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 worked to weaken state and federal regulations related to how much pollution CAFOs can produce.
• In many cases, local officials have yielded under pressure from Big Ag, making it possible for CAFO owners to circumvent local zoning rules.
• “Collateral damage” has resulted in the form of external costs borne by the public, including polluted air and water, and tense situations that pit neighbor against neighbor.

On March 18, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld Winona County’s right to control the size of livestock CAFOs when it rejected a request to appeal a lower court’s decision. This is the latest in a yearslong battle involving LSP members and other citizens in the county as they fight to have a say in the future of their community. For more information on the Supreme Court’s decision, click here.

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Some Parts of Minnesota’s Farm Country Have High Cancer Rates, but the Causes Aren’t Clear

(3/7/25) The Minnesota Reformer reports that Minnesota has one of the highest cancer rates in the country. There were 34,000 new diagnoses in 2021, the latest year for which complete data is available, adding up to the sixth-highest per-capita rate in the country. Counties in parts of western Minnesota’s farm country have seen the biggest increases in new cancer diagnoses since the mid-2000s, and they also have the state’s highest rates of new diagnoses today. Several counties in the Twin Cities metro, by contrast, have experienced decreasing rates of cancer diagnoses. Highlights:

• Rates of colorectal cancer diagnoses and death are roughly 30% higher in northwest and southwest Minnesota than they are in the Twin Cities.
• In recent years, researchers have increasingly found evidence of links between exposure to various agricultural chemicals and the development of some types of cancer. Fertilizer byproducts can make their way into drinking water, for instance, potentially increasing the risk of colon, kidney and stomach cancer.
• A 2024 literature review concluded that “women in rural regions are at risk for exposure to pesticides by equipment decontamination, unprotected clothes washing, pesticide drift, chemical spraying in the field, and other routes of exposure in the household,” and that that exposure could augment the risk of breast cancer development.

Back in 1998, the Land Stewardship Letter reported on research in areas like northwestern Minnesota that showed connections between exposure to even low doses of pesticides and birth defects, among other health problems. Check it out here.

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Olmsted County Requests $9 Million in State Support to Help Neighbors Protect Soil Health

(3/6/25) Officials are hoping to expand the success of Olmsted County’s Groundwater Protection and Soil Health Program to an 11-county region in southern Minnesota, reports the Rochester Post Bulletin. The program, which has proven to be a popular avenue for farmers to diversify their operations in a way that reduces nitrate pollution, was launched in 2022 with federal pandemic-relief funds. Highlights:

• The Olmsted County program provides payments to farmers who put in cover crops, diversify their corn-soybean rotations with small grains, and replace row crops with perennial forages.
• The Olmsted County Soil and Water Conservation District, which administers the program, is finding that farmers who enroll in the program often convert additional acres to conservation practices, despite the fact that they are not eligible for payments on those additional acres.
• Olmsted County SWCD manager Skip Langer told the newspaper that statewide studies show such soil-friendly practices can reduce nitrates in neighboring waterways by 27%, but local efforts have seen greater results. “We are seeing a 30% reduction in nitrates,” he said.
• The Olmsted County Board of Commissioners has unanimously approved efforts to seek $9 million for program expansion from the state’s Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, which generates funding through the Minnesota Lottery. Bills are being proposed at the Minnesota Legislature that would help fund the expansion.

LSP is supporting several soil health proposals during the current session of the Minnesota Legislature. Among those proposals is one that would expand the Olmsted County Groundwater Protection and Soil Health Program to other areas of the state. For more on the program, check out LSP’s coverage in the Ear to the Ground podcast and the Land Stewardship Letter.

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The State of Minnesota’s Soil Health

(3/10/25) A new analysis by University of Minnesota Extension has combined remote sensing, USDA Agricultural Census data, and state-reported cost-share figures to develop a baseline estimate of how many acres in the state are being managed using practices like cover cropping and minimum till, according to Morning Ag Clips. Highlights:

• Minnesota is seeing more residue being left on fields to protect the soil surface — from an average of 36% of the field covered by residue in 2016 to 64% in 2020.
• However, despite greater cover crop use (a 24% increase in acreage since 2017) and an increase in spending on cover crops ($12,103,000 was spent on cover crop seeds in 2017 and $20,527,000 in 2022), only 2.28% of cropland acres were cover cropped in 2022.
• No-till practices increased by 16.7% between 2016 and 2020, but overall only 5% of Minnesota cropland is managed using no-till.

For information on building soil health profitably, check out LSP’s Soil Builders’ web page.

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USDA Cutting Millions of Dollars that Minnesota Schools, Child Care Centers and Food Banks Used to Buy Local Food

(3/13/25) The Star Tribune reports that the USDA is axing the Local Food for Schools and Child Care Cooperative Agreement and a second program that allowed food banks to buy food locally. Highlights:

• As a result of the USDA order, about $660 million will no longer be available to schools and child care facilities across the nation.
• The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program was slated to provide about $500 million this year so that food banks nationwide could purchase food from local farmers.
• The USDA had signed agreements with Minnesota to provide $13.2 million for schools and child care centers, and $4.7 million for the food bank program during fiscal year 2025.

During LSP’s recent Family Farm Breakfast and Lobby Day at the Capitol, our members and allies talked to lawmakers about the need for the state to prioritize funding of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Farm to School & Early Care Program so farmers who were already planning on producing food for schools and early care programs in 2025 are not left in the lurch. For details on how to get a message to federal lawmakers about the importance of local food programs, as well as farm conservation initiatives, see LSP’s action alert. Farmer and LSP soil health organizer Shea-Lynn Ramthun was recently featured on a Minnesota Public Radio call-in show related to the impacts of funding freezes on agriculture; an Agweek article also covered the issue. An LSP blog describes how the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program was benefiting food banks and farmers in western Wisconsin.

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