My name is Maria Russo and I am a senior at the University of Minnesota majoring in political science. This semester I was a part of HECUA’s Environmental Sustainability: Science, Public Policy and Community Action program. HECUA stands for Higher Education Consortium of Urban Affairs and is an off-campus study program. The program I’m in… Read More →
Even a brief conversation with Tom Cogger makes it clear what he enjoys doing: producing food. And that’s what he’s done on his Maple Hill Farm near Washburn in northwestern Wisconsin for almost two decades. In the early years, Cogger concentrated mostly on produce, but since his son Matthew joined the operation in 2009, pork… Read More →
The first decade of a farm is full of challenge, sweat, growth, difficult lessons, satisfaction and joy. In order to get more successful farmers on the land, new farmers need to establish their farms in a way that cultivates financial, ecological, personal and relationship sustainability. Land Stewardship Project’s Journeyperson Course wants to help you achieve… Read More →
Historical Move Puts Mega-Operation Under the Microscope The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Citizens’ Board ruled this week that Riverview LLP’s proposed 8,850-cow dairy operation in Stevens County must undergo an in-depth Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). To my knowledge, this is the first time that the MPCA has ordered an EIS of a factory farm. The… Read More →
As a Nature Conservancy scientist based in a Midwestern state, Steve Chaplin thinks a lot about the impact agriculture has on ecological treasures such as native tallgrass prairie. “Other than plowing, grazing has probably been responsible for the degradation of more prairie than any other source,” says Chaplin, who is in the Conservancy’s Minnesota field… Read More →
Minnesota Sands Announces Intentions to Target Fillmore & Winona Counties for More Mining The Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB) made the right decision May 21 by tabling the issue of taking a Houston County mine out of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) ordered on the multi-site Minnesota Sands, LLC, frac sand mining project. Thus, the… Read More →
I originally downloaded the audio version of Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, to simply keep me awake during a long wintry drive across the southern part of Minnesota and through the heart of Iowa. But by the time I arrived at my destination—a national conference on cover crops and soil… Read More →
For longer than I can remember, my family has taken the same route from our farm in southeast Minnesota to visit my grandparents in north-central Wisconsin. The first leg of the four-hour trip takes us across the Mississippi River and through the farmland, pastures and rolling, wooded hills of Trempealeau and Jackson Counties. The landmarks… Read More →
The USDA announced last week the availability of $19.2 million in funds for groups that assist beginning farmers through training and other support initiatives. This is the first grant cycle of the newly reauthorized Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP), which is part of the 2014 Farm Bill signed into law in February. In… Read More →
When Lauren Barry pulls a weed or harvests a tomato this summer, she’s doing so on a one-acre plot of land steeped in history. Not the ancient, dusty kind that may or may not have relevance to the current situation, but history rooted in recent growing seasons, when other beginning farmers faced the same meteorological,… Read More →
