Nettle Valley Farm is using silvopasturing to prove ecological sustainability and profitable livestock production can coexist — creating healthy pollinator habitat in the bargain. LSP’s Ear to the Ground episode 265 describes Nettle Valley Farm’s beginning farmer incubator program. More information: • LSP’s Grazing & Soil Health web page • Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation… 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 →
Nov. 20: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities Grassland 2.0 Aims to Replace Soy and Corn Farming with Perennial Pasture in the Upper Midwest (11/11/20) With $10 million in funding from the USDA, Grassland 2.0 is a five-year project housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that aims to begin transforming the… Read More →
Nov. 13 : An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities Crop Diversification Can Help Environment Without Sacrificing Yields (11/12/20) A new study shows diversifying agricultural systems beyond a narrow selection of crops leads to a range of ecosystem improvements while also maintaining or improving yields, reports Morning Ag Clips. But an Iowa… Read More →
Nov. 6 : An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities Relay Cropping Helps Northeast Iowa Farmer Reach a Lofty Goal (October 2020) Northeastern Iowa farmer Loran Steinlage is using “relay cropping” to keep living roots in the soil 365-days-a-year, according to 4R Plus. Steinlage was getting good yields growing continuous corn-on-corn. But… Read More →
Oct. 15: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities World Food Prize Laureate Advocates for Re-Carbonizing Soil to Protect Food Production (10/13/20) Soil scientist Rattan Lal, the 2020 Word Food Prize laureate, makes the case that agriculture globally must take better care of its most valuable resource to not only produce more,… Read More →
Oct. 5: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities U.S. farm landscapes could be reshaped by changing climate – research (10/5/20) Climate change could render swathes of agricultural land largely useless for farming in the U.S. South, and force Midwestern farmers to move corn and soybeans elsewhere as crop yields decline, reports… Read More →
Sept. 30: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities Mercaris: Organic Production Continues to Grow (9/28/20) The U.S. harvested organic field crop area will exceed 3.4 million acres over the 2020-2021 marketing year, which is an increase of 4% over the previous marketing year, according to the market data service Mercaris. The… Read More →
On April 27, meat giant Tyson Foods took out a full-page advertisement in major newspapers that carried an alarming message. “The food supply is breaking,” it said. The ad went on: “We have a responsibility to feed our country…Our plants must remain operational so that we can supply food to our families in America.” Tyson… Read More →
Farmer and caver Martin Larsen describes the connections between land use on the surface and water quality problems he sees underground.
For more on ways to build soil health profitably, see LSP’s Soil Builders web page.
