Feb. 12: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities The Efficiency Curse — We built a ‘better’ food system. The cost: It couldn’t handle a pandemic. (2/5/21) When COVID-19 arrived in the U.S., we discovered that the food system was fragile, rigid, and therefore vulnerable. But, as Michael Pollan points out in… 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 →
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 →
Meet Sasa Organic Farms, a collective of Kenyan farmers. Sasa is five family farms: Dawn2Dusk Organic Farms, Lisaviole Farms, Lisaviole Organic Farms, Green Joy Farm, Gedef Organic Farm, and Laurens Organic Farm. They provide Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares, produce, and seedlings to customers in and around Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Like many beginning farmers, their goal… Read More →
Something Smells With the Feedlot Trend, and it’s More Than Just the Manure 3/16/25 Ron Way, former assistant director of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, writes in the Star Tribune about how factory farms have transformed the landscape in southern and central Minnesota. Highlights: Since the 1970s, backers of large-scale, industrialized livestock production have successfully… 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 →
It’s that age-old struggle: accepting a little short-term disturbance in the name of long-term stability. Dave Trauba regularly faces the challenge of explaining that tradeoff to hunters who visit the Lac Qui Parle Wildlife Refuge in western Minnesota only to find their favorite spot for shooting pheasants has recently been grazed by cattle from a… Read More →
Ka Zoua Berry says supporting a future generation of farmers who don’t fit the traditional Midwestern stereotype isn’t just about building a resilient farm and food system. It’s also about building resilient communities. More Information • Big River Farms • Emerging Farmers Conference • Farmland Access Hub • LSP Farmland Clearinghouse You can find LSP… Read More →
Wendy Johnson is experimenting with Kernza because she believes in the power of perennials. And livestock are helping make this cutting-edge crop a little less of a gamble. More Information • Jóia Food & Fiber Farm • Forever Green Initiative • Ear to the Ground 367: Disrupting the Food Chain • Ear to the Ground 365:… Read More →
Tyler Carlson farms near “Gopher Prairie,” the fictional setting for Sinclair Lewis’s 1920 novel, Main Street. In the book, Lewis, who grew up in the real Gopher Prairie, otherwise known as Sauk Centre, used biting satire to poke fun at small town life. On this summer day, Carlson is finding the havoc burrowing rodents are… Read More →
