Search Results

Searched for: farmer network

Who Benefits When Emerging Farmers Can’t Succeed?

Emerging Farmers: What Do You Think of This Proposed Legislation?

Last year, the Land Stewardship Project celebrated the historic investments in emerging farmers that we won at the Minnesota Capitol. One of these wins included doubling the funding for and prioritizing emerging farmer applicants within the Minnesota Farmland Down Payment Assistance Program, which the Land Stewardship Project worked on with the Midwest Farmers of Color…  Read More

Farm Beginnings Profile: An Enigmatic Edge in Corn Country

This Gateway into Farming Hinges on Small Grains, Livestock & Soil Health With its pool table topography and coffee-colored soils, southern Minnesota’s Nicollet County perennially ranks as one of the top producers of corn and soybeans in the state, and land prices reflect it — in 2019 the average annual non-irrigated cropland rental rate in…  Read More

Farm Transitions: That Farm on Highway 40

A Pioneering Organic Operation, a Trial Run, & the Next Generation Black, ominous clouds were approaching fast, and Luke Peterson was in a bit of a panic as he stood next to his tractor parked in an 80-acre soybean field, scanning the sky. Hooked up to that tractor was a rotary hoe, and before this…  Read More

California Dreaming

A Farm Beginnings Grad Makes a Go of it in an Urban Setting

2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. ♦ ♦ ♦ By the time Elyssa Eull moved back to Minnesota a few years ago, she already had several years of experience working on vegetable farms. But she felt that in order to successfully…  Read More

Rolling Out the Welcome Mat for New Neighbors

LSP Members Use 'May Day Baskets' to Show Support for Immigrants in their Communities

The Land Stewardship Project is an organization that believes we will not have a truly sustainable farm and food system until it is sustainable for everyone. That point was reinforced recently when we gathered input from our members and allies while putting together our current long range plan. That’s one reason LSP is working closely…  Read More

Join Us for a May Day Week of Action

The Land Stewardship Project knows that immigrants are an important part of our farm economy, and have been throughout history. That’s why we’re inviting you to join LSP and the Immigrant Defense Network this week at one of four powerful teach-in opportunities in the Minnesota towns of Montevideo, Minneapolis, Mankato, and Rochester. We will learn…  Read More

LSP Board Chair: ‘We do love our immigrant neighbors and we need them.’

'Through much of LSP's work, we see firsthand the role that immigrant families play in revitalizing our rural economies.'

On Valentine’s Day, members of the Immigrant Defense Network turned out across Minnesota to spread a “Love Your Immigrant Neighbor” message and to inform people of their rights when confronted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who are enforcing mass deportation orders from the White House. Last November, more than 90 Minnesota groups…  Read More

Farm Transition Profile: A High-Value Apprenticeship

When Nathan Vergin applied to work as an apprentice on Polyface Farm in Virginia back in the mid-2000s, he had to undergo a three-day “working interview.” Vergin, who grew up helping out on a sheep dairy near Northfield, Minn., passed the trial by fire, and went on to serve a two-year apprenticeship with the farm’s…  Read More

Farm Beginnings Profile: The Curve of Binding Energy

Okay, calculus lesson of the day, courtesy of some pasture grass, fencing and a herd of ruminants. Calculus, in case you’ve forgotten, is the mathematical study of rates of change. It can be a handy way to calculate where you’re headed and how long it will take to get there. Let’s say you are a…  Read More