Put Your Values into Action by Serving on LSP’s Board of Directors The Land Stewardship Project’s board development committee is calling for LSP board member nominations. Service on the LSP board of directors is a meaningful way to give back and further our mission to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable…
Groups Concerned That Trump’s USDA Will Continue to Favor Industry Family farm-based organizations in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and South Dakota sent a letter to Congress today calling for strong oversight of the recently passed Covid-19 aid package to ensure the USDA disburses aid to people and rural communities, not global agribusiness firms that reaped tens… Read More →
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is avoiding ordering an in-depth Environmental Impact Statement of the proposed Catalpa, LLC factory farm. The agency needs to hear from us (again)! State law requires that if a project has “the potential for significant environmental impacts,” then an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) must be completed. An EIS fully… Read More →
Minnesota Part of 10-State Rural & Small Town Organizing Strategy WASHINGTON, D.C.—Racial justice is an essential element in developing a food and farming system that supports healthy and prosperous rural communities, said central Minnesota farmer Laura Frerichs today during a national rural progressive strategy summit at the National Press Club in Washington. Frerichs, a member… Read More →
The Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment (CFFE), with member organizations in four Midwest farm states, criticized U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s Farm Bill priorities released today for not reforming programs currently hurting independent family farms, rural economies and clean water while supporting corporate interests—including factory farm livestock and dairy operations. CFFE… Read More →
The Minnesota State Legislature has until midnight on Monday, May 22, to decide on a budget for Minnesota. As of today, no budgets have been passed. Things change by the hour, with important decisions happening behind closed doors, away from public input. The bottom line is that, without citizens in the room, who will be… Read More →
Permit is Suspended Until Minnesota Court of Appeals Issues Ruling RED WING, Minn. — Goodhue County Commissioners voted today to grant a Conditional Use Permit for a controversial factory hog farm proposed in Goodhue County’s Zumbrota Township. Neighbors to the proposal have documented how it does not meet the standards of the Goodhue County Ordinance.… Read More →
How Indiana is using cover cropping and early adopters as ‘gateways’ into a deeper understanding of sustainable soil management. It’s an overcast August morning in northeastern Indiana, and in a massive machine shed well stocked with the tools of a modern row crop operation, some 60 farmers are being reminded that growing corn and soybeans… 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 →
When I heard that Land Stewardship Project board member Loretta Jaus was being recognized by the White House this week as a “Champion of Change for Sustainable and Climate-Smart Agriculture,” I couldn’t think of a more deserving recipient. From the first time almost a decade ago that I visited the western Minnesota dairy operation she… Read More →
