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Cover Crops: Not Just Foul Weather Friends

Cover crops proved themselves foul weather friends during the Great Drought of 2012. A groundbreaking farmer survey conducted in the Upper Mississippi River watershed showed that during that year’s brutal growing season keeping the soil covered with small grains and other plants helped fields preserve enough precious moisture to provide a yield bump of, in…  Read More

LSP: Listening to Our Members, Planning for the Future

The Land Stewardship Project has been spending part of this fall gathering input from members and staff on how we should proceed with our work during the next five years. This development of what we call our “long range plan” has taken the form of member-leader input sessions, staff meetings and a survey sent out…  Read More

LSP Mourns the Loss of Farmer-Leader Dan Specht

The Land Stewardship Project, sustainable agriculture and family farming lost a true friend this week when Dan Specht was killed in a tragic farm accident. He was 63. (See obituary here.) Dan, who farmed above the banks of the Mississippi River near McGregor, in northeast Iowa, had been a pioneer in innovative, sustainable farming methods…  Read More

Public-Private Prairie Partnership

A BioBlitz Highlights the Role Livestock Farmers Can Play in Habitat Improvement It’s the kind of overcast day in June that leaves one wondering if the sun decided to take an extended summer holiday. But as heavy thunderstorms threaten this part of Big Stone County in western Minnesota, some 130-people break up into teams and…  Read More

Alan Perish’s Passion for Local Democracy

 'If you can’t control things locally, somebody else is going to control them for you...'

When Alan Perish passed away May 14, we lost a stalwart advocate for  family farming and local democracy. Alan, a fourth-generation farmer, milked cows in central Minnesota’s Todd County for many years and he was a longtime Land Stewardship Project and Minnesota Farmers Union member. Over the years, I had several opportunities to talk with…  Read More

A Sense of Where You Are: Red Dresses & Magic Management

Part 2 in a Series

Note: This is the 2nd installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series.  One of the ways Rachelle and Jordan Meyer keep things in context is to avoid being distracted by what they call “the woman in the red dress.” Is a new enterprise a good fit for the farm, or is…  Read More

Legislative Session Heads into its Final Days

Wide Gap Between House & Senate Budget Proposals for Soil Health, Processing Support, Drought Relief

There are less than 20 days left in the 2022 session of the Minnesota Legislature, and with a $9.3 billion surplus, legislators have an historic opportunity to invest in our communities. Throughout the session, Land Stewardship Project members have been advocating for funding to increase access to local meat processing facilities and for helping farmers implement…  Read More

Public Shouldn’t Pay the Price for Big Ag’s Pollution

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

Getting at the Root of our Nitrogen Problem

Good things go bad when out of their rightful places. Take farm fertilizer and soil, essential ingredients in the field but all wrong in the 27 percent of Minnesota lakes now too contaminated to drink. Last month’s report from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) blasted corn-and-soybean agriculture as the major source of nitrogen contamination…  Read More

LSP Minnesota 2018 Legislative Session Wrap-up

From the beginning of the 2018 Minnesota Legislative session, it was clear that corporate interests and their legislative allies were pushing for special treatment at the expense of rural communities, family farmers and Minnesota values. As an example, six days into the session, Dr. Marin Bozic, a dairy economist at the University of Minnesota, testified…  Read More