On Tuesday, June 11, I traveled to the Capitol from my home near the city of St. Charles, Minn., in Saratoga Township to meet with Governor Mark Dayton. My home is within a few miles of seven proposed frac sand mines. In February, I traveled to the state Capitol for the first time in my… Read More →
As a retired dairy farmer, I remember the hard fought battles between family farmers and utility companies over high voltage power lines cutting across Minnesota in the 1970s. One of the outcomes of this was the “Buy the Farm” law. Essentially, this law says that farmers and landowners have the right to require that companies… Read More →
Extension of Farm Policy a Raw Deal — Backward Not Forward for Agriculture MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Farm policy takes a dramatic step backwards in the fiscal cliff deal brokered in Congress and soon to be signed into law by President Barack Obama. Rather than moving forward with much-needed financial and policy reform Congress and the… Read More →
I am a 6th-generation Winona County resident; I live near Lewiston on the family farm where I was raised. We are here today, in the spirit of openness and full transparency, to learn more about an industry that is poised to make a huge and rapid impact on this beautiful region. We are a region… Read More →
It’s early July—a time on one Wisconsin farm when there’s a brief reprieve between the spring rush of putting in crops and the mid-summer hurly-burly of making sure the land and animals are as productive as possible by fall. What better time to take a breather and assess where you’ve been, and where you’re going.… Read More →
A few years ago, Brad and Shelley Schrandt faced a dilemma: should they keep their dairy herd at around 20 cows for a few more years while working off the farm, or should they expand enough to justify quitting those town jobs? They went for the expansion in an attempt to simplify their life. Shelley,… Read More →
MADISON, Minn. — “Welcome to my midlife crisis,” joked Peter Haugen on a Saturday morning in early August as a couple dozen farmers stood in a semi-circle around him and his wife, Brittany, at the edge of a 12-acre field south of Madison. The “crisis” Peter was referring to was what was growing in that… Read More →
Brenda is seeking an emerging farmer(s) to join her on her 48 acres (20 tillable and 20 pasture, 5 forest and small pond) outside of Faribault, MN (Rice County). The land can be certified organic as the land has been idle for five years and nothing sprayed for 20 years. There is a machine shed,… Read More →
Joe and Sylvia are looking for a farmer to rent 10 tillable acres in Alexandria, MN. The 10 acres are surrounded with a deer exclusion fencing, irrigation, 4 high tunnels (three 16′ x 100′; one 30′ x 96′). The land is located on a dead end road on east Lake Jessie with access to the… Read More →
Kernza is a form of intermediate wheatgrass, a distant cousin of wheat that was introduced to this country over a century ago as a forage crop. Over the years, groups like the The Land Institute have been working with the University of Minnesota’s Forever Green Initiative to develop a line of Kernza that can produce… Read More →
