One day in 2014, a man stopped by Bill and Bonnie McMillin’s farm tucked away in the hills of southeastern Minnesota’s Wabasha County and offered to pay cash for all 160 acres, lock, stock and barrel. Such an offer can be tempting. After all, Bill and Bonnie had worked hard over the previous few decades… Read More →
Note: Land Stewardship Project member Jim VanDerPol raises crops and livestock on Pastures a Plenty Farm near Kerkhoven in western Minnesota. He recently wrote this commentary expressing his opinions on the farm financial crisis for his own blog, and has given permission to re-post it here. Farmer suicide is on an uptrend. Some would call… Read More →
At a Land Stewardship Project Policy and Organizing Program staff meeting in January 2016, I had a deeply moving experience that will stay with me for a long time. My fellow organizers and I read aloud an early draft of a document entitled, “A Transformational Narrative for LSP Policy & Organizing: A Work in Progress.”… Read More →
A BioBlitz Highlights the Role Livestock Farmers Can Play in Habitat Improvement It’s the kind of overcast day in June that leaves one wondering if the sun decided to take an extended summer holiday. But as heavy thunderstorms threaten this part of Big Stone County in western Minnesota, some 130-people break up into teams and… Read More →
NOTE: On Sept. 7, 2019, 37 Land Stewardship Project member-farmers and leaders came together in St. Peter, Minn., to discuss direct ways of addressing the current farm crisis. Below is the statement these members developed as a guideline on how to move forward to address this crisis: A Real Farm Crisis Farmers are facing an… Read More →
NOTE: On Sept. 7, 2019, 37 Land Stewardship Project member-farmers and leaders came together in St. Peter, Minn., to discuss direct ways of addressing the current farm crisis. Below is the statement these members developed as a guideline on how to move forward to address this crisis: A Real Farm Crisis Farmers are facing an… Read More →
CROW LAKE TOWNSHIP, Minn. — It’s early November, and Grass Lake in Stearns County’s Crow Lake Township is peaceful, lined with cattails bending in the breeze and a few ducks and geese watching for winter’s arrival. But if things had gone differently a few months ago, neighbors could have been seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling… Read More →
Earlier this week, at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wis., U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue made the following remarks in regard to the economic crisis facing many small and mid-sized farmers, especially dairy farmers: “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out. I don’t think in America we, for any… Read More →
Ross Cooper and his family raise canning and grain crops on their Century Farm in Spring Valley in southeastern Minnesota. Shortly after his son was born, Ross converted to no-till to cut down on the amount of time he was spending in the tractor. More recently, he has begun integrating cover crops into the farming… Read More →
A Shared Threat Prompts a Shared Vision for a New Farm As the land auction progressed, it looked like the parcel was on its way to exchanging hands at a decent price. But the landowner grew increasingly anxious about the guy who was likely to get the highest bid—he was a well-known owner of large-scale… Read More →
