I sat in a farmhouse one afternoon last month as a hot wind lifted rich topsoil from surrounding fields. On the drive in, I’d noticed a surprising amount of rill erosion on newly tilled cropland—surprising because recent rains had not been all that intense and the fields were not unusually steep. Out of the blue… Read More →
At a time when we’re all scanning the dark horizon of recession land for any economic spark, local food systems look to be a flare-up that’s got some staying power. The past several weeks have been full of signs that both in Minnesota and nationally producing and consuming food in our own collective backyard isn’t… Read More →
Note: This is the 7th installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series. Here’s some troubling context in the land of plenty: in 2023, 18 million U.S. households were food insecure at some time during the year, according to the USDA. That figure is up from 17 million in 2022. Food insecurity… Read More →
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Over a dozen farmer-members of the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) and the Midwest Farmers of Color Collective (MFCC) will head to Washington, D.C., March 6-8 to call on policymakers to make climate change a priority of the 2023 Farm Bill. They will be joined by hundreds of farmers, farmworkers and farmer allies… Read More →
Rachel Henderson and Anton Ptak’s secondary enterprise could be a boon for farm country pollinators. (In 2010, Henderson and Ptak were featured on Ear to the Ground soon after they launched their orchard enterprise. Check out episode 78 here.) More information: • LSP’s Farm Beginnings Course • LSP’s Journeyperson Course • LSP’s Grazing & Soil Health web… Read More →
Global Players Forced Small Meatpacking Plants Out, Farmers & Workers Pay the Price The announced closing of Smithfield’s Sioux Falls, S. Dak., meatpacking plant due to a COVID-19 outbreak affecting over 600 workers is a vivid example of the vulnerability of a highly concentrated meat production system that exploits farmers, workers and rural communities, said… Read More →
Groups Concerned That Trump’s USDA Will Continue to Favor Industry Family farm-based organizations in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and South Dakota sent a letter to Congress today calling for strong oversight of the recently passed Covid-19 aid package to ensure the USDA disburses aid to people and rural communities, not global agribusiness firms that reaped tens… Read More →
It’s been said that soil without biology is just geology—an accumulation of lifeless minerals unable to spawn healthy plant growth. And as intense monocropping production practices increasingly remove more life from the ground than they return, it sends that soil closer to fossilization via what conservationist Barry Fisher calls, “the spiral of degradation”: eroded, compacted… Read More →
If ever there was a shining example of a smart public investment in our food and farming future, Minnesota’s Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant Program is it. This program has been an important driver of sustainable (and conventional) farming innovations in the state for almost a quarter-century. Farmers who qualify for these competitive grants are able… Read More →
One winter evening in 1999 I was sitting in on a Farm Beginnings class being held in the southeast Minnesota community of Plainview when a local banker stood up and made a statement that about knocked me out of my chair. “We need to eat our own cooking,” said the banker, Dean Harrington. The statement… Read More →
