Blog

MDA Announces 2025 Recipients of the AGRI Farm to School & Early Care Programs

Sign the Petition Asking the Legislature to Approve Additional Funding for this Project

By Heather Benson
May 1, 2025

    The Land Stewardship Project congratulates the 2025 recipients of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s AGRI Farm to School and Early Care Programs. This includes K-12 school districts and early care centers that received reimbursement grants, as well as family daycare providers participating in the MDA’s first-ever Local Tots Cost-Share Program. Grantees span the…  Read More →

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Minnesota Soil Health Story: Rhyan Schicker

Sign LSP's Soil Health Petition Today

By Rhyan Schicker
April 30, 2025

When I first moved to Minnesota eight years ago, my knowledge of soils and agricultural systems was purely textbook. I live and work in an amazing community that has taught me more than I ever expected to learn, and has pulled back the curtain on our current farming systems and the ways in which they…  Read More →

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Land Line: Meat Giant, Farmland Access, Food Banks, Greenhouse Gases, Immigrants & the Economy, Swampbuster, King Oak

By Brian DeVore (editor)
April 29, 2025

The World’s Biggest Meat Company Gets the Greenlight to Go Public on the New York Stock Exchange (4/25/25) Despite a long history of corruption and connections to illegal deforestation, the largest meatpacker in the world has been granted a listing on the New York Stock Exchange by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), reports…  Read More →

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Join Us for a May Day Week of Action

By Nick Olson
April 28, 2025

The Land Stewardship Project knows that immigrants are an important part of our farm economy, and have been throughout history. That’s why we’re inviting you to join LSP and the Immigrant Defense Network this week at one of four powerful teach-in opportunities in the Minnesota towns of Montevideo, Minneapolis, Mankato, and Rochester. We will learn…  Read More →

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Flower Power

How 3 Farmers Teamed Up to Diversify Out of the Corn-Soybean Duoculture

By Jasmine Curtis
April 15, 2025

Near the beautiful southern Minnesota town of Austin, three farmers are going against the grain with an unlikely crop: sunflowers. While most Midwestern farmers stick to corn and soybeans, backed by reliable federal subsidies and a marketing and transportation infrastructure centered around such commodities, these pioneers saw an opportunity where others saw risk. Their story…  Read More →

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Land Line: Mental Health & Land Health, Ag Income Decline, Canadian Eggs, Tariffs & Fertilizer, Banned Verbiage, Weather Disaster, Community Hub

By Brian DeVore
April 14, 2025

Farmers Face One of the Highest Rates of Suicide. This Social Worker Believes the Solution is Buried in Their Land (4/10/25) The Guardian newspaper describes how a social worker in Kansas has developed the LandLogic Model, a new way to train healthcare providers that uses farmers’ relationship to their land to identify and treat depression,…  Read More →

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LSP Legislative Update: Proposals Related to Local Food, Land Access & Soil Health Moving Forward

Budget Issues Loom Large as Regular Session Heads into Final Weeks

By Laura Schreiber 
April 8, 2025

As we pass a key date in the 2025 Minnesota legislative calendar, several initiatives supported by the Land Stewardship Project remain alive and are moving through the committee process. In order to be considered as part of an omnibus bill, the majority of proposed legislation had to be heard in both the House and Senate…  Read More →

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Land Line: Soil Health, Hunger, Govt. Accountability, Ag Recession, Slaughterhouse Speeds, Checkoffs

By Brian DeVore
April 1, 2025

Improving Soil Health Not Just Feel-Good Endeavor (4/1/25) Indiana Prairie Farmer describes how Rodney Rulon’s 30-year soil health journey utilizing no-till and cover cropping is paying dividends not just environmentally, but economically as well. Highlights: The National Association of Conservation Districts and the Soil Health Institute performed a budget analysis on 29 farms across the…  Read More →

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Land Line: CAFO Control, Cancer in Farm Country, Nitrates, Soil Health, Farm to School

March 19: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities

By Brian DeVore
March 19, 2025

Something Smells With the Feedlot Trend, and it’s More Than Just the Manure 3/16/25 Ron Way, former assistant director of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, writes in the Star Tribune about how factory farms have transformed the landscape in southern and central Minnesota. Highlights: Since the 1970s, backers of large-scale, industrialized livestock production have successfully…  Read More →

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Land Line: Food Systems, Funding Freeze, John Deere, Immigration, Regenerative Farm Family

March 3: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities

By Brian DeVore
March 3, 2025

Surrounded by Crops in Minnesota Farm Country, but with Little to Eat (2/26/25) Star Tribune columnist Karen Tolkkinen writes about the paradox plaguing rural communities in western Minnesota: despite massive amounts of land being devoted to agricultural production, little fresh, affordable food is available for local residents. Highlights: A recent study of the food system in…  Read More →

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