The Minnesota HealthCare Financing Task Force is meeting today to vote on recommendations by the work groups, which will then be sent on to the state Legislature. I am especially concerned about the much-needed recommendation to increase MinnesotaCare eligibility from 200 percent (current level) to 275 percent of the federal poverty level, which is the…  Read More →

There are lots of reminders out there that we have a long ways to go before building soil health becomes a mainstay of our food and farming system. Some reminders are subtle, while others are about as blunt as a baseball bat to the head. A reminder of the latter variety is featured in the…  Read More →

“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” — Wendell Berry The line above from Wendell Berry’s poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” has stuck with me since I heard it many years ago. For me, its staying power comes from Berry’s ability to both reassure and challenge us in a single simple…  Read More →

I am a proponent of “Medicare for All: Single Payer Universal Access to Care.” As a grandparent and a retiree who spent 44 years working in the Minnesota public social service system, I’m convinced more than ever that we need a healthcare system that works for all people. Our country has the most expensive healthcare…  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 →

NOTE: The Land Stewardship Project is leading a campaign in Minnesota’s Winona County to pass a ban on any new frac sand mining, processing or transportation operations. Wiscoy Township resident Cherie Hales, Homer Township resident Lynnea Pfohl, and Saratoga Township resident Vince Ready are all members of LSP’s Winona County Organizing Committee. They compiled this…  Read More →

There was a flurry of activity this week related to reform proposals for federally subsidized crop insurance. Following the Land Stewardship Project’s November/December release of our three white papers on crop insurance (“How a Safety Net Became a Farm Policy Disaster”), 2015 has seen continued attention to the need for major reform of this largest…  Read More →