UPDATE: Farmers and rural Minnesotans are standing up and taking action to stop the spread of factory farms in Minnesota. We are in the remaining weeks of the Legislature and things are moving fast. But thanks to action taken by LSP members and supporters, the corporate-backed factory farm provision detailed in this letter didn’t make…  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 →

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 →

There is a widely-circulated public story, or narrative, that growing enough food for the world’s future population will require doubling production by relying on technologies such as nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides tied to traits in genetically modified crops. The narrative is that family farmers, consumers and governments must rely on corporate-controlled technology from multi-national agricultural…  Read More →

While sitting in a western Wisconsin high school auditorium listening to farmers and other rural residents discussing urban sprawl the other evening, I was struck by an epiphany of sorts: the argument for saving farmland near our cities and suburbs has evolved beyond the “let’s save our pretty viewscapes” phase. Protecting prime farmland from the…  Read More →