Owl Bluff Farm is tucked away in one of those Driftless Area coulees where cellular signals go to die. In fact, when contractors were constructing a building there recently, they sometimes climbed half-way up an abandoned silo on the farm to use their phones. It has a sense of being an isolated, if beautiful, little… Read More →
Note: Earlier this summer, Land Stewardship Project soil health organizer Alex Romano reached out to one of our soil health steering committee members, Mike Seifert, who farms near Jordan, Minn., with his wife, Dana, and father, Big Mike, to ask for his thoughts on “return on investment” from cover crops. She wanted to know his… Read More →
How one land grant experiment station is helping farmers integrate livestock and crops in a way that creates resilient soils…and a resilient food system.
Our state of Minnesota has the power and responsibility to create a transformational, regenerative food and farm system that is good for family farmers, rural communities, and the land. But so far this state legislative session, we have not seen our leaders take the bold action we need to advance our vision for rural Minnesota.… Read More →
This is the third and final episode in a series titled, “Farming on Stolen Land.” These three episodes were developed by LSP staff member Elizabeth Makarewicz as a guide to exploring issues of native land justice and equity in Minnesota’s food system. In this episode, writer and scholar Waziyatawin shares with Elizabeth her vision of land justice for the Dakota people.
This is the second in a three-part series titled, “Farming on Stolen Land.” These three episodes were developed by LSP staff member Elizabeth Makarewicz as a guide to exploring issues of native land justice and equity in Minnesota’s food system. This episode offers a peek into the life of Dakota tribal member and activist, Carly Badheart Bull. Carly is a scholar of the Dakota language and, along with her twin sister, Kate Beane, has led a campaign to return the original Dakota name to an historically significant body of water, Bde Maka Ska.
Sylvia Luetmer talks about why helping beginning farmers get access to land isn’t enough, and how society needs to come to grips with the kind of food system it wants. (5th in a series on Our Minnesota Future)
Lou Anne Kling’s Legacy of Saved Farms & Saved Lives One day several years ago, western Minnesota farmer Lou Anne Kling was helping a financially-distressed chicken producer who was at risk of losing his operation. This was sometime in the 1980s or 1990s, and Kling had already spent countless hours on the telephone, in the… Read More →
President Trump’s Budget Includes Needed Reforms to Crop Insurance, but Lacks Investment in Rural Communities & the Land President Donald Trump’s proposed agriculture budget contains good and bad news for rural America. The good news is it moves forward positive reform on crop insurance. The bad news is it cuts many critical supports for rural… Read More →
Not long ago, Rich and Carol Radtke were on a bit of a roll. They had graduated from the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course and felt the program had provided them a solid basis for developing a profitable farming operation on land they and their three children moved to in 2008. Before taking the… Read More →
