Search Results

Searched for: regional food systems

Sign the Petition Supporting Soil Health Legislation

2025 Legislative Session Concludes May 19

Building healthy soil across Minnesota is key to creating resiliency in the face of a changing climate and is also incredibly important in supporting clean water. We all want clean drinking water for our families and communities. Right now, bills are being heard in the Minnesota Legislature that could affect drinking water throughout the state…  Read More

INPUT NEEDED: Submit MDA Legislative Ideas by Aug. 16

What Would You Like to See the MDA Support During the 2025 Legislative Session?

Minnesota’s state agencies are in the midst of gathering information and setting their priorities for the 2025 legislative session. They are deciding how they should spend their dollars, what programs to continue, what policy changes are needed, and more. What do you need? Could you take five minutes to share your ideas with the Minnesota Department…  Read More

Good News on the Beginning Farmer Front

What with ridiculously high land prices and Washington’s inability to focus on agriculture long enough to pass a Farm Bill, it’s easy to get down about the prospects for beginning farmers these days. That’s why a national meeting held in Rochester, Minn., earlier this month was so important—not only because it proved that there are…  Read More

Farm Beginnings: When Farming Doesn’t go as Planned

When it comes to farming, oftentimes things don’t work out as planned—and sometimes that’s a good thing. Take for example Greg and Nancy Rasmussen, who on a recent fall afternoon are checking on some newly arrived chicks gathered under heat lamps in their barn. When the Rasmussens enrolled in the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course…  Read More

Land Line: Corn Belt Cancer, Integrating Crops & Livestock, Trade Turmoil, Farmland Access, Erosion, SNAP, Microbe Memory

Report: Cancer Rates Rising Among Young People in the Corn Belt (10/29/25) The Minnesota Reformer reports on an analysis conducted by The Washington Post showing that the six states that lead in corn production — Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas — have seen higher rates of cancer among young people than other states…  Read More

Area Farmers Share Land Access & Marketing Concerns with Legislators From 9 States

Pre Farm-Aid SIX Tour Highlights Environmental, Health Benefits Provided by Cannon Falls & Rochester Farmers 

CANNON FALLS, Minn. — Shea-Lynn Ramthun stood in a recently harvested oat field on her family’s farm near Cannon Falls last week and described to a couple dozen lawmakers a dilemma that’s all-too-common in the agriculture business: she had just successfully raised a bumper crop, only to run into the brick wall of not having…  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

Midwestern Farmers Invited to Answer this Question: What Do YOU Want in the New Farm Bill? 

Farmers in Minnesota, Iowa & Wisconsin Asked to Participate in New Survey

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — As discussions around the 2023 Farm Bill get off the ground, a key group of people are being asked to share their views on the future of agricultural policy: farmers. During the next several weeks, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is circulating the National Young Farmer Survey in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin in…  Read More

Farm Transitions: A Transition Power Team

A Farm Transfers Ownership & a Farmer Transfers into a New Role What’s that stuff in soil that’s supposed to provide humans a sense of wellbeing? You know, like a protozoa-based version of Prozac? Emmalyn Kayser is trying to come up with the name on a recent March afternoon as she and Chris Burkhouse squat…  Read More