I recently phoned members of my geographically far-flung family to give them Thanksgiving greetings and was struck by a common element of our ensuing conversations. From Iowa and Nebraska to Kentucky and Texas, the report was the same: drought, drought and more drought. I thought about that recently while watching the  new documentary, The Dust…  Read More →

The call came in the night. On the end of the line was the panicked voice of Tyler Carlson, a 26-year-old beginning farmer who was starting a grazing operation in west-central Minnesota. It seems that while making a long-distance move of the cowherd he had just purchased a few days before, a baby calf had…  Read More →

Winona County officials apparently now have a much better understanding of their role as the “Responsible Governmental Unit” in the environmental review process for frac sand mines, and the concerns LSP raised recently (see previous blog post) will be addressed before the Yoder and Dabelstein EAWs are re-published. We’ve learned that County Planning Department staff…  Read More →

Near the end of Will Allen’s inspiring book, The Good Food Revolution, DeShell Parker talks about what Growing Power means to her: “It means integrity. It means strong thinking. It means willpower. It means confidence. It means assertiveness. It’s so far beyond dirt and worms.” Allen’s book, which he wrote with Charles Wilson, is extremely…  Read More →

UPDATE (11/12/12): Since this blog was originally published, Winona County was informed by the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board that the error of stating that the MPCA did the Environmental Assessment Worksheet means that the process must be restarted. The new timeline has not yet been established. This is a good first step and Winona County…  Read More →

When I and four other college students from Winona participated in the Southern civil rights movement of the 1960s, we were proud of Minnesota. Like the dozens from all over Minnesota who spent months or years helping people to register and vote in the face of poll taxes, literacy tests, threats and murder, we knew…  Read More →

Recently, the Land Stewardship Project joined “Our Vote, Our Future,” a coalition of over 70 organizations working to oppose the voter restriction amendment to the state constitution that is to be put before Minnesota voters Nov. 6. Why is an organization whose mission is stewardship of the land and our communities speaking out on this…  Read More →

I am a Planning Commissioner in Florence Township, which is in southeast Minnesota’s Goodhue County. I am also chair of the Save-The-Bluffs Citizen’s group and a new member of the Land Stewardship Project. I have been heavily involved in the silica frac sand issue here in Goodhue County since May 2011. I was retired once,…  Read More →

Former Purdue University professor Don Huber is no chemo-phobe — he just hates to see a product of science go to waste. LSP’s podcast/PowerPoint presentation on the herbicide glyphosate featuring Huber makes that point. In the presentation, Huber comes across as a scientist who is profoundly disappointed that a sound crop production tool has, in…  Read More →

A recent press release from the Stanford School of Medicine read, “Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods.” The headline could just have easily read, “Despite billions spent on research and subsidies, conventional foods found more dangerous than organic.” The Stanford study was striking in several regards: 1) no new research was conducted —…  Read More →