Growing Small Grains Market in Albert Lea Attracting Attention from Farmers

(1/28/25) KAAL-TV reports on a Land Stewardship Project workshop where over 150 people gathered to talk about ways of bringing small grains back to Minnesota. Highlights:

• After being mostly replaced by corn and soybeans during the past several decades, small grains such as oats are beginning to make a comeback in the Upper Midwest.
• Farmers are integrating small grains into their rotations to build soil health, reduce inputs, provide grazing for livestock, and break up pest cycles.
• An oat processing facility breaking ground in Albert Lea, Minn., this spring could offer a major marketing outlet for farmers in the region.

To access the videos featuring the speakers from LSP’s small grains workshop, click here. Podcast interviews with Bob Quinn, Roy Pfaltzgraff, and Landon Plagge are also available.

♦ ♦ ♦

Minnesota Finalizes New Feedlot Permit System, Prompting Some Backlash

(1/23/25) The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has finalized changes to two of its general permits, which apply to manure management on livestock operations that are 1,000 or more animal units in size, according to MinnPost. Highlights:

• The changes include a better tracking system when manure is transferred from a livestock producer to someone who is going to apply it to the land. An online tool for creating a manure management plan has also been added.
• Groups such as the Land Stewardship Project say the changes, particularly the tracking of manure as it changes hands, are steps in the right direction. “… it is just one of the bare minimum things that we can be doing to support and ensure that our best management practices are going to be adhered to,” Matthew Sheets, an LSP organizer, told MinnPost.
• The Minnesota Farm Bureau expressed concerns that the changes would limit the ability of livestock farms to expand.

For details on LSP’s work related to factory farms, click here. LSP’s Soil Health web page is here.

♦ ♦ ♦

Diversified Cropping Systems Boost Nitrogen but Not Soil Carbon, Study Finds

(1/17/25) The Iowa State University New Service reports on a new study showing that diverse rotations of crops fertilized with livestock manure produce numerous environmental benefits, but the sequestration of carbon is not one of them. Highlights:

• The results come from Iowa State’s Marsden Farm, which for the past quarter-century has compared a traditional two-year corn-soybean rotation to three- and four-year systems that mix in a year or two of alfalfa, clover, or oats and replace most of the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer for corn with cattle manure.
• Such a management system stimulates microbial activity, which causes the kind of decomposition that can increase carbon dioxide emissions, thus counteracting the increased carbon input the diverse rotation and manure application provide.
• The good news is that soil organic matter breaking down faster produces more of the type of nitrogen crops such as corn require. Increased nitrogen availability helped manure replace enough synthetic fertilizer to reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, by an estimated carbon dioxide equivalent of 60%-70%, according to the study.

Information on building soil health profitably is available on LSP’s Soil Health web page. LSP’s Myth Buster on carbon trading is here.

♦ ♦ ♦

‘Get them involved’: Working with Neighbors can have Big Impact, Land Stewardship Project Speaker Says

(1/11/25) Creating strong rural communities starts with bringing people together to discuss shared values, said Land Stewardship Project organizer and farmer James Kanne, who was featured in a Marshall Independent article on a meeting facilitated by LSP and other groups in southwestern Minnesota. Highlights:

• Participants in the meeting were asked to create a vision for the future of their community by sharing common concerns and goals.
• Issues such as food insecurity, the economic effects of labor shortages, breakdowns in the global food supply, clean water, consolidation in agriculture, and supporting the next generation of farmers were discussed.
• “You can see how this can cut across a lot of political boundaries, where people are disagreeing on policy,” Kanne told the meeting participants. “Something that I’ve been doing is going out and talking to people one-on-one, and you can find these shared values when you do that.”

For more on getting involved with LSP’s work, see our Connect with LSP web page.

♦ ♦ ♦

Support Proves Vital in Regenerative Farming

(1/5/25) The Missouri News Network describes how farmers seeking to use regenerative production methods rely on community networks for moral and technical support. Highlights:

• South-central Iowa farmer Arlyn Kauffman said that when he started raising cage-free, non-GMO fed pasture hens in 2015, it was a steep learning curve, and he’s found going against the grain can be socially isolating.
• Peer learning based on farmer-to-farmer connections involves mutual trust, hands-on experience, and cooperation, rather than competition, says a rural sociologist.
• “Somebody standing at the front of the room with a PowerPoint or lecturing you about what you need to do or might do or try on your farm or in your small business in a rural area is not going to be as effective as hearing from that fellow business owner or farmer who’s tried something new and can tell you from firsthand experience what worked and didn’t work,” said Angie Carter, a rural sociologist at Michigan Technological University.

LSP’s Farm Beginnings course will soon be accepting applications for the 2025-2026 class serving the Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa region. For details on the class, click here. For information on Farm Beginnings courses offered in the rest of the country, check out the Farm Beginnings Collaborative website. LSP’s “A Sense of Where You Are” blog series provides firsthand accounts of how farmers learned regenerative methods from each other during the 2024 growing season.

♦ ♦ ♦