In late May, I traveled to western Wisconsin’s Chippewa and Barron counties to see frac sand mining and processing sites firsthand. I particularly wanted to see the EOG processing plant in Chippewa Falls — one of the largest of its kind in existence — because last year, a company called Minnesota Proppant proposed an even… Read More →
As a retired dairy farmer, I remember the hard fought battles between family farmers and utility companies over high voltage power lines cutting across Minnesota in the 1970s. One of the outcomes of this was the “Buy the Farm” law. Essentially, this law says that farmers and landowners have the right to require that companies… 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 →
I am a 6th-generation Winona County resident; I live near Lewiston on the family farm where I was raised. We are here today, in the spirit of openness and full transparency, to learn more about an industry that is poised to make a huge and rapid impact on this beautiful region. We are a region… Read More →
Terrie and Joe Adams work to make Marshwatch Farms into a place where people can learn that profitable food production and environmental health go together, even in a region threatened by sprawling development.
By the time he was 20, Nolan Lenzen had already completed a dairy management course at a local college and launched a farming career in partnership with his father and grandfather. They were milking 90 cows in a tie-stall barn and cropping 300 acres near the south-central Minnesota community of Watertown. Some might say it… Read More →
When a new food and farming model is introduced to a region, it can be slow to catch on—if at all. On the other hand, sometimes a new concept takes off like a galloping horse, challenging its practitioners to hang on for the ride. One Saturday last October, Kristianna Gehant and Nick Siddens were on… Read More →
A small town banker talks about the role sustainable farms can play in a community’s economy.
It’s early July—a time on one Wisconsin farm when there’s a brief reprieve between the spring rush of putting in crops and the mid-summer hurly-burly of making sure the land and animals are as productive as possible by fall. What better time to take a breather and assess where you’ve been, and where you’re going.… Read More →
On a January evening in western Minnesota, Carol Ford braves 20-degree temperatures and a wind that’s packing snow as she walks the few yards from her house to the garage. Once inside, she approaches a door with a colorful, hand-painted sign above it that reads: “The Door into Summer.” She opens the door and, sure… Read More →
