Do you own farmland and want to make sure it is taken care of using good stewardship practices? A series of “Managing for Stewardship” workshops will be held in Minnesota during January and February. These workshops are for farmland owners, retired farm men and women, those inheriting a farmland investment and farmers who would like… Read More →
Local Residents Deliver 687 Postcards from Across Minnesota to Jeff Kohlnhofer at Kohlnhofer Insurance Agency LAKEVILLE, Minn.—In the wake of a ruling from the Minnesota Court of Appeals, rural neighbors to a proposed factory hog farm in Goodhue County’s Zumbrota Township gathered in Lakeville today to announce their next steps in the fight to stop… 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 →
To anyone driving through rural Minnesota the past few weeks, the images featured in the slideshow below will look familiar. In a sense, the black and white swirls of “snirt”—a mash-up of the words “snow” and “dirt”—have the look of beautiful impressionistic paintings wrought by a wind-borne hand. But these photos, which, with the exception… Read More →
Sometimes it takes a bit of an evangelist to remind us that praying at the altar of facts and figures can blind one to how they all connect in the bigger picture. In the case of production systems that build soil health, that preacher is Ray Archuleta. “The soil is naked, hungry, thirsty and running… Read More →
On Tuesday, June 11, I traveled to the Capitol from my home near the city of St. Charles, Minn., in Saratoga Township to meet with Governor Mark Dayton. My home is within a few miles of seven proposed frac sand mines. In February, I traveled to the state Capitol for the first time in my… Read More →
When you’re wallowing in the pit of despair, it helps to know that others have preceded you and survived. And for John and Heidi Wise, they have another pit-beater: they didn’t exactly jump in without giving it some careful forethought. After more than a decade of classes, working with mentors, business planning and searching, the… Read More →
Every year during Minnesota’s Give to the Max day, Land Stewardship Project highlights the work of several BIPOC-led or rural-based organizations and asks our members to also support the work of these partners. This year, in light of continuing food insecurity and lingering effects of the recent government shutdown, LSP staff wanted to shout-out organizations… Read More →
Back in 1998, I was working on an article for the Land Stewardship Letter about how the lack of biodiversity in agriculture was threatening the agronomic, ecological, and economic future of Midwestern farming communities. One of the people I interviewed was Don Wyse, a respected University of Minnesota plant scientist who had recently helped coordinate… Read More →
As you know, this past summer’s drought created one of the most difficult growing seasons that Minnesota has seen in decades. Farmers had to make incredibly hard decisions: ending CSA deliveries early or entirely, selling or processing livestock early to save costs, paying to dig deeper wells or new ones entirely, and investing in new… Read More →
