What with farmland changing hands at price levels that would make a Beverly Hills realtor blanch, one could be forgiven for jumping to an obvious conclusion: Farm Country is flush with cash these days. Indeed, based on pure numbers, the statistics are impressive. Midwestern farmland values increased 16 percent in 2012, the third largest gain… Read More →
Note: LSP’s next Farm Transition Planning Course will begin meeting Jan. 27, 2026. For details and information on how to enroll, click here. Sometimes a successful farm transition requires a shoulder season — a period when the current owners are still present, still have their hands in the soil, so to speak, but the newbies… 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 →
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 →
John and Sonya are seeking a farmer to rent part of their home farm including 10 acres of hay (cool season grasses) and 18 acres of a former CRP field (forbes, warm season grasses, willow etc) on a former dairy farm in Spring Valley, Wisconsin (45 miles east of St Paul, MN). No chemical herbicides… Read More →
Paul is seeking a farmer to buy 40 acres (20 open to plant or graze; 15 woodland; 5 homestead) near Hager City, Wisconsin. There is large vegetable garden, all wooden raised beds. No chemicals have been used on the ag land or in the veggie gardens. The largest section of open land is planted in… Read More →
During the recently concluded session of the Minnesota Legislature, Land Stewardship Project members and partners worked to win record investments in sustainable and regenerative agriculture, small and mid-sized farmers, and rural communities after decades of underfunding. We won a MinnesotaCare Public Option, as well as historic investments in the Emerging Farmers Office at the Minnesota… Read More →
Do you own farmland and want to make sure it is taken care of using good stewardship practices? Two “Managing for Stewardship” workshops are being presented in Minnesota this winter by the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) and the Upper Mississippi Region of the League of Women Voters. These workshops are for farmland owners, retired farm… 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 →
There’s farm planning. And then there’s long-term farm planning. Figuring out what kind of rotation to use the following growing season is one thing; picturing what the entire farm will look like in a decade or so is quite another. Abbie Baldwin and Mitch Hawes are well aware that when the enterprise you are undertaking… Read More →
