At a Land Stewardship Project Policy and Organizing Program staff meeting in January 2016, I had a deeply moving experience that will stay with me for a long time. My fellow organizers and I read aloud an early draft of a document entitled, “A Transformational Narrative for LSP Policy & Organizing: A Work in Progress.”… Read More →
Search for Successor to Begin in October MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) announced today that Mark Schultz will be stepping down as executive director. Schultz will be working closely with LSP’s board of directors in coming months to ensure a seamless and effective transition. Schultz became executive director in 2017, taking over… Read More →
This week, the Land Stewardship Project is reaching out to farmers across Minnesota and Wisconsin with an important message: now is the time to sign-up for a program that rewards you for practices that produce positive conservation benefits on the land. The deadline for enrolling in the current Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) round of contracts… Read More →
Integrating Diverse Cropping, Livestock & Grazing Key to Developing ‘Soil Smart’ Farms MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — At a time of skyrocketing water pollution levels and increasing climate-related calamities, a new resource released today describes how farmers in Minnesota and the rest of the Midwest can play a key role in helping fix these serious environmental problems.… Read More →
Support for Beginning Farmers, Conservation & Crop Insurance Reform Called for REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. — More than 85 members and supporters of the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) delivered a clear message April 11 to a key member of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee: the next Farm Bill must help small and mid-sized farmers while protecting… Read More →
There is no doubt a wide and abundant array of food is available in this country, but at what price? There is a lot of talk about our industrial system’s ability to make food like Big Macs and Big Gulps as cheap as possible. Nutritious, affordable food for all is critical. The problem is, all… Read More →
As rural Land Stewardship Project organizing committee members and staff, we feel compelled to respond to recent incidents of racial tension in the broader community of Minnesota’s Winona County, where we live and work. Following this summer’s racist killings in the church in Charleston, South Carolina, and the subsequent removal of the Confederate flag from… Read More →
Thanks to the recently passed 2014 Farm Bill, federally subsidized crop insurance is an even bigger player in determining what the landscape looks like. That’s troubling, considering that in recent years that impact has been mostly negative, since the program removes most of the risk associated with plowing up acres formerly considered too erosive, wet… Read More →
Cover crops proved themselves foul weather friends during the Great Drought of 2012. A groundbreaking farmer survey conducted in the Upper Mississippi River watershed showed that during that year’s brutal growing season keeping the soil covered with small grains and other plants helped fields preserve enough precious moisture to provide a yield bump of, in… Read More →
The Land Stewardship Project has been spending part of this fall gathering input from members and staff on how we should proceed with our work during the next five years. This development of what we call our “long range plan” has taken the form of member-leader input sessions, staff meetings and a survey sent out… Read More →
