I recently phoned members of my geographically far-flung family to give them Thanksgiving greetings and was struck by a common element of our ensuing conversations. From Iowa and Nebraska to Kentucky and Texas, the report was the same: drought, drought and more drought. I thought about that recently while watching the new documentary, The Dust… Read More →
After a long, hot summer, prospects for a new Farm Bill in 2012 are wilting fast. If Congress doesn’t act within the next few weeks, the current Farm Bill will expire Sept. 30 without a law to replace it. Congress will not reconvene again until the lame duck session after the November elections, where chances… 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 →
Note: This commentary originally ran in the Minnesota Star Tribune on Oct. 17. When Minnesota’s growing season draws to a close, so does another kind of season: that period between spring and fall when farmers invite other farmers onto their land for “field days,” so they can share ideas about what’s working and what isn’t.… Read More →
SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The USDA’s proposal Thursday to address the highly controversial “tournament system” in poultry production is a positive, yet overdue, step forward as the agency seeks to address unfair competition and trade practices under the Packers and Stockyards Act, according to members of the Minnesota-based Land Stewardship Project (LSP). “Corporate ag has monopolized… Read More →
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 →
Nov. 29: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities Why Non-operating Landowners Need to be Part of the Conservation Dialogue (11/22/20) Non-operating landowners, otherwise known as NOLOs, are generally in favor of conservation programs and practices, as are the farmers who operate on their land. But there is often a disconnect between… Read More →
As Land Stewardship Project members and supporters know, LSP has been active in working to defeat Congressional approval of pro-corporate trade policy, such as fast track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This week, we sent letters to members of the Minnesota and Wisconsin congressional delegations, laying out LSP’s reasons for its firm opposition, and urging… Read More →
By the time he was 20, Nolan Lenzen had already completed a dairy management course at a local college and launched a farming career in partnership with his father and grandfather. They were milking 90 cows in a tie-stall barn and cropping 300 acres near the south-central Minnesota community of Watertown. Some might say it… Read More →
I sat in a farmhouse one afternoon last month as a hot wind lifted rich topsoil from surrounding fields. On the drive in, I’d noticed a surprising amount of rill erosion on newly tilled cropland—surprising because recent rains had not been all that intense and the fields were not unusually steep. Out of the blue… Read More →
