When I first moved to Minnesota eight years ago, my knowledge of soils and agricultural systems was purely textbook. I live and work in an amazing community that has taught me more than I ever expected to learn, and has pulled back the curtain on our current farming systems and the ways in which they… Read More →
Our federal elected officials finally seem to be getting serious about passing much-needed comprehensive immigration reform in Washington, D.C. That’s good. It is also important to note there’s a very important immigrant worker rights issue that needs to be addressed right here and right now in rural Minnesota. No new laws need to be passed,… Read More →
NORTHFIELD, Minn. —A culturally relevant “Land Access: Are You Ready?” workshop will be held for Spanish-speaking beginning and aspiring farmers Saturday, April 27, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Emmaus Baptist Church, 712 Linden St. N., in Northfield. This Land Stewardship Project (LSP) workshop is free; materials, lunch and childcare are provided. To register by April… Read More →
As the 2025 session of the Minnesota Legislature heads into its final two weeks — barring a special session — proposals related to several Land Stewardship Project priorities remain alive. Both the House and Senate have passed their respective Agriculture Bills, and now the proposals head into the conference committee process — the system within which lawmakers… Read More →
Jan. 15: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities Bill Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner (1/15/21) Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates are now the largest private farmland owners in the U.S., according to The Land Report. Highlights: They have accumulated a massive farmland portfolio — 242,000 acres —… Read More →
My great-great-grandfather moved to Houston County, Minnesota, at the end of the Civil War in 1865. I am blessed to be a lifelong resident of Houston County, living on part of our family’s Century Farm, between Houston and Money Creek. All my siblings are farmers in Houston County. Six generations of our family have hunted… Read More →
As we pass a key date in the 2025 Minnesota legislative calendar, several initiatives supported by the Land Stewardship Project remain alive and are moving through the committee process. In order to be considered as part of an omnibus bill, the majority of proposed legislation had to be heard in both the House and Senate… Read More →
Feb. 28: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities New Evidence Shows Fertile Soil Gone From Midwestern Farms (2/24/21) National Public Radio reports on a new study showing the most fertile topsoil is entirely gone from a third of all the land devoted to growing crops across the upper Midwest. Highlights: The… Read More →
The Midwest has Lost 57.6 Billion Metric Tons of Soil Due to Agricultural Practices (3/16/22) The Midwest has lost approximately 57.6 billion metric tons of topsoil since farmers began tilling the soil, 160 years ago. And this is despite conservation practices put in place in the wake of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, according to Phys.org. Much… Read More →
A three-hour drive separates the rolling hills of Minnesota’s Douglas County from the front steps of the Bell Museum of Natural History. But a year after the controversy over Troubled Waters—the Bell’s Emmy award-winning film on farmland pollution in the Mississippi River basin—brought words like “dead zone,” hypoxia” and “nitrogen fertilizer” to the attention of… Read More →
