On Friday July 20th I traveled with a group from St. Charles to the Chippewa Falls area to view first hand the frac-sand industry. I was so impacted by what I saw I felt I had to share my thoughts. The size and scope of the processing facilities was far greater than I had anticipated.
For longer than I can remember, my family has taken the same route from our farm in southeast Minnesota to visit my grandparents in north-central Wisconsin. The first leg of the four-hour trip takes us across the Mississippi River and through the farmland, pastures and rolling, wooded hills of Trempealeau and Jackson Counties. The landmarks… Read More →
Building healthy soil across Minnesota is key to creating resiliency in the face of a changing climate and is also incredibly important in supporting clean water. We all want clean drinking water for our families and communities. Right now, bills are being heard in the Minnesota Legislature that could affect drinking water throughout the state… 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 →
Former Purdue University professor Don Huber is no chemo-phobe — he just hates to see a product of science go to waste. LSP’s podcast/PowerPoint presentation on the herbicide glyphosate featuring Huber makes that point. In the presentation, Huber comes across as a scientist who is profoundly disappointed that a sound crop production tool has, in… Read More →
As the 2025 session of the Minnesota Legislature heads into its final two weeks — barring a special session — proposals related to several Land Stewardship Project priorities remain alive. Both the House and Senate have passed their respective Agriculture Bills, and now the proposals head into the conference committee process — the system within which lawmakers… Read More →
To Olaf Haugen, microbes equal money. That’s because at the height of the growing season on his family’s farm in southeastern Minnesota’s Fillmore County, 70 percent of the dairy herd’s feed comes from grazing. He not only rotationally grazes permanent pastures, but runs his cows through plantings of annual cover crops, which he prefers to… Read More →
The telephone rang late one afternoon in early October. It was a call from a jubilant, if exhausted, dairy farmer who said he’d planted 20 acres of rye the previous night. He said he’d been attending Land Stewardship Project cover crop/soil health events and that despite the pitfalls of harvest, machinery and too much rain,… Read More →
Like many people, I watched with hope as the protests in Minneapolis and across the country made possible the idea of significant police reform. I also watched with horror in 2021 as those reform efforts stalled in the Minnesota Senate. Being a white farmer living in rural Minnesota, I felt removed and powerless as all… Read More →
LEWISTON, Minn. — Eleven skilled southeastern Minnesota farmers devoted to soil health have been named as farmer-to-farmer consultants for 2020 by the Land Stewardship Project. With a growing number of Midwestern crop and livestock farmers interested in maximizing soil health, there is an important need for farmers to be able to connect with other farmers… Read More →
