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A Sense of Where You Are

11 Examples of Viewing Farms in Context (Part 1 in a Series)

By Brian DeVore
January 21, 2025

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During a pasture walk, participants in LSP’s Driftless Grazing School discussed how to put soil health in context.

Note: This is the 1st installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series. 

On a sunny day in June, hundreds of ewes make their way through a narrow grazing paddock, flowing along the contours of a Driftless Area hill in southeastern Minnesota like a woolly river. Later in the growing season, a west-central Minnesota farmer shows off a flat-as-a-pancake field that had formerly grown hybrid poplars — it’s now being converted to another form of perennials that can be grazed by beef cattle. As trains rumble by just a few yards away, a vegetable farmer in the middle of Minneapolis grapples with the challenges of building soil health in the city. In western Wisconsin, a produce and chicken operation bases part of its marketing strategy on the idea that rural people deserve to eat healthy food as well. In central Minnesota, a dairy farming family realizes that building biology isn’t just good for the land and crops — it also improves quality of life. Seventy miles to the south, an organic farmer checks a massive whiteboard “spreadsheet” set up in his machine shed to schedule daily tasks at a time when climate change leaves little room for error. In southwestern Minnesota, a family converts row cropped fields to annual and perennial forages as their neighbors haul corn past their fields to the local ethanol plant.

Doing things in “context” is a big part of the regenerative farming discussion these days. In fact, the original “five principles of soil health” — armor the soil, minimize soil disturbance, increase plant diversity, keep living roots in the soil, and integrate livestock — now have a sixth companion: keep things in context. It’s not enough to adopt a practice that, for example, produces a marketable product, reduces labor, or builds good aggregate soil structure. One also needs to figure out where that practice fits in as far as the bigger, interconnected picture is concerned. Raising corn when prices are high makes sense when considering it as an isolated enterprise. But what’s the cost from a labor, input, and equipment point of view? And what happens when the market nosedives? Integrating cover crops into a corn-soybean operation is always a good idea if reducing erosion and building soil biology are the goals, but how sustainable is the practice if it doesn’t generate enough economic value to keep it going in the long term?

During the 2024 field day season, considering things in context was a major topic in pastures and crop fields, as well as in vegetable plots and high tunnels. See below for links to our special “A Sense of Where You Are” blog series, which provides firsthand reports from 11 of those field days. These are 11 mini-examples of farmers connecting the dots and putting them into perspective every chance they get. Taken as whole, they provide a glimpse at the potential regenerative farming has for revitalizing the land and our communities.

Brian DeVore edits the Land Stewardship Letter and produces the Ear to the Ground podcast.

Installments in the ‘A Sense of Where You Are’ Series:

  1. Introduction to the Series: A Sense of Where You Are
  2. Red Dresses & Magic Management
  3. In the Blood
  4. Seeking Signs of Life
  5. Forest for the Trees
  6. The Quickening
  7. Food Bank Booster
  8. First Things First
  9. The Big Picture
  10. The Snowball Effect
  11. 7 Years Later
  12. Against the Grain
Category: Blog
Tags: farmer-to-farmer • field days • regenerative agriculture • soil health

Upcoming Events

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September 2025

Monday September 1

All Day
Final Deadline for LSP's Farm Beginnings Course
Monday September 1
Final Deadline for LSP's Farm Beginnings Course

Beginning and prospective farmers are invited to apply to the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course, a year-long training program that focuses on the goal setting, marketing, and financial skills needed to establish a successful farm business. The Farm Beginnings course creates a space for folks to name their vision, acquire the tools and skills needed to make it happen, and become part of a community of support to help them succeed.  

The course will run from November 2025 through March 2026, with some additional educational opportunities to take place later in 2026. 

The deadline for applications is Sept. 1. Early bird applications submitted by Aug. 1 will receive a $100 discount if you are accepted into the class. Partial scholarships are available.

More details are at http://www.farmbeginnings.org or Annelie Livingston-Anderson at annelie@landstewardshipproject.org.

You can apply to the course here.

Wednesday September 3

10:00 am – 3:00 pm
LSP Montevideo Office Coffee & Conversation
Wednesday September 3
10:00 am – 3:00 pm
LSP Montevideo Office Coffee & Conversation
111 N 1st St, Montevideo, MN 56265, USA

On the first Wednesday of each month, the Land Stewardship Project hosts coffee and conversation at our downtown Montevideo office (111 North First Street), and we hope you will have time to join us at the next one on Wednesday, Sept. 3, from 10 a.m. to noon.

The open house-style mornings feature a quick update on recent LSP work and then plenty of time to enjoy your coffee and build community the old-fashioned way, by talking face-to-face. This month we will give an update on our work to combat consolidation in animal agriculture and provide an overview of our recent town hall in Paynesville with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.  

 Come when you can and stay as long as you like! Don’t hesitate to bring along a friend or two — we always enjoy meeting someone new.

For more information, contact LSP’s Matthew Sheets at msheets@landstewardshipproject.org.

Friday September 5

9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Soil Health Field Day on the Cotter Farm: Austin
Friday September 5
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Soil Health Field Day on the Cotter Farm: Austin
50203 205th St, Austin, MN 55912, USA

 Sign up today for a get-together down on Tom Cotter’s Farm. This field day brings together food companies, local farmers and other professionals in agriculture — a perfect opportunity for networking and discussion.
Hear from soil health experts, then board the Topless Bus to take a tour of Tom’s farm. A FREE TACO BAR LUNCH will featureTom’s own grass-fed beef, along with authentic, homemade tortillas and rice. Featured speakers include soil scientist Kris Nichols and agronomist Joe Ailts.
 
You can check out the field day flier here. For more details and to register, click here.

Saturday September 6

9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Soil & Food Health Field Day: Austin
Saturday September 6
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Soil & Food Health Field Day: Austin
50203 205th St, Austin, MN 55912, USA

Details are here.

Monday September 8

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Anne Biklé in conversation with Ross Evelsizer: What Your Food Ate
Monday September 8
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Anne Biklé in conversation with Ross Evelsizer: What Your Food Ate
Pulpit Rock Brewing Company, 207 College Dr, Decorah, IA 52101, USA

Join Anne Biklé (co-author, What Your Food Ate: How to Restore Our Land and Reclaim Our Health) and NEIA RC & D Natural Resource Projects Director, Ross Evelsizer, for a conversation and Q & A session followed by a book signing. Everyone is invited to this free event sponsored by the Oneota Valley Literary Foundation, with support from Pulpit Rock Brewing and Dragonfly Books.
 
Details on the Sept. 8 event are here.

View Full Calendar

Recent Posts

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  • Farmers to AG: Take Action to Counteract Community-Killing Consolidation August 27, 2025
  • Tell the MPCA by Sept. 10 to Focus on Clean Water, New Crops & Living Cover August 22, 2025
  • Land Line: Farm Finance Crisis, Mental Health, Inflated Inputs, Crop-Livestock Synergy, Bread Bloat, Pesticides in Water, Soil Health & MAHA August 9, 2025
  • Farmers Gather in Madison to Discuss ‘Bringing Small Grains Back to Minnesota’ August 6, 2025

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