Lou Anne Kling’s Legacy of Saved Farms & Saved Lives One day several years ago, western Minnesota farmer Lou Anne Kling was helping a financially-distressed chicken producer who was at risk of losing his operation. This was sometime in the 1980s or 1990s, and Kling had already spent countless hours on the telephone, in the… Read More →
Here are key policies the Land Stewardship Project has been working on at the Minnesota state Legislature this session, along with an action you can take: • Resources for farmers facing financial stress. Increased funding for Farm Advocates and Farmers’ Legal Action Group (FLAG) is needed. These groups stand up for farmers facing foreclosure and… Read More →
Meeting Focuses on Need for Policies that Support Family Farmers, Affordable Healthcare & Strong Local Government STAPLES, Minn.— If the 2018 session of the Minnesota Legislature is to advance policies that support rural communities, then lawmakers need to support family farmers, affordable healthcare and strong local government, according to a group of farmers and other… Read More →
You are invited to join fellow Land Stewardship Project members and supporters at the U.S. House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill Listening Session, Thursday, Aug. 3, at Farmfest outside of Redwood Falls. During this crucial time, when the 2018 Farm Bill is starting to be written, we need to make our voices heard for the people,… Read More →
NOTE: At the Land Stewardship Project’s event celebrating the passage of the Winona County frac sand ban in southeastern Minnesota, LSP Winona County Organizing Committee members reflected on their involvement and the work that went into organizing the successful campaign for a ban. Committee member Cathy Groebner of St. Charles, Minn., gave these remarks at… Read More →
Finding the weakest link in a farming operation is often easier said than done. But sometimes a few energetic pigs accomplish the task quite nicely. “Today, fencing suddenly moved up the list as our weakest link,” quips Paul Freid on a brisk day in early May. He and his wife Sara, along with their 11-year-old… Read More →
Over Thanksgiving, I was perusing the Dairy Star at my brother-in-law’s house in Stillwater, Minn. Having grown up on a dairy farm, I still like to see how the industry is doing. A column by Sadie Frerichs called, “The Negative Impacts of Health Insurance,” caught my eye. Because of the recent health insurance rate increases… Read More →
Judy Rose of Miltona, Minn., owns two quarter sections in North Dakota’s Nelson County— 320 acres of prairie pothole habitat in which she has maintained several areas of wetland. She is a participant in Land Stewardship Project’s Women Caring for the Land group of non-operating women landowners in the Pope County region of western Minnesota.… 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 →
I am a Planning Commissioner in Florence Township, which is in southeast Minnesota’s Goodhue County. I am also chair of the Save-The-Bluffs Citizen’s group and a new member of the Land Stewardship Project. I have been heavily involved in the silica frac sand issue here in Goodhue County since May 2011. I was retired once,… Read More →
