In the 1980s, we helped start the Winona Farmers’ Market in Winona, Minn. Today, downtown Winona is buzzing with activity on Saturday mornings, with 40 vendors selling vegetables, fruits, meats, flowers, baked goods, dairy, honey and all sorts of delicious and healthy products, all grown and processed within a 50-mile radius of Winona. The Farmers’… Read More →
Last month in a special report, the Star Tribune newspaper revealed how much water pollution from agriculture is costing taxpayers. At $125 million in 2014 alone, the price of industrialized, monocrop agriculture is significant and only likely to grow. In north-central Minnesota, we have an opportunity during the next few weeks to prevent some of… Read More →
The Land Stewardship Project recently published a three-part expose of the federal crop insurance program. The white papers are titled: “Crop Insurance-the Corporate Connection,” “Crop Insurance Ensures the Big Get Bigger” and “How Crop Insurance Hurts the Next Generation of Farmers.” The final paper title provides the key to LSP’s concern. The introductory article says… Read More →
Can Minneapolis feed itself? Is it possible to create a local food system that is accountable to our communities and empowers all to participate? The answers to these questions are a critical part of developing an independent, just and equitable food system that will help our city weather the changes in our food and energy… Read More →
In late May, I traveled to western Wisconsin’s Chippewa and Barron counties to see frac sand mining and processing sites firsthand. I particularly wanted to see the EOG processing plant in Chippewa Falls — one of the largest of its kind in existence — because last year, a company called Minnesota Proppant proposed an even… Read More →
The temperature hovers a few degrees above zero and fresh snow swirls around their feet as Bryan Crigler and Katelyn Foerster bend into a fierce wind and head into a stand of walnut trees on a recent January day. In contrast to the wild woods, neat rows of ironwood logs are leaning on wires amidst… Read More →
A recent press release from the Stanford School of Medicine read, “Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods.” The headline could just have easily read, “Despite billions spent on research and subsidies, conventional foods found more dangerous than organic.” The Stanford study was striking in several regards: 1) no new research was conducted —… Read More →
