: As the interpretive naturalist at southeast. Minnesota's Whitewater State Park, Dave.Palmquist is in charge of putting on environmental education programs for campers and day visitors. For the past three years, he has taken groups out to the farm of Land Stewardship Project members Mike and Jennifer. Rupprecht. They have a 275-acre operation in an area highly susceptible to soil erosion. During the past nine years, the family has made the transition from raising mostly input-intensive row crops to producing livestock using management-intensive rotational grazing.
During the tour, Mike, Jennifer and their 9-year-old daughter Johanna provide tourists with a hay ride, some refreshments and an explanation of the sustainable methods they use on their farm, in the garden and in the home. Palmquist recently talked to the Land Stewardship Letter about using farms as forums for learning about environmental stewardship.
LSL: How did you get the idea for using a farm as a place for teaching about the environment?
Palmquist: In thinking of my job here as interpretive naturalist at Whitewater State Park, I am supposed to share the land-use histories of the area, especially looking at the Whitewater River area and how it has changed over time. Obviously agriculture is a big part of our area and has a big impact. It's important to our economy. I think now the trend [in environmental protection] is toward looking at bigger areas, looking at landscape regions, ecosystems and watersheds, as opposed to, `Boy this bank's eroded in the Whitewater River valley, let's rip rap it.' In other words, instead of treating symptoms, we're trying to get at the roots of some of these problems by looking bigger. That means looking at the positive and negative effects of the primary economic activity in the area.
LSL: But the Rupprecht farm is at least 10 miles from the park.
Palmquist: There's an increasing understanding you can't save the world within state parks. The 65 little pieces of Minnesota [state parks] aren't going to do it. If you have to go outside your park to tell an important story that relates to the park area, do that. I've been at the park for 22 years and at one time it was different. But in recent years I haven't let the boundaries stop me.
LSL: Whitewater gets about one-third of a million visitors in a year's time, making it the most popular park in southern Minnesota. Who are these people?
Palmquist: The visitors are definitely more urban than rural. At this time of year I would characterize our campers as being 50 percent from the Twin Cities. So on these visits we tend to get non-farmers, but we also get people who used to farm or who are considering going into farming. That last group really excites me.
I wanted a farm family that could relate to these people as well as give them a feel for agriculture and some of the challenges of farming today. I also wanted a family that was experimenting with different methods in an attempt to not only make a living, but to maintain rural communities, and, of course, this is my bias, make the environment healthier. The Rupprechts seemed like a good family because of their involvement with sustainable agriculture, education and the community in general.
The family does a good job of helping people understand their motivations for doing what they do on their farm. I think people really get a feel for what they are up to and how their operation is different, what motivates them.
We limit the tour groups to 35 people. Sometimes we've gotten less than the desired numbers. But Mike and Jennifer's feeling has been, and I agree, that it's not quantity that counts, but quality. If one or two people are influenced by what they're doing, then hey, it was worth our effort.
Perhaps one of the most exciting groups to visit was a group of environmental educators participating in an eight-state environmental education conference last fall. These people tend to be teachers, naturalists, soil and water conservation district people -- anybody that's involved with environmental education.
It was really interesting because the farm visit was the last stop on the last day of a three-day conference, and you know how people are at the end of a conference. They want to get home. Well, I think people were kind of to that burn-out stage when we got to the Rupprecht farm. But when we were done with the field trip, people just kind of hung around and asked questions about their farming methods and their garden. These were all people that were going to go back and impact our youngsters and share what they've learned with other people.
LSL: Do the tour participants realize sustainable farmers like the Rupprechts are doing things differently than the typical conventional farmer?
Palmquist: Yes, they realize these farmers are part of the environment and that they realize what they're doing affects a lot of things. It's clear to the visitors that these farmers embrace diversity and see themselves as being part of the bigger environment. The more diversity, the more bobolinks, bluebirds, etc., they have on their land, the better they feel. If they can make a living there, maintain a family farm and be gentler on the environment, that's very exciting for them.
LSL: Do you think these tours drive home to people the connection between the way their food is produced and environmental quality?
Palmquist: I think so. In fact there was a woman on the [environmental educators] tour who was a vegetarian. And after seeing the way the Rupprechts raise beef on grass using management- intensive grazing, she said `this is almost enough to get me to start eating meat again.' She saw this farm, with the soil coming back and the increased numbers of prairie birds, and probably healthier beef at a competitive price. This was good and she wanted to support it too.
Seeing sustainable agriculture in action can send a powerful message to consumers that those of you who are non- farmers can help influence some of what's being done on the land through your food buying habits.
Also, I make the point that we criticize some farming practices because it's the predominant land use in the county, but that all of us have our impacts. How many of you know of someone who has changed the oil in their car and dumped it on the ground? When you spray your yard and it rains where does that runoff go to?
LSL: How hard is it to get people interested in learning about environmental stewardship?
Palmquist: To be honest, some of these more important interpretive programs like the farm visit are hard to promote. People want multi-media entertainment like Walt Disney and Marty Stouffer. Those things are good. But I try to blend quality and quantity. I don't have a captive audience and have to make the people want to come. I never use the word `learn' in my programs. It's more like `discover, explore,' that kind of stuff. For example I could never do a program on `ground water issues,' but I could do a caving program where we end up talking about ground water issues as they relate to caves. I'll use a `bird walk' to launch a conversation on the disappearance of neo-tropical migrants through habitat fragmentation.
I bill the Rupprecht tour as a `conservation farm trip.' To attract a non-farm audience I don't want to get into `sustainable agriculture, blah, blah, blah,' or `management-intensive grazing,' right away. That's not going to work, you can't get too technical. But I play up the free wagon ride on a farm because I think that's something families want to do.
LSL: Can you give an example of how once you get people out to the farm you teach them about good land stewardship and sustainable agriculture without turning them off?
Palmquist: One thing I like to point out when we're touring the Rupprecht farm is an old stone spillway built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934. It's this structure at the top of a slope that was supposed to divert the water and keep it from eroding a gully deeper. It's the kind of thing that people would ride by in a wagon and not even think twice about. But to look at that thing and to see there's no bare earth and to see that hardly any water flows through there is a real education. It's just sitting there seemingly with no function. But at one time 50 years ago that was built because there was a horrendous gully there and it was carrying away tons of topsoil. The fact that the Rupprecht family's farming methods have made this thing obsolete really impresses people.
By Dana Jackson
Two hundred people showed up at the Minnesota Capitol on Feb. 28 to protest the governor's apparent disregard for the suffering of rural people living near mammoth manure lagoons.
This was an impressive show of grassroots support for social and environmental justice. The crowd gathered because the Land Stewardship Project has active members, and the glue that holds an active (and activist) organization together is its committees. Through direct and indirect participation in LSP committees, members organize public meetings and other events, attend hearings and testify, write commentaries and letters to newspapers, write Land Stewardship Letter articles and host field days. They also serve as resource persons at workshops, gather and/or analyze data, propose policy, develop strategies to move policies forward at all government levels, communicate LSP's vision to businesses and corporations, organize projects needed in their community under the auspices of LSP, set up display booths at conferencesƒthe list goes on.
Here is a list of all the members and non-member constituents active on LSP committees or teams. Because we need paid memberships to support the organization, we would like for every person working on an LSP project to become a member. However, we welcome the participation of constituents even if they do not join -- and we will keep inviting them to join.
1000 Friends of Minnesota steering committee Paul Baltzersen, Char Brooker, Tom Casey, Jim Erkel, John James, Gunnar Isberg, Pam Neary, Kurt Schwichtenberg, Virginia Stark, Tom Wegner
LSP Staff: Lee Ronning
Responsibilities of the steering committee include guiding the work of the program and helping devise strategies to encourage sustainable development patterns.
Congregational Network steering committee Elaine Johnson, Robin Keiffer, Joan McGinty, Jay Robinson, Maggie Lindberg, Marlene Voita, Anna Barker
LSP Staff: Mary Schulte
This steering committee is made up of representatives of various denominations and provides direction to the Congregational Network. The committee helps plan activities and events to introduce more congregations to projects involving locally grown food.
Farm bill committee
Paul Homme, Dave Serfling, Dan French, Jennifer Rupprecht, Dwight Ault, Paul Sobocinski (members who assisted on the 1996
Farm Bill include: DeEtta Bilek, Bob Duban, Dennis Timmerman, Rodney Skalbeck, June Varner) LSP Staff: Mark Schultz
This statewide committee proposed sustainable agriculture policies for the 1996 Farm Bill, monitored debate on the legislation and kept in contact with their Congressional representatives. Some of its strategies were highly successful. The committee is now following closely how the 1996 Farm Bill is implemented.
Livestock concentration committee
Rebecca Carson, Rodney Skalbeck, Julie Jansen, Joann and Tony Eckstein, Paul Homme, Dale Anderson, Duane Anderson, Dale Hennen, Chris Loetscher, Ron Seitz, Wendellin Sellner, Paul Koenen, Stephanie Henriksen, Dwight Ault, Elwood Lips, Russ Jeppesen, Mary Jeppesen, Heidi Anderson, Dennis Timmerman, Jeanne Wertish, Katy Wortel, Jim VanDerPol, Ralph Surprenant, Charlie Schmidt, Monica Kahout, Doug and Mary Elbers (this list does not include everyone who participated in LSP public information meetings, rallies, action alerts, etc.)
LSP Staff: Mark Schultz & Paul Sobocinski.
Members of the Livestock Concentration Committee lead and participate in actions, rallies and meetings. They also give testimony at public hearings and help develop and execute legislative strategies.
LSP's members and constituents in southeast Minnesota have been particularly involved with projects originating out of the Lewiston office. We have listed members on current working committees but not all those who served on former, but now inactive, committees.
Alternative marketing group
Everett Koenig, Roy Michaelis, Maureen and Dennis Pronschinske, Claude and Rick Patzner, Stephanie and Kerry Schauland, Joan Redig, Rich Malinowski, Lee McEvilly, Alice Field, Chuck and Janis Thesing, Mike Rupprecht, Bev Sandlin, Arlene Hershey, Lynne Farmer, Charis Stenberg, Bonnie Austin, Joanne Burt
LSP Staff: Doug Nopar
This group publishes a directory of all farmers who are direct marketing farm products in southeast Minnesota.
Home on the Range
Bonnie Austin, Claude Patzner, Doug Nopar, Mike Rupprecht, Kim Neuman, Kyle Colbenson, Stephanie and Kerry Schauland, Joann Burt, Jon Peterson, Roy and Andy Michaelis, Joe Michaelis, Rick Patzner, Lynne Farmer, Everett Koenig, Charis Stenberg, Arlene Hershey
LSP Staff: Ann Burfeind & Doug Nopar
This is a new chicken marketing collaborative organized by LSP.
Farmers Accessing Credit Together (FACT)
Dave Hauck, Joe Finley, Mary Walch, Lee McEvilly, David and Marie Meyer, Toni Karasch, Gail Kailing, Beth Flott, Connie Dykes of Catholic Charities Rural Outreach Project in Winona (involved early in the project were Mary Hansel Parlin, Elmer and Russ Matzke, Jonette Schroeder, and Ken Tschumper)
LSP Staff: Doug Nopar
This committee was successful in negotiations with Merchants Bank to set up a $20 million loan fund for beginning and sustainable farmers as well as small businesses.
Wabasha County Beginning Farmer Group
Everett Koenig, Roger Siebenaler, Chuck Schwartau, Bill McMillin, Harvey Sloan, Ralph Stelling, Duane Hager
LSP Staff: Doug Nopar
Holistic Resource Management Training Team
Dan French, Charis Stenberg, Larry Johnson, Jennifer Rupprecht, Susan Fagrelius, Larry Johnson, Brian Schultz, Doug Gunnick, Paul Homme, Dick Levins, Dave Minar, Chuck Schwartau
LSP Staff: Audrey Arner
Members of this team meet to improve their ability to do introductory talks on Holistic Resource Management. They also help plan the three-day courses as well as facilitate follow-up sessions.
The Biological, Social and Financial Monitoring Project
Farmers on the Monitoring Team are Joe and Marlene Finley, Dan and Muriel French, Art and Jean Thicke, Mike and Jennifer Rupprecht, Dave and Florence Minar, Ralph and Geri Lentz. Researchers from the University of Minnesota include Deborah Allen, Jay Dorsey, Dick Levins, Bruce Vondracek, Karen Mumford, and Laurie Sovell. Other Team members are Cornelia Flora (Iowa State University), Larry Gates (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources), Mary Hanks and Doug Gunnick (Minnesota Department of Agriculture), Tex Hawkins (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service), Larry Johnson (Larry L. Johnson and Associates), Helene Murray (Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture), Karen Bumann, Allison Meares, Beth Waller (consultants).
LSP Staff: George Boody
This project was organized and is coordinated by LSP's executive director, George Boody, and LSP-written grants have provided most of the financial support for the 25-member Monitoring Team. This is the third year in a row the team has collected data.
CURE board of directors
Tom Cherveny, Dennis Gibson, Butch Halterman, Ron Hanson, Richard Kroger, Gary Lentz, Don Maronde, Michelle Thelen, Ann Wachtler, Del Wehrspann, John White.
LSP Staff: Patrick Moore
Chippewa River Stewardship Partnership Advisory Committee
Jean Diggin & Tom Warner (Chippewa County Soil & Water Conservation District), Renay Leone (Minnesota Land Trust), Bryan Petrucci (American Farmland Trust), Randy Nelson (Prairie Country Resource Conservation & Development), Kyle Thompson (Prairie Land Management), Mike McGinty (Minnesota Waterfowl Association), Tom Orr (Swift County Soil & Water Conservation District), Al Radtke/Darrel Haugen (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service), Craig Haugaard (Minnesota Extension Service), Tom Anderson (Swift County Parks & Drainage), David Soehren (Minn. Dept. of Natural Resources), Mike Berven, Dennis
Gibson and Bill Rois (farmers).
LSP Staff: Patrick Moore
At the LSP office in Montevideo, Patrick Moore coordinates Clean Up our River Environment (CURE), a local grassroots group organized to educate and activate citizens to appreciate and protect the Minnesota River. Although CURE has its own governing board of directors, Moore raises funds to support it. Likewise, Moore organized the Chippewa River Stewardship Partnership (CRSP), serves as its coordinator, and seeks financial support for it. CRSP is a collaboration of several organizations in the Chippewa River watershed.
Dana Jackson is LSP's associate director.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is one in an occasional series of articles on farmers who are using Holistic Resource Management (HRM) to help them make the kinds of decisions that will move their operations toward economic, social and environmental sustainability. For more information on HRM, including course schedules, contact Audrey Arner in the Land Stewardship Project's western Minnesota office at (320) 269-2105.
During the past few decades, many Upper Midwest farms have become models of specialization. Focusing on the production of one or two commodities makes a farm extremely good at filling bins with corn or bulk tanks with milk. But it also means these operations are about as diverse and flexible as a factory stamping out cast iron skillets with stiff precision. At that point, working harder at doing one thing well may not cut it. After all, when the market decides it wants microwaveable plastic bowls instead, being the best darn skillet maker in the world doesn't make much difference.
And drawing on limited sources of wealth from a farming operation denies opportunities to improve profits while increasing biodiversity, say advocates of sustainable agriculture. Farms are complicated organisms that offer a myriad of possibilities for making a living that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.
Dave and Florence Minar have proven their farm can produce milk profitably with the best of them; over the years, their cows have won Dairy Herd Improvement Association awards for productivity. Now the Minars are in the midst of determining just what other sources of wealth are`hidden away on their 230 acres near New Prague, Minn.
For the past four years they've been using Holistic Resource Management (HRM) to make decisions. These decisions are based on the assumption the farm is a whole system of interconnected resources -- human as well as natural. One of the main components of HRM is "wealth generation," exploring all possibilities for deriving income from a resource base such as a farm and determining if they fit in with the family's holistic goal (see the May/June LSL for more details on HRM and the holistic goal). The Minars say because HRM gives them a big-picture view of the farm, it has prompted them to consider all the possible sources of income, allowing them to break out of the "this-is-a-dairy-farm-only" box.
"It really brings out the creativity in us," says Dave.
Lately, they've been using that creativity a lot. For more than 25 years, beginning in 1969, the Minar farm was a model of conventional dairying. But five years ago the Minars started using management-intensive grazing, an innovative livestock production method in which the cows harvest their own feed in the form of perennial grasses via a planned grazing system.
This is a significant departure from the conventional model of raising annual row crops, storing them and feeding them to the cows. Switching to management-intensive grazing alone has brought about a major increase in the land's efficiency. Instead of relying on machinery, fuel and other inputs from off the farm to grow, harvest and feed feedstuffs like corn, grazing makes use of a free input: sunlight. It also improves the family's quality of life by reducing time spent growing crops and repairing machinery.
But putting the 100-cow dairy herd on a management-intensive grazing system still means the farm is reliant on milk for its main source of income. The risk of such a one-commodity dependence has become clear to the Minars since they started seasonal dairying three years ago. Under such a system, breeding schedules are used to synchronize milk production with the grass-growing season. Seasonal dairying means even less reliance on outside inputs, and it is a definite improvement in quality of life, says the couple; the children who are still helping out on the farm (there are five Minar children: Lisa, 31; Chris, 30; Mike, 28; Lauri, 19; and Dan, 16) are attracted by the fact they don't have to be in the milking parlor twice a day, seven days a week all year around. But seasonal dairying also means up to three weeks without a milk check. Florence works off the farm, but going without that milk income for a month can still be tough on the family budget.
So the family looked for something that would allow them to derive more income from their grazing paddocks. Through their marketing of beef on a limited basis, the Minars had already learned that consumers would buy meat directly from the farmer. Three years ago they started raising chickens outside on grass. The enterprise, which now produces 1,000 birds annually for direct sale to consumers, has turned into a good money maker. The Minars have even produced a dandy looking marketing brochure touting the benefits of "Uncle Dave's Rangers."
Although raising market chickens among grazing Holsteins may appear a bit of a stretch for many dairy farms, the Minars feel the need to reach out even further in the search for efficient and sustainable use of the land.
"We've pretty much stayed on the safe side so far with our alternative enterprises," says Florence.
That's where the brainstorming sessions come in.
Participants in HRM courses are encouraged to bring together a diverse group of people at least once a year to help come up with creative sources of income. These meetings should take place well before a farming operation's financial planning is done for the year. These sessions offer a creative backdrop to the drier number-crunching that goes with financial planning. Besides family members, the Minars may pull in up to a dozen neighbors and friends for their annual wealth-generation ideas sessions. They purposely try to get as diverse of a group of people as possible, and stay away from only inviting people who have agricultural backgrounds. For example, urbanites fleeing the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area less than an hour away have become their neighbors within the past several years, and some of these people have provided some fresh perspectives to the Minar farm.
"We feed them supper and have them sit down and we say `OK, go at it, pay for your supper,'" says Florence.
The session starts out with a little ice breaking to get the creative juices flowing. This consists of having participants consider an everyday object and write down all the uses they can think of for it (true to their bovine roots, one year the Minars had brainstormers think up uses for a bull scrotum). The couple then shows the group a map of the farm and explains what is being done on each acre.
And then the idea slinging begins.
Dave and Florence say the sessions go best if they do little to lead the discussion. One year, they mentioned the idea of having a bed and breakfast operation on the farm, and the discussion centered too much on that.
"You're better off not saying anything," says Dave.
Such sessions can generate literally dozens of ideas -- some more useful than others. A couple of bright ideas recently flung at the Minars included growing a certain illegal, if lucrative, crop, and making the farm a guerrilla warfare training camp. Others are a little more viable, such as bringing inner city children out to the farm for a sort of Midwestern "dude ranch" kind of experience.
Once an enterprise is to be seriously considered, the Minars take plenty of time and plan for the profit using gross margin analysis (see sidebar). The family sets aside special days to do their financial planning, getting away from the farm and all the distractions that go with it so they can just think about planning.
Before brainstorming ideas can be included in the farm's plan, they must make it through HRM testing guidelines to ensure they are ecologically, economically and socially sound. That may mean that some ideas that may appear to be a natural fit at first blush, aren't. For example, one option tossed around was expanding their direct-to-consumer marketing of grass-fed beef by buying calves from other farmers, rather than raising them from birth on the farm. Such an enterprise may pencil out financially (it would help supplement income during a time of the year when milk profits are lower), but violates the detail in the family's goal that guarantees their customers the animal was raised in a certain way from conception to consumption. The Minar farm has been virtually chemical-free for 20 years, and Florence says a lot of people say they buy beef from them because of that.
"We feel we're building up our clientele, and they trust us," she says.
One proposal being seriously considered is to use the old silos (back in the days before management-intensive grazing took over, they were used to store feed for the cattle) as tanks for raising tilapia, a tasty fish the Minars believe they could market readily to Twin Cities eateries.
Such an enterprise would be a good use of on-farm resources, and would also utilize some creative tools in the form of family members. Mike Minar has training in aquaculture, and is excited about pursuing the project. Says Florence, "The potential to have exciting enterprises on the farm can make a big difference in getting the children interested again."
Gross-out
One problem with many bookkeeping systems is they focus on the overall bottom line without distinguishing which of a farm's enterprises are actually profitable.
"People most of the time don't know what's making them money and what's not," says Dave Minar, a New Prague, Minn., farmer.
That's why a major component of Holistic Resource Management wealth generation is "gross margin analysis." This type of financial analysis allows a farmer to separate fixed costs -- those costs such as living expenses, debt payments, taxes, full-time labor etc., that are present regardless of that the farm produces -- from variable costs such as seed and fuel.
Too many times people assume a cost of doing business must be paid no matter what. In reality, it may be a variable cost that can be dropped. For example, Minar found that keeping a top producing registered Holstein herd comes with many extra economic and resource expenses that need to be seriously questioned.
"Now we don't worry so much about the amount of production we're getting and concentrate more on profit per cow," says Dave. "What HRM has done for us is make us question the extra expenses of keeping a registered herd. Before we would have spent the money and never questioned it. Now we question everything."
This is useful when managing a farm as a whole because it enables one to compare the state of many enterprises or combinations of enterprises. This, in turn, makes a farm more flexible and able to adjust or replace enterprises in response to market conditions, etc.
This is a more proactive way of managing finances, says Audrey Arner, who coordinates HRM education for the Land Stewardship Project. Instead of having the farm's bookkeeper say at the beginning of the year, "this is how much money you can spend," or reporting at the end of the year, "this is how much we didn't make," gross margin analysis allows a farmer to examine each enterprise (either current or proposed) and determine what income it can contribute to the overall wealth of the farm. This can expose any financial weak links in the enterprise.
Gross margin analysis does not allow a farm's historical overall bottom lines to determine what profit each enterprise will generate in the future, says Arner.
"As HRM founder Allan Savory says: `Farm management by record keeping is like driving forward using your rearview mirror.' "
Ringing in the Wilderness
Selections from the North Country Anvil
Edited by Rhoda R. Gilman
Published by Holy Cow!
Duluth, Minn.
1996
380 pages
$14.95
Reviewed by Don Maronde
Beginning in 1972, the Minnesota-grown counterculture magazine, North Country Anvil, asked some hard questions about the direction our society was heading in. Now, a compilation of some of the Anvil's best, Ringing in the Wilderness, makes it clear that the concerns hammered out by the now defunct magazine -- it stopped publication in 1989 -- are still relevant today.
Can our culture survive without a vast network of small farms? Without communities? Without gender justice? Racial justice? Economic justice? Can we ask any of these questions without consideration of land stewardship in its deepest sense, without consideration of pollution, corporate monopoly and sustainable economic development? The Anvil was asking those questions two decades ago.
The book's tone is set with an insightful introduction by Paul Gruchow, who has been adding more candlepower to our searchlight as we seek renewal, recovery, reform:
"The Anvil writers were among the first to see what is now common knowledge: that colonialism has survived imperialism, that the same tendency to exploit human and natural resources -- to mine them -- for the good of the empire still persists, although it is not now alien cultures or landscapes that we devour, but our own land and our own people."
The editorial columns of Anvil editor and publisher Jack Miller flesh out nicely what the publication was all about. The title of his column, "Hammering it Out," rings with the imagery of the anvil from Carl Sandburg's famous poem. Anthology editor Rhoda Gilman's "The Story of the Anvil," gives an insightful history of the magazine. This was a history she helped create as a frequent contributor to the feisty periodical, which was published out of a garage in tiny Millville. There follows a series of essays on the history of radical movements (actually conservative, in the true sense). Topics then range through the peace movement, nuclear freeze, development of co-ops and the Wounded Knee occupation. The waking and growing voices of women are also here. The rural despoilment and the land crisis run throughout. The poetry and art samplings are powerful condiments to the stew.
Finally, anyone concerned about creating a sustainable society must turn to page 217. This is, I believe, the heart of the book. Called "The Farm Bell Tolls," this is an essay by Miller that tells the reader the reason for the Anvil's existence and gives a hint as to what might be found in the rich gumbo that makes up the rest of the book. All the political, economic and social injustices which are the diseases of our culture are lined up here. The plight of labor as well as the decline of community and a deterioration in family values all spring from this exposed rot at the core of our greatness. The economic imperialism which few dare to go against is laid bare here. We are all indicted for our complicity. We have all, in ways large and small, sold our souls to the "company store."
"Our traditions have been co-opted into a political-economic-social system dominated by uncontrolled technology and run by a predatory elite. We have become stockholders in the system. We care nothing for this system's policies -- we only want our dividends to keep coming," writes Miller.
Read "The Last Harvest," a short story written by Marjorie L. Dorner which precedes this essay, and you may find yourself in the drama. You will see the wrenching of the shift in values. We still have to decide which "values" are the most sustaining.
It's all there in the anthology: The absolute necessity for transformation in all essential areas related to our connections with each other, which is inextricable from our relationship to the land. Much of what one reads in this book is not 20-year-old history but timeless musings. The Anvil was prophetic and we need its message even still today. Have we progressed? Is our system more just, more humane, more sustainable? The naive optimism of the early days is gone in the sense of large numbers of young people turning to a "simple" life that turned out to be baffling to so many of them. Too many saw utopia and not the hard work. Many lost patience in the hard work of living "simply" and in community. Did they falter because of the siren call of the dominant culture or was it more the weak foundation of their convictions and skills, and the thin supply of mentoring elders?
The Anvil and other publications like it give us a history which should inform us so we might avoid the worst of "trends." We have collected enough data about soil, water, air (ecology), and about social and cultural disruptions (e.g., starvation of indigenous peoples around the world), and about the fallibility of technology (Love Canal, Bhopal, Chernobyl). What we still need is to be convinced, converted to do what we must so we do not foreclose on the future. We are still in the wilderness in the sense of not understanding as a culture the full significance of where we are.
Many spring seasons we plant in less than ideal conditions. Ringing in the Wilderness gives evidence that The North Country Anvil prepared the ground and cast many fertile seeds to the winds of cultural change.
Land Stewardship Project member Don Maronde has lived in the Twin Cities, New Jersey and Boston. He now resides on the Yellow Medicine River, four miles from his Wood Lake, Minn., birthplace. He works as a carpenter and is active in several environmental/sustainable agriculture organizations.
Out of this World
A Woman's Life Among the Amish
By Mary Swander
Published by Viking, New York
1995
276 pages
$20.95
Reviewed by Kathleen Sheerin DeVore
Poets can stare anything into meaning. A collection of rusty, brass house numbers wrapped in silk and preserved in an attic chest lie as testimony to the transiency of "home," while fuzzy dice hanging from an Amish buggy's rearview mirror mark individuality within community and the acceptance of rebellion within reason.
With these and a rich cache of other relics and remembrances Mary Swander's memoir, Out of This World, stares long and hard at multiple meanings of home and community. This travelogue of sorts traces the author's journey from illness to health, isolation to community, sense of a self fragmented to one moving toward wholeness. And throughout the journey the author's trip becomes less a matter of changing geographic location, than a progression toward self-understanding. With a poet's unblinking gaze, Swander stares illness and isolation into meaning.
Swander's book spans a cycle of four seasons and 30 years -- beginning and ending during Christmas. The story weaves between the poet and English professor's present, near Kalona, Iowa -- she's an "English" on the edge of the largest Amish community west of the Mississippi -- and her 1950s childhood in western Iowa where her family knew the cross burning reserved for Catholics on the edge of the Protestant plains. A central thread woven throughout this narrative is Swander's sense of her own separateness. This alienation is bred of an allergy-driven illness that causes violent reactions to the aromas and shared spaces of community itself.
Her struggle with environmental illness began as a series of severe childhood food allergies, which were later drastically worsened by an improperly mixed allergy shot she received from a doctor. This rendered her "hyper-reactive" to most contemporary processed food and chemicals. She spent 10 years carefully testing organic produce and wild game in search of foods that would not induce sores, rashes and vomiting. In effect, the illness had banished her from the communal table.
After eight years of illness, carefully cultivating 20, then 40, then 80 foods her system could tolerate, Swander accepts a dinner invitation from Amish neighbors, who built their meal around her "safe" foods. Of the first meal she'd shared with others in eight years, Swander simply and painfully notes, "While I'd been eating in isolation, the world had gone on, people had linked up, started families of their own, children had grown, and like those seated around me, taken their places at the family table."
Swander's absence from this table causes her to highlight the centrality of shared meals in building community, and her narrative chronicles her attempt to make a place for difference at this table. Finding a place figures prominently in her story, and connecting with a sense of place seems integral to the process of finding a sense of self. Lending authenticity to this sense of place, Swander evokes a tone of rural pragmatism, introducing each of the book's four chapters with selections from the "Stringtown Grocery Calendar," which include advice on how to start a cold motor, measure a circular stack and breed a doe. Like most gestures toward authenticity, however, Swander's feels a bit reductive. When coupled with her repeated removal of people and technology from her landscapes, the narrative at times drifts gently toward nostalgia.
Lamenting the not-so-gradual destruction of the prairie, Swander writes, "When I walk through Doolittle Prairie, my favorite preserve in central Iowa, I try to imagine what this plot would be like if its waist-high grasses and wildflowers extended to the horizon, if it were unscarred by power lines and the constant din of passing traffic."
Her nostalgia here bespeaks a familiar tension for those interested in a simultaneous preservation of the land and the self. But her silence around her own university teaching -- work which requires a considerable commute to keep her in bear meat and typing paper -- and around the connections between power lines that pollute prairies and those carrying electricity to print books, offers some of the book's weaker moments. The stronger ones belie a longing for a respectful intimacy and careful distance among animal and vegetable inhabitants of her landscape.
Struggling for this balance of intimacy and distance, Swander's title (the book is subtitled A Woman's Life Among the Amish) echoes with irony: consumed with questions very much of this world, she asks what price does the "self" pay for solitude, what does it mean to have "community," and where is home?
Perhaps disappointed with this focus on the self among others, an audience member at a reading Swander was giving in St. Paul, Minn., told the author she had hoped to hear more about the Amish and their ways. But Swander doesn't play to that voyeurism which blithely "others" those with pronounced differences among the American mainstream -- I suspect she has little access to, and less interest in Amish "peculiarities."
Her story is richly peopled with neighbors, Amish and "English" alike, who display the generosity and reserve of neighbors in many communities. Though voyeurism is rich here, Swander probes places instead of people, exploring the histories of the homes she inhabits. She weaves together the remnants she finds of the life stories lived beneath these roofs, encouraging us to take interest in the never empty spaces we all inhabit.
Shortly after writing this review, LSP member Kathleen Sheerin DeVore did something that's truly out of this world: She gave birth to 6-pound, 15-ounce Ben.
The agribusiness community is concerned that American consumers see food production and processing as an unhealthy, polluting industry. But instead of changing the way they do business, various groups with a vested interest in preserving the agricultural status quo are trying to modify the perception of how they do things.
One public relations effort, Minnesota Agriculture 2010, involves several commodity groups as well as the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council, Minnesota Extension Service, University of Minnesota College of Agriculture and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. In slick magazine ads and clever radio spots, 2010 promotes the attributes of factory livestock production, intense row-cropping and an emphasis on producing for export markets. One of the advertisements dismisses small, diversified farming this way: "With the possible exception of Paul Bunyan, this may be Minnesota's most popular myth." Highly educated professional women are the main target audience of this campaign, according to its media material.
On a national basis, another "consumer education" campaign is also hoping to catch the attention of women, especially mothers. This campaign, developed by the Agriculture Council of America's FoodWatch program and scheduled for market testing this fall, will feature advertisements that focus on "mothers, children and values."
Why such a move toward telling consumers the agribusiness story after so many years of ignoring them? The Agriculture Council's chief executive officer, William Patrick Nichols, told Feedstuffs magazine that surveys show consumers view farmers and ranchers as "family people" who represent good values and who do their best to produce safe food in an environmentally sound manner. However, as the food leaves the land and passes through the "feedlot, finishing barn, processing facility and retail store, as well as to the supplier, i.e., the animal health or feed company or the fertilizer manufacturer," the warm and fuzzies switch to cold and suspicious. In other words, "consumers don't trust industrialization," noted Nichols.
He said the ultimate goal of the Council's campaign is to get some mileage out of the farmers' positive image by presenting them as "partners" with the processing and distribution aspects of the industry.
Consumer survey results are also behind Minnesota's agricultural version of "don't worry, be happy." Minnesota Agriculture 2010 officials point with concern to polls that show a number of Minnesotans feel the livestock industry is doing a "very poor" job when it comes to the environment.
The bad news is that an American farm's profitability last year was not adequate enough to consider it a viable business. The worse news is that such lethargic financial years are common in U.S. agriculture, according to a national farm magazine's survey.
The 12th Successful Farming Index found that the 453 farms surveyed generated 8.1 percent gross profit on cash revenue in 1995. To be viable, a business should generate between 20 percent and 30 percent gross profit over time, according to Roy Ferguson, a private financial consultant who interpreted the magazine's survey results. During the past 10 years of the survey, gross profit has risen above 20 percent only twice.
The 1995 results were an improvement over the 7 percent average gross profit survey farms reported in 1994. However, considering that grain prices hit record levels last fall, a one percentage point profit increase is nothing that merits a jig on top of the barn.
Ferguson says part of the problem is that farmers are taking on the kind of debt that does not result in increased sales or reduced operating costs.
The Successful Farming Index is based on records of farms in Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri and North Carolina.
When it comes to lawns in this country, we've got one expansive (and expensive) mass of grass.
Approximately 50,000 square miles are blanketed by that monotonously bright green stuff, according to the New Yorker magazine. That's more area than any other crop. Americans spend $30 billion annually to make sure grass does not do what it would if left to its own devices: grow tall and rank, flower out and turn brown. In 1990, American lawns were tamed with 70 million pounds of pesticides and fertilizers.
And to subdue something as lively as grass, one has to get at the root of the problem. One set of chemicals used on lawns are mercury-based fungicides that kill microbes and earthworms and thus "keep the dirt under the grass from becoming soil," reports the magazine.
The potency of some pesticides can increase by a thousand times when mixed with each other, according to a study published in June.
The study centered on endosulfan, dieldran, toxaphene and chlordane -- pesticide chemicals that are known to activate a gene that makes estrogen in animals. Estrogen is a hormone that controls formation of female organs. A surplus of estrogen has been linked to breast cancer and to malformed male sex organs.
Researchers found that, by themselves, the chemicals were relatively weak. But when combined, their potency increased up to 1,000 times. The scientists who worked on the study, which was published in the journal Science, were surprised by this result.
"Instead of one plus one equaling two, we found in some cases that one plus one equals a thousand," John McLachlan, leader of the research team, was quoted as saying in an Associated Press story.
The amount of rainfall expected to fall by the end of this year in the U.S. wheat belt is three times less than the average annual rainfall there during the Dust Bowl, according to the August version of the Harper's Index of statistics.
A letter submitted by a Land Stewardship Project committee recently sparked a series of events that resulted in a southeast Minnesota bank's new owners agreeing to maintain the institution's commitment to agricultural lending.
Discussion concerning the future of the American Bank of Lake City, Minn., started this spring when Firstar Corporation of Milwaukee submitted an application to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to acquire American Bancorporation, Inc., of St. Paul, Minn. American Bancorporation owns American Bank, which has a good track record of working with the agricultural community, in particular smaller, family farm operations. If Firstar Corporation were to acquire American Bancorporation, it would immediately sell two of the smaller banks, including the one in Lake City, to Eau Claire (Wis.) Financial Services, Inc.
One concern is that Firstar Corporation has a documented record of buying up banks and dramatically reducing their involvement in the agricultural sector. In addition, ultimate control of a local bank by a Wisconsin-based holding company presents potential problems for local accountability.
Farmers Accessing Credit Together (FACT), a committee formed by LSP's southeast Minnesota office more than a year ago to address local rural credit issues (see the Jan/Feb LSL), submitted a letter to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago challenging Firstar's application for a number of reasons.
Because of FACT's letter of challenge, the whole process for Firstar to obtain approval for its acquisition from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago was delayed. Any concerns presented by citizens must be acknowledged by the Federal Reserve before the application can move forward. The Federal Reserve then requests that the applicant present reasonable explanation and evidence to demonstrate the concerns can be addressed.
Meanwhile, FACT began discussions with the president of Eau Claire Financial Services. Through these discussions, the committee was able to get in writing the banking company's agreement to maintain the current agricultural management of the Lake City bank, and to improve its record of making loans to farmers of small and moderate sized operations.
FACT has kept careful records of this entire process. Should it witness any negative changes in the agriculture performance of the Lake City bank, it has a good base from which to initiate future challenges to regulating agencies.
The Land Stewardship Project's latest farm case study shows that sustainable hog production on a diversified operation can be profitable and good for the environment.
An Agriculture That Makes Sense: Making Money on Hogs focuses on the 50-sow hog enterprise of one Minnesota crop and livestock operation. The case study compares the farm's production records to to the averages of the top performing hog operations as reported in a regional Minnesota Farm Business Management Program annual report.
The case-study farm minimizes expenses through such production practices as outdoor farrowing and low- cost housing. And instead of focusing on increasing productivity, no matter what the environmental, social and economic cost, the farm family involved in the study emphasizes profitability, according to LSP's Jodi Dansingburg, who conducted the study with Doug Gunnick of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. The result is a farming enterprise that produces hogs for about 13 cents per pound cheaper than the industry standard. As a result of the farm's lower production costs, its return over costs was more than three times that of the average top performing farms in 1988 and 1992. That makes hogs the farm's most profitable enterprise.
"This case study demonstrates that on a cost-of-production basis, diversified family-sized farms raising hogs in an environmentally sound way can yield healthy financial returns," says Dansingburg. "This kind of livestock production offers an excellent opportunity for beginning farmers hoping to make an entry into the business."
This is the second in LSP's An Agriculture that Makes Sense series.
For a copy of the eight-page Making Money on Hogs, send $4 (that price includes postage; Minnesota residents add 6.5 percent sales tax) to: LSP, 2200 4th St., White Bear Lake, MN 55110. There is a 10 percent discount for LSP members or bulk orders of 20 or more. Call LSP at (612) 653-0618 for more information on bulk orders.
More than 50 people got a firsthand look at two very different ways of producing hogs during a Land Stewardship Project tour and picnic on June 23.
Tour participants started the day by visiting the Nolan and Susan Jungclaus farm near Lake Lillian, in western Minnesota. The family uses the Swedish deep-bedded straw system to raise pigs in an inexpensive building that doubles as a machine shed. Nolan said such a system allows him to raise hogs without the odor and threat of manure run-off present in larger, factory-like confinement facilities. And because it utilizes a sow's natural instinct to nest, it's more humane for the animals, he said. Finally, such a system allows the entire family to participate in the operation.
"We did this so I could spend more time with my family. A lot of times my kids are right out here with me," he told tour participants. "If we did have a confinement barn, I don't think I'd want my kids out there with me."
The tour then took a bus to Renville County, where large confinement operations have been erected within the past few years. They saw (and smelled) earthen lagoons that run as large as a city block and hold millions of gallons of liquid manure. Air quality studies conducted by LSP earlier in the summer have revealed possibly dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide in the vicinity of the lagoons.
The tour was co-sponsored by the Sustainable Farming Association of Central Minnesota.
A talk by a nationally recognized expert on sustainable land use planning will cap the Land Stewardship Project's 1000 Friends of Minnesota program fall discussion series.
John DeGrove, director of the Florida Atlantic University/ International University Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems, will speak at 4 p.m. on Nov. 7 at the Landmark Center, 75 W. 5th St., St. Paul, Minn. He will discuss the pros and cons of statewide land-use planning during the talk, which is free and open to the public.
DeGrove, author of Land, Growth and Politics, writes frequently about land use and politics. As Secretary of Florida's Department of Community Affairs, he helped develop the 1985 Growth Management Act and the State Comprehensive Plan. He is a member of the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida and Chairman of the Commission's Committee on Urban Form, Intergovernmental Coordination and Governance.
For more information, contact LSP's Lee Ronning or Mary Schulte at (612) 653-0618.
By Nathan Anderson
This fall, the Land Stewardship Project's 1000 Friends of Minnesota program will be coming to Duluth, Benson and Rochester to facilitate workshops aimed at discussing land-use issues (see the calendar on page 17 for dates and locations). We hope to give local residents and officials in each of these areas a forum to express their most pressing concerns regarding how their communities are changing and growing. We also plan to share information about land-use trends and the latest land conservation tools, such as purchase and transfer of development rights, conservation easements, creative development designs and planning and zoning.
These meetings will be opportunities for local officials to hear how the people they represent want their communities to look and feel. The culmination of these three meetings will be a wrap-up session at the Landmark Center in St. Paul this November, featuring John DeGrove, a national leader in land-use issues.
One overall theme of these meetings will be the presentation of our landscapes as invaluable resources. Through my education in landscape architecture, I've realized that the design of the places around us has a dramatic effect on our physical and mental well-being. To communicate the power our landscapes possess and the fact that each of us can affect and shape what our environments feel and look like, we must present this information in an accessible and visually compelling way.
LSP's 1000 Friends has developed an informational packet on land-use issues to be used at these regional meetings, as well as for general distribution. This packet contains invaluable information on comprehensive planning, urban sprawl, property rights and land conservation issues. We hope this packet will empower citizens and local officials to make responsible land-use decisions.
By Ann Burfeind
Members and staff of the Land Stewardship Project in southeast Minnesota have found themselves in county board rooms in recent months. The reason? Large hog operations, all over 750 animal units (roughly equivalent to 1,800 hogs, each weighing over 55 pounds), have sought permits to begin construction. Typically the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) grants the interim permit before neighbors or concerned citizens are informed or have a chance to comment, so it's a constant battle to keep on top of the situation.
Each county reacts differently to this relatively new phenomenon. In southeast Minnesota's Fillmore County, officials are proving the value of dialogue and citizen input when dealing with such a sticky issue.
The board of commissioner's main concern is to maintain the county's historic position as a livestock-producing region and to protect the drinking water supply, which lies precariously close to the surface under a fragmented limestone base called karst. Industrialized, concentrated animal production in the region must take extra special care.
In response, the planning commission has proposed a revised feedlot ordinance. Throughout the process, officials have sought the input of citizens on all sides of the issue. This is a good start.
In another part of southeast Minnesota, the Winona County Board of Commissioners has not had as many opportunities to examine the issue. The county has no feedlot ordinance and does not require permits on facilities designed for less than a thousand animal units. The hazards posed by karst geology are also present in Winona County. In early June the planning commission decided to permit, with conditions, a 1,600 animal unit hog operation. In plain English, this means 12,000 hogs a year being raised by an operator who owns 150 acres and rents nearly 3,000 more.
Because of the county planning commission's failure to scrutinize the proposed operations, many unanswered questions exist. Where will the manure be spread if rental agreements on that 3,000 acres no longer exist? How will the township and county roads hold up under the weight of tons of manure being hauled around? Who will pay to repair the damage if it does occur?
Finally, and perhaps most important, who will enforce the restrictions outlined in the facilities' permits? Winona County officials say it is up to the neighbors. The neighbors say they don't want to be the informers. The MPCA has one officer for 25 counties, making it unlikely that agency can provide adequate enforcement.
One disconcerting similarity between Winona and Fillmore counties is an unfounded faith in the MPCA. Trusting county board members believe that if any unwanted facility slips through their permitting net, the MPCA will control the pollution. But the MPCA is a highly political agency with factory farm operators sitting on its citizen's board.
Residents in southeast Minnesota are just beginning to make decisions about what they want the landscape to look like. Perhaps through open dialogue and education, this area can be spared some of the hard lessons of our neighbors to the north and west.
Ann Burfeind is an intern in LSP's southeast Minnesota office.
By Rebecca Kilde
Before Bob and Nancy Adams confronted a large livestock operation in their community, they knew about sustainable agriculture, but didn't pay much attention to it.
"When we started fighting this operation, we gave Lee and Jean Peterson a call, and they told us to give the Land Stewardship Project a call because LSP had been very helpful," recalls Bob.
"LSP has been one of the watchdogs on challenges to the corporate farm law," adds Nancy. "I really can't say enough good things about LSP. Doug [Nopar] and Ann [Burfeind] really took us under their wing and made us feel comfortable. They really helped us organize. LSP provides a very valuable service."
The Adams', who live in southeast Minnesota's Mower County, are concerned about the trend toward increasingly larger farms in the area. Bob, a member of the local school board, is particularly concerned about the future of rural education. As the rural population decreases, so does support for the public schools, which drives more people away.
"We're also losing a lot of other services, including postal services," says Bob.
"We're being drained. I'd like to see a lot more farmers, and more young farmers," says Nancy. "I'm very fearful of vertical integration. We need to change the perception that you've got to be big to survive. There's a fear out there that sustainable agriculture isn't practical, but it is. We've seen it work."
Current trends, the couple agrees, seem to be built on a lot of misconceptions.
"There's the myth that bigger is better, There's also an idea out there that unless you farm, you have no business living in a rural community," says Nancy. "I ran into that attitude at the [Minnesota] attorney general's office. A staff person there told me I just had to get used to corporate agriculture if I was going to live in a rural area. I think that more farmers need to speak out and support sustainable agriculture. Non-farmers don't have as much credibility."
I asked Nancy and Bob what advice they'd give to someone fighting a large-scale livestock confinement operation in their community.
Nancy has some practical pointers: "Most of us are not very sophisticated or knowledgeable until we're right in the middle of it. Gather as much information as you can. Talk to other activists in the state. Get their advice and learn from them. Get a copy of the permit. Really get to know what you're dealing with."
Bob suggests that "it would be nice if someone would set up a `menu' or hot list of people involved in this work. It's only through this type of network that we can resolve this issue."
He also presents a challenge: "Most of these activists are women, and they get pooh-poohed up at the state capital. We need to call our legislators on their sexism. I think that kind of behavior is unacceptable."
Rebecca Kilde is LSP's membership coordinator.
LSP Member Profile
- Who: Bob and Nancy Adams
- Home: Sargeant, Minn.
- Family: Two daughters: Meghan, 12; Colleen, 11
- Miscellaneous: Bob is a physician's assistant and Nancy an emergency room nurse; they raise goats and sheep
- They joined LSP in 1995: "Now is the time to get involved," says Nancy.
By Rebecca Kilde & Faye Larson
More than 100,000 people in Minnesota will have the opportunity to contribute to environmental organizations through the Minnesota Environmental Fund (MEF) this year. Seventeen environmental organizations, including the Land Stewardship Project, are funded by the Minnesota Environmental Fund, a charitable federation that raises money through payroll deduction campaigns. It's a convenient and easy way for people to make donations to organizations like LSP.
LSP helped to found MEF in 1992 as a way to diversify our funding sources and to provide support for the environmental community here. MEF distributes 85 percent of campaign receipts to member organizations. Five percent of the undesignated campaign receipts each year are distributed to other environmental organizations in Minnesota. Since 1992, MEF has distributed these "Extra Share" grants to 17 other nonprofit environmental organizations working in Minnesota, including Clean Up our River Environment (CURE).
Many places of business already offer workplace-giving options through the United Way or one of the other six smaller federations. MEF often works with other federations in its campaigns, offering a wider choice to employees.
Funds raised by MEF have increased steadily over the past few years. About 70 public and private workplaces throughout Minnesota will include MEF in campaigns this fall.
If you're interested in the MEF as an option in your workplace, talk to your employer's human resources department. If you'd like more information, please give us a call at (612) 653-0618. And to all those who already contribute to LSP through the Minnesota Environmental Fund: Thank you! If you'd like your workplace pledge to go toward reducing the cost of your LSP membership dues, just send us a copy of your pledge form.
Faye Larson and Rebecca Kilde are LSP's financial manager and membership coordinator, respectively.
Sprawl primer
A quick and easy guide to sprawling growth and ways to combat it has been developed by the Land Stewardship Project's 1000 Friends of Minnesota program.
The guide contains information sheets on: urban sprawl statistics; resources; tools for land conservation; how to organize around a land-use issue; plain talk about takings; how to protect your community from takings claims; benefits of statewide land-use planning; core planning guidelines; how to hold effective meetings; a checklist of what to look for in a community's comprehensive plan; danger signs that a comprehensive plan has problems; 10 things you can do to stop sprawl; and victims of urban sprawl.
For a copy of the 1000 Friends guide, send a check for $4 (that includes postage; make the check payable to LSP) to: LSP, 2200 4th St., White Bear Lake, MN 55110.
Organic lamb tips
Heifer Project International is offering a 10-page guide on organic lamb production and marketing. The guide is based on experiences documented at the Heifer Project's Overlook Farm, a 270-acre operation.The guide contains summaries of basic lamb care, predator protection, management-intensive grazing, watering systems and extended season grazing.
For a copy, send $2 to cover mailing and copying costs to: Dale Perkins, HPI Overlook Farm, Rutland, MA 01543; tele. -- (508) 886-2221.
Sustainable monitoring guide
Monitoring Sustainable Agriculture with Conventional Financial Data, by Dick Levins, is the first in a series based on the work of The Biological, Social and Financial Monitoring Team.
In this 30-page publication, Levins presents four financial indicators to evaluate the sustainability of farming operations. Using farm records or tax reports, farmers can transfer numbers to work sheets provided in the book, and thus evaluate their sustainability.
To order a copy of Monitoring Sustainable Agriculture with Conventional Financial Data, send $7 (that price includes postage; Minn. residents add 6.5 percent sales tax) to: LSP, 2200 4th St., White Bear Lake, MN 55110. There is a 10 percent discount for LSP members and bulk orders of 20 or more copies. For more information on bulk orders, call (612) 653-0618.
Food straight from the land
Minnesota Grown: Fresh Produce & More is a 63-page guide to products available straight from the farm. It lists sources for everything from apples and bison meat to spring water and cut flowers. It includes a county-by-county listing of farms, farmers' markets and retailers, as well as the dates and locations of various food festivals.
For a free copy, contact: Minnesota Department of Agriculture, Minnesota Grown Program, 90 West Plato Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55107-2094; tele. -- (612) 297-4648.
Direct marketing notebook
The Direct Marketing Resource Notebook contains more than 100 pages of practical direct-marketing information and ideas for farmers, educators and organizers.
Produced by the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, this guide contains examples of farmers who raise and direct market produce, beef, poultry and other products. It also lists contacts for state and federal marketing regulations in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
For a copy, send $20 to: Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society, PO Box 736, Hartington, NE 68739; tele. -- (402) 254-2289.
Upper Miss. organic guide
Good Earth Guide to Organics in the Upper Mississippi Region is a comprehensive listing of certified farms, as well as restaurants and stores with organic products. It also includes farm suppliers catering to organic agriculture. This guide covers Minnesota, Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa, with listings broken down by county (it includes a county map in the front).
For a copy of this 38-page book, send $5 (that includes shipping) to: Donna Meyer, program director, Minnesota Chapter, Organic Crop Improvement Association, 36124 County 45 Blvd., Lake City, MN 55041; tele. -- (612) 345-4925.
Organic tome available To obtain a copy of the 370-page National Organic Directory, send a check for $40.95 (that includes postage; California residents add $2.75 for sales tax) payable to the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) to: CAFF, PO Box 464, Davis, CA 95617; tele. -- (916) 756-8518. Celebrating the wild sod
The Prairie Reader is a new quarterly newsletter about prairie preservation, restoration and gardening. The first issue included: a feature on prairie restoration efforts in the Twin Cities; a report on a proposed tallgrass prairie preservation area that would encompass native prairie remnants from the Canadian border to Des Moines, Iowa; a review of The Prairie Keepers: Secrets of the Grasslands; and an article on the efforts of one family to turn a piece of their suburban property into prairie.
For information on subscribing ($18 for four issues), contact: Camille LeFevre, P.O. Box 8227, St. Paul, MN 55108.
Weed whacking
Vegetable Farmers and Their Weed Control Machines is a 75-minute video showing various aspects of mechanical weed control in action. Featured are such devices as rotary hoes and flame weeders.
For a copy of the video, send a $10 check (that includes postage) payable to UVM Extension to: UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 590 Main St., Burlington, VT 05405-0059.
Indiana internship
Michaela Farm, a 300-acre organic operation and ecological education center in southeastern Indiana, offers two full-time internships during its February through October growing season.
For an application form, contact: Michaela Farm, PO Box 100, Oldenburg, IN 47036; tele. -- (812) 933-0661.
SEPT. 7 -- Outdoor hog production field day featuring pasture farrowing and hoop buildings, Jim & LeeAnn VanDerPol farm, Kerkhoven, Minn.; Contact: (320) 847-3432
SEPT. 9-11 -- Introduction to HRM, Marshall, Minn.; Contact: Audrey Arner, LSP (320) 269-2105
SEPT. 10-13 -- National Small Farm Conference, featuring LSP Federal Farm Policy Committee member Dave Serfling on a panel addressing research and extension needs of farmers, Nashville, Tenn.; Contact: (615) 963-5533
SEPT. 12 -- LSP 1000 Friends of Minnesota regional meeting on planning and zoning as they relate to urban sprawl, DeWitt-Seitz Building, Duluth, Minn.; Contact: LSP (612) 653-0618
Dairy, beef and chicken production field day at the Lentz farm and the Meyer farm, Lake City, Minn.; Contact: (612) 345-467
Increased forage production via better control of water runoff, James Sovell farm, Ivanoe, Minn.; Contact: (507) 694-1486
SEPT. 13 -- Non-chemical weed control featuring rotation and soil testing and late weed plant identification, Craig and Joanie Murphy farm, Morris, Minn.; Contact: (320) 392-5176
SEPT. 14 -- Consumer Awareness workshop, featuring Howard Lyman of the "Eating With Conscience Campaign" and CSA farmer Dan Guenthner, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., St. Cloud (Minn.) National Guard Armory, 1710 N. 8th St.; Contact: June Varner, SFA (320) 584-5165
Diversified grazing of sheep and cattle, Ed and Cathy Radermacher farm, Bellingham, Minn.; Contact: (320) 568-2110
Field day on rejuvenating pastures and old hay fields, Dan Pierson farm, River Falls, Wis.; Contact: (715) 425-9488
SEPT. 16 -- Organic fruit & vegetable production field day & potluck, Bob, Jane & Dan Lynch farm, Maple Lake, Minn.; Contact: (612) 963-6554
SEPT. 16-18 -- Conference on new approaches to rural nonpoint source pollution, LaCrosse, Wis.; Contact: (612) 972-3908
SEPT. 20-21 -- "Reflections for an Ecological Age," a conference with Paula Gonzalez, SC, Ph.D, futurist, educator & environmentalist, Minn.; Contact: (507) 389-4238
SEPT. 21 -- CURE Minnesota River Cleanup day; Contact: LSP's western Minnesota office (320) 269-2105
SEPT. 22 -- Agriforestry field day, Rapatz-Nolan farm, Browerville, Minn.; Contact: (612) 594-6317
SEPT. 24 -- "Alternative Woody Crops for Sustained Income: Emerging Agriforestry Opportunities in Minnesota," Forest Resources Center, Lanesboro, Minn.; Contact: (612) 624-7418
SEPT. 26 -- Interseeding hairy vetch in sunflowers, Hans Kendel farm, Moorhead, Minn.; Contact: (218) 253-2897
SEPT. 29 -- CURE Minnesota River Revival; Contact: LSP's western Minnesota office (320) 269-2105
OCT. 1 -- LSP's 1000 Friends of Minnesota regional meeting on planning and zoning as they relate to urban sprawl, Best Western Apache, Rochester, Minn.; Contact: LSP (612) 653-0618
OCT 3-4 -- LSP's Dana Jackson will be on a panel at the 1996 Minnesota Conference on Sustainable Development: Building and Investing in Sustainable Communities, Minneapolis; Contact: 1-800-657-3843
NOV. 1-2 -- Small Farm Today magazine seminar and trade show featuring the theme "Profit from Diversity"; subjects include CSA, marketing, sheep, hydro-organics, seed saving and aquaculture, Columbia, Mo.; Contact: 1-800-633-2535
NOV. 1-3 -- "The Animal in Agriculture," Biodynamic Farming Association and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) conference, with guest speakers Trauger Groh and Fred Kirschenmann, Humphrey Insititute, Minneapolis, Minn.; Contact: LSP (612) 653-0618
NOV. 7 -- LSP-sponsored Landmark Series talk on the pros and cons of statewide land use planning by John DeGrove of Florida Atlantic University, St. Paul, Minn.; Contact: LSP (612) 653-0618 Third annual LSP Taste of Lewiston gathering, with the theme "Rural Youth and the Arts;" Contact: (507) 523-3366
NOV. 9-10 -- 2nd Annual LSP Membership Gathering, Camp Omega,Waterville, Minn.; Contact: Rebecca Kilde, LSP (612) 653-0618
DEC. 6-7 -- Holistic Resource Management event featuring Allan Savory, Little Falls, Minn.; Contact: DeEtta Bilek, Central Minn. SFA (218) 445-5475
FEB. 7-9 -- First annual gathering of the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (location to be announced); Contact: Mark Schultz, LSP (612) 823-5221
Check the Calendar for the latest on upcoming LSP events.
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