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A Beginning Farmer Legacy

Returning to the Classroom a Quarter Century Later

2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. ♦ ♦ ♦ In a sense, when the brothers Andy and Ben Klein enrolled in the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course in 2023, it was a return engagement for at least one of them.…  Read More

Ear Bites Community-Based Food Podcast Series

Check out LSP’s ongoing Ear Bites podcast series for conversations on how we can build a resilient community-based food system. You can check out all 375 episodes of our Ear to the Ground podcast here. Ear to the Ground 362: Regenerative Return When Roy Pfaltzgraff returned to his family’s northeastern Colorado cropping operation in 2016, he…

LSP Legislative Update: Heading into the Final Days

Local Food, Land Access & Soil Health Proposals Still Alive

As the 2025 session of the Minnesota Legislature heads into its final two weeks — barring a special session —  proposals related to several Land Stewardship Project priorities remain alive. Both the House and Senate have passed their respective Agriculture Bills, and now the proposals head into the conference committee process — the system within which lawmakers…  Read More

LSP Legislative Update: Proposals Related to Local Food, Land Access & Soil Health Moving Forward

Budget Issues Loom Large as Regular Session Heads into Final Weeks

As we pass a key date in the 2025 Minnesota legislative calendar, several initiatives supported by the Land Stewardship Project remain alive and are moving through the committee process. In order to be considered as part of an omnibus bill, the majority of proposed legislation had to be heard in both the House and Senate…  Read More

The Devil’s in the Details

Regenerative Ag Can Help Bring Our Dysfunctional Relationship with Phosphorus Back into Balance

In the early 2000s, I wrote a series of Land Stewardship Letter articles about a generic environmental impact statement study that was done on Minnesota’s livestock industry. The final report had an interesting finding related to phosphorus, a key source of crop fertility: small livestock farms had a medium phosphorus shortage of 17 pounds per…  Read More

A Sense of Where You Are

11 Examples of Viewing Farms in Context (Part 1 in a Series)

Note: This is the 1st installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series.  On a sunny day in June, hundreds of ewes make their way through a narrow grazing paddock, flowing along the contours of a Driftless Area hill in southeastern Minnesota like a woolly river. Later in the growing season, a…  Read More

Beginning Farmer Program for MN, WI & IA Accepting Applications for 2024-2025 Course

Early Bird Discount Deadline for Farm Beginnings Class Aug. 1

LEWISTON, Minn. — One of the most successful beginning farmer training programs in the country is now accepting applications for its 2024-2025 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 needed to establish…  Read More

Driftless Grazing School June 28-29 in SE MN

CALEDONIA, Minn. — An in-depth, two-day, school for livestock graziers who want to take their skills to the next level will be held June 28-29 near Caledonia, Minn. Jordan and Rachelle Meyer of Wholesome Family Farms will host this Land Stewardship Project (LSP) workshop. There is no charge for the Driftless Grazing School,  but pre-registration…  Read More

LSP Members Make Their Voices Heard on the Farm Bill

Take Action Today to Improve Accessibility to EQIP

Earlier this month, Land Stewardship Project farmer-members James Kanne and Adam Griebie flew to Washington, D.C., with me for a few days to gather with farmers and organizers from across the Midwest who are a part of the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment and to meet with members of Congress about our shared…  Read More

Thinking Like a Tree

Soil, Cicadas & Spreadsheets: Playing the Long Game in Farm Country

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