Search Results

Searched for: seeking organic farmland to rent or buy iowa

Farm Beginnings Profile: Jon & Mindy Kaiser

Ready for the Next Step (part 1) Jon Kaiser is less than a year away from paying off his Farm Beginnings livestock loan. He smiles when he says this, because it means he’s just a little bit closer to making farming more than just a fantasy. “I’m surprised I’ve come this far,” says the 35-year-old…  Read More

The Farm Kid & the People’s University

Just about halfway through Dennis Keeney’s slim memoir on his life in agriculture, the author’s tone changes dramatically. For 54 pages, The Keeney Place: A Life in the Heartland, delivers on its title—it offers a somewhat nostalgic glimpse at growing up during the mid-20th Century on a diverse family farm east of Des Moines, Iowa.…  Read More

Farm Beginnings Profile: Derek & Carrie Redden

A Confederacy of Consultants

It’s field day time on this western Minnesota farm, and it’s made clear from the outset that there will no main presenter, no expert from on-high telling it like it is or isn’t, no PowerPoints produced by consultants. This is a field day where farmers learn from other farmers. “You are all consultants,” Richard Ness…  Read More

A Hub of Soil Health Activity

How Indiana is using cover cropping and early adopters as ‘gateways’ into a deeper understanding of sustainable soil management. It’s an overcast August morning in northeastern Indiana, and in a massive machine shed well stocked with the tools of a modern row crop operation, some 60 farmers are being reminded that growing corn and soybeans…  Read More

POSTPONED: Public Presentation on Soil Health & Screening of ‘Livestock on the Land’ Documentary Feb. 24 in NE Iowa

Allen Williams Presentation at Ridgeway Community Center, Documentary Screening to Follow at Luther College 

POSTPONEMENT NOTE: Due to extreme weather halting travel for our presenter, Allen Williams, we must postpone the Feb. 24 event in Ridgeway, Iowa. If you’ve already registered, your ticket purchase for the postponed event will be reimbursed. In the meantime, we will provide this vital and timely information through a podcast interview LSP’s Brian DeVore…  Read More

A Sense of Where You Are: The Big Picture

Part 9 in a Series

Note: This is the 9th installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series.  When someone calls Matthew Fitzgerald for advice about getting into organic crop production, the central Minnesota farmer’s first response is a question of his own: “Do you own a fishing boat?” If they say yes, Fitzgerald then recommends they sell…  Read More

Fertilizer, Fishing & Farmer Specht

Dan Specht, who was taken from us all too soon last week by a haying accident, was the embodiment of the stewardship farmer. His kind, curious nature—housed in a powerfully-built, bear-like body—was complemented nicely by a passion for the land. And he represented what may be our best bet for balancing food production with a…  Read More

Passing on the Farm: Some Preventive Maintenance

On the Internet, you’re only as old as you feel—at least until the person you’re corresponding with travels from two states away to meet you face-to-face. When Dave and Deb Welsch started communicating via e-mail with Steve and Shelley Lorenz in 2007, a lot of assumptions were made about the age of the parties on…  Read More

Farm Transitions Profile: Odd Acres of Opportunity

Sometimes a Farm Transition is Done at a Distance On a brilliantly bright October afternoon, Chris Mosel makes his way over a clear-running brook and through a stand of basswood, oak and maple on his central Minnesota farm. As he approaches the edge of the woodlot, he steps over a strand of temporarily erected electric…  Read More

Farm Beginnings Profile: Brad & Shelley Schrandt

Riding the Storm Out

A few years ago, Brad and Shelley Schrandt faced a dilemma: should they keep their dairy herd at around 20 cows for a few more years while working off the farm, or should they expand enough to justify quitting those town jobs? They went for the expansion in an attempt to simplify their life. Shelley,…  Read More