There is less than one month left in the 2024 Minnesota legislative session. This week, the House and Senate are finalizing and passing their separate omnibus policy and supplemental budget bills, which will then be sent to conference committees where differences between the proposals will be hammered out. This session, the Land Stewardship Project has… Read More →
From the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction department: In 2007, Monsanto talked the USDA’s Risk Management Agency into giving farmers a discount on crop insurance premiums if they planted the company’s triple-stacked GMO corn. Reportedly, some reviewers of the proposal raised concerns that the premium subsidy would unfairly benefit a single private company. But in the end, the USDA… Read More →
An Indiana initiative has made the state a national leader in getting continuous living cover established on crop acres. Can it change the way farmers view soil? Michael Werling is, literally, a card-carrying connoisseur of soil health. “I call it, ‘My ticket to a farm tour,’ ” says the northeastern Indiana crop producer, showing off… Read More →
Since the 2023 session of the Minnesota Legislature ended last May, Land Stewardship Project members have been celebrating our historic wins and preparing to build upon them during the 2024 session, which begins Monday, Feb. 12. This past summer and fall, LSP organizers engaged in hundreds of one-to-one and group conversations with LSP members, supporters,… Read More →
Andy Marcum’s eye-opener was when he walked a ridge on his farm soon after snowmelt and noted the ground was speckled with the delicate, purple pedals of pasque flowers—more than he’d ever seen in his life. For Dan Jenniges, the aha moment came when he realized that he was grazing more cattle on fewer acres,… Read More →
When it comes to farming, oftentimes things don’t work out as planned—and sometimes that’s a good thing. Take for example Greg and Nancy Rasmussen, who on a recent fall afternoon are checking on some newly arrived chicks gathered under heat lamps in their barn. When the Rasmussens enrolled in the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course… 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 →
What do you do when a resource becomes increasingly scarce? One option is to use it more efficiently. That’s a key point livestock producer Greg Judy is going to make Sept. 9-10 in Alexandria during what promises to be a fascinating set of workshops. In this case, the resource that’s becoming harder to come by… Read More →
When considering significant changes to the way one farms, there’s nothing like a couple acres of convincer, a template for the potential offered up by tapping into the land’s ability to build soil health in an economically viable manner utilizing livestock and perennial plants. Mark Erickson points out just such a personal proving ground on… Read More →
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 →
