On an overcast morning in June, more than a dozen livestock producers gathered in the on-farm cabinetmaking shop of Leslea and Brad Hodgson, situated in the scenic hills near southeastern Minnesota’s Root River. Soon after taking seats on folding chairs arranged in a wide circle, the farmers answered an opening question: “Why am I here?”… Read More →
2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. Before jumping into agriculture, Kevin Keene worked as a data science consultant for 11 years. So it makes sense that he describes farming success in terms of a mathematical calculation. “The way I think about… Read More →
2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. ♦ ♦ ♦ This is a story about how traffic jams aren’t all bad, the powerful draw of regenerative agriculture, an MBA project, and how one woman living in the suburbs got over imposter’s syndrome,… Read More →
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 →
Farming has always required adaptability, and today’s changing weather patterns are creating new challenges and opportunities. The Land Stewardship Project, in collaboration with University of Minnesota Extension, has created a resilience-focused program that gives commodity and small grain growers the opportunity to join a cohort with other like-minded farmers and learn how to prepare their… Read More →
The owners of Keewaydin Farms see birds as not only a source of natural pest control but as a sign they are doing something right. More Information • Keewaydin Farms • Wild Farm Alliance • LSP’s Ear to the Ground 370: Bending the Bird Curve • LSP’s Ear to the Ground 275: Blurring the Bobolink… Read More →
Building healthy soil across Minnesota is key to creating resiliency in the face of a changing climate and is also incredibly important in supporting clean water. We all want clean drinking water for our families and communities. Right now, bills are being heard in the Minnesota Legislature that could affect drinking water throughout the state… Read More →
When Sogn Valley Farm transitioned out of intensive production of vegetable crops, it opened up opportunities to utilize a unique cousin of wheat as a way to steward the land. More Information • Sogn Valley Farm • Forever Green Initiative • Ear to the Ground 367: Disrupting the Food Chain • Ear to the Ground… Read More →
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 →
Note: This is the 2nd installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series. One of the ways Rachelle and Jordan Meyer keep things in context is to avoid being distracted by what they call “the woman in the red dress.” Is a new enterprise a good fit for the farm, or is… Read More →
