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Searched for: regional food system

MN Farmer Calls for Racial Justice in Rural Communities During Rural Progressive Strategy Summit in DC

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

Feed the Plant, Starve the Soil

There are lots of reminders out there that we have a long ways to go before building soil health becomes a mainstay of our food and farming system. Some reminders are subtle, while others are about as blunt as a baseball bat to the head. A reminder of the latter variety is featured in the…  Read More

Priorities for 2026 Legislature: Soil, Water, Land Access, Consolidation, Farm to School

The Minnesota legislative session begins February 17.

When Minnesota lawmakers return to Saint Paul Feb. 17 for the start of the next state legislative session, Land Stewardship Project’s members and organizers will be active in pushing forward our values and priorities. Before we go into what issues we will be focusing on in 2026, I’d like to provide some political context and…  Read More

California Dreaming

A Farm Beginnings Grad Makes a Go of it in an Urban Setting

2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. ♦ ♦ ♦ By the time Elyssa Eull moved back to Minnesota a few years ago, she already had several years of experience working on vegetable farms. But she felt that in order to successfully…  Read More

Staring Down Doubts

How Valerie Hsu Saw Livestock as Part of Her Farm Dream

2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. ♦ ♦ ♦ This is a story about how traffic jams aren’t all bad, the powerful draw of regenerative agriculture, an MBA project, and how one woman living in the suburbs got over imposter’s syndrome,…  Read More

LSP Legislative Update: Heading into the Final Days

Local Food, Land Access & Soil Health Proposals Still Alive

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

Prairie Drifter Farm

Prairie Drifter Farm is a diversified, certified organic vegetable farm serving the Minnesota communities of Litchfield, Dassel, and Saint Cloud through Community Supported Agriculture. Pick-up locations include the farm, Litchfield Natural Food Co-op, Dassel Community Room, and the Good Earth Food Co-op in Saint Cloud. Our farm is committed to building community through food, stewarding…  Read More

From Crisis to Community

A Shared Threat Prompts a Shared Vision for a New Farm As the land auction progressed, it looked like the parcel was on its way to exchanging hands at a decent price. But the landowner grew increasingly anxious about the guy who was likely to get the highest bid—he was a well-known owner of large-scale…  Read More

Getting a Bio-Reaction from Soil

How Farmers Involved in an LSP Project Hope to Use the Johnson-Su Composter to Boost Biology

Calling all microbe enthusiasts! Looking to learn about better composting methods that encourage the soil biome to thrive, all with minimal effort? Then you may be interested in research the Land Stewardship Project and some of our farmer-members are doing on the “Johnson-Su Composting Bioreactor.” Developed by molecular biologist and research scientist David Johnson, along…  Read More

Farm Beginnings Profile: A Raw Deal on Farmland

Using Farm Beginnings & Soil Health to Push Marginal Land Beyond Expectations

There are upsides to launching a farm on raw, open land: no broken-down outbuildings or junk piles to deal with, the ability to truly start anew from the soil up. Then…there’s the other side of the fence, so to speak. “I decided to move the sheep before they move themselves,” says Hannah Bernhardt with a…  Read More