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LSP Legislative Update: Proposals Related to Local Food, Land Access & Soil Health Moving Forward

Budget Issues Loom Large as Regular Session Heads into Final Weeks

As we pass a key date in the 2025 Minnesota legislative calendar, several initiatives supported by the Land Stewardship Project remain alive and are moving through the committee process. In order to be considered as part of an omnibus bill, the majority of proposed legislation had to be heard in both the House and Senate…  Read More

Healthcare Must Treat People as People, Not Consumers

I am a proponent of “Medicare for All: Single Payer Universal Access to Care.” As a grandparent and a retiree who spent 44 years working in the Minnesota public social service system, I’m convinced more than ever that we need a healthcare system that works for all people. Our country has the most expensive healthcare…  Read More

Act Now: Day One Demands for USDA Leaders

On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris communicated clear priorities to address the needs of agriculture and rural communities, including: strengthening regional food systems and anti-trust enforcement, expanding conservation programs with a focus on soil health and carbon sequestration, increasing microloans for beginning farmers, and advancing racial justice and accountability…  Read More

Pacing Ourselves in the World Hunger Race

In the late 1790s and early 1800s, British economist Thomas Robert Malthus used mathematics, the agronomic reality of the day and basic biology to lay out a grim assessment about the future of the planet: we were doomed to an endless cycle of boom and bust. It was inevitable human populations would periodically grow to…  Read More

2020 Legislative Session: What Happened & What’s Next

The past few months have been harder than ever for thousands of Minnesotans. Our communities were already facing a serious farm crisis, inaccessible and unaffordable healthcare, increasing impacts of climate change, corporate consolidation across our economy, and more. On top of that, a pandemic has wreaked havoc on our healthcare system, farm and food system,…  Read More

Land Line: Argentine Beef, Farm Bankruptcies, Monopolies, Rural Hunger, School Lunch, Nitrate Fertilizer, Avian Flu

Trump Suggests U.S. Will Buy Argentine Beef to Lower Prices (10/20/25) Farmdoc reports that President Donald Trump is proposing importing more Argentinian beef in an attempt to bring down prices for American consumers. Trump has been working to help Argentina bolster its collapsing economy with a $20 billion credit swap line and additional financing from…  Read More

Carbon, Cattle & Conservation Grazing

Sometimes the rules of simple cause and effect don’t directly apply. Take, for instance, the fact that cattle are ruminants, and like all ruminants they utilize a wonderfully complex digestive system to turn forages and grain into meat and milk. A major side effect of all that fermentation on four legs is the production of…  Read More

LSP Board Chair: ‘We do love our immigrant neighbors and we need them.’

'Through much of LSP's work, we see firsthand the role that immigrant families play in revitalizing our rural economies.'

On Valentine’s Day, members of the Immigrant Defense Network turned out across Minnesota to spread a “Love Your Immigrant Neighbor” message and to inform people of their rights when confronted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who are enforcing mass deportation orders from the White House. Last November, more than 90 Minnesota groups…  Read More

The Fifth R

A 'Generational Urban Farmer' Looks to Build Community Resilience

On a warm, overcast day in early fall, a low line of shrubby trees blocks the view of a seemingly empty lot on Penn Avenue, a busy thoroughfare in the Willard-Hay Neighborhood of North Minneapolis. A television with a cracked screen lays in some weeds at the edge of the lot, a reminder that if…  Read More

Legislative Wrap-Up: A Chaotic Session  Produces Concrete Results

Market Access, Land Access & Soil Health Support Passes 

Give it a Listen Episode 374 of LSP’s Ear to the Ground podcast features a discussion with government relations director Laura Schreiber about how the organization’s priorities fared during the legislative session. ♦ ♦ ♦ As I write this, the regular session of the 2025 Minnesota Legislature wrapped up with some unfinished business, which means…  Read More