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 →

When it comes to introducing and supporting innovative sustainable farming practices, nothing beats a field day. Such events provide an opportunity for farmers to see firsthand how profitable, environmentally sound production practices are performing on their neighbor’s land under climatic, agronomic and economic conditions they can relate to. Studies have shown that while sustainable farming…  Read More →

In October, I told the Minnesota House Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Finance Committee that we had begun to listen to our farm, an assertion lawmakers heard with some surprise. The occasion was testimony around the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s presentation of its “Nitrogen in Minnesota Surface Waters” report, which showed among other things that…  Read More →

Sometimes laboratory science and the reality of what’s happening on the ground intersect in a graphic way. That’s what struck me this morning as I was watching a video shot by Minnesota beekeeper Steve Ellis on May 7. Ellis has documented the die-off of bees on the very day that neighboring fields were planted with…  Read More →

The call came in the night. On the end of the line was the panicked voice of Tyler Carlson, a 26-year-old beginning farmer who was starting a grazing operation in west-central Minnesota. It seems that while making a long-distance move of the cowherd he had just purchased a few days before, a baby calf had…  Read More →