It’s early July—a time on one Wisconsin farm when there’s a brief reprieve between the spring rush of putting in crops and the mid-summer hurly-burly of making sure the land and animals are as productive as possible by fall. What better time to take a breather and assess where you’ve been, and where you’re going.… Read More →
It’s not every day that you see the words “unicyclists” and “farming” used in the same sentence, but here we go: national and world champion unicyclists Andy Cotter and Irene Genelin launched a farming operation a half-a-dozen years ago. Now, this is the part of the story that cries out for a familiar trope like… Read More →
Farm Dreams Class July 29 in Minneapolis ROCHESTER, Minn. — One of the most innovative farmer training initiatives in the country will be offering classes in Rochester, beginning this fall. The early bird discount deadline for applying to the Land Stewardship Project’s 2018-2019 Farm Beginnings course is Wednesday, Aug. 1. A one-day “Farm Dreams” class… Read More →
Amy Haben and Tom Moore ride a golf cart over a rickety wooden bridge spanning Otter Creek and follow a path to a lush pasture where a couple dozen head of Scottish Highland cattle graze, their shaggy coats luminescent in the late afternoon sun of a June day. “Before they grazed the edge of the… Read More →
Smaller doesn’t always mean simpler. Consider Cella Langer and Emmet Fisher’s foray into being a Grade A micro-dairy — one that produces, processes, packages, markets, and sells pasteurized milk and yogurt. In a state that has lost 40,000 dairy farms in the past four decades, they are a tiny push in the opposite direction. How… Read More →
There are upsides to launching a farm on raw, open land: no broken-down outbuildings or junk piles to deal with, the ability to truly start anew from the soil up. Then…there’s the other side of the fence, so to speak. “I decided to move the sheep before they move themselves,” says Hannah Bernhardt with a… Read More →
There’s farm planning. And then there’s long-term farm planning. Figuring out what kind of rotation to use the following growing season is one thing; picturing what the entire farm will look like in a decade or so is quite another. Abbie Baldwin and Mitch Hawes are well aware that when the enterprise you are undertaking… Read More →
LEWISTON, Minn. — One of the most successful beginning farmer training programs in the country is now accepting applications for its 2023-2024 course session serving the Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa region. The Land Stewardship Project’s (LSP) Farm Beginnings initiative is a training program that focuses on the goal-setting, marketing and financial skills aneeded to establish… Read More →
Even a brief conversation with Tom Cogger makes it clear what he enjoys doing: producing food. And that’s what he’s done on his Maple Hill Farm near Washburn in northwestern Wisconsin for almost two decades. In the early years, Cogger concentrated mostly on produce, but since his son Matthew joined the operation in 2009, pork… Read More →
Not long ago, Rich and Carol Radtke were on a bit of a roll. They had graduated from the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course and felt the program had provided them a solid basis for developing a profitable farming operation on land they and their three children moved to in 2008. Before taking the… Read More →
