When it comes to the crop insurance sweepstakes, southwest Minnesota farmer Darwyn Bach is a winner. But he concedes that his good fortune presents a quandary, since the way the program is implemented these days creates significant losers: the soil, beginning farmers and Main Street businesses that suffer when the number of families in a… Read More →
Land Stewardship Project Sees Bill as Important Step for Getting More Beginning Farmers on the Land SAINT PAUL, Minn.—A bill moving through the Minnesota Legislature would help beginning farmers overcome one of the biggest barriers they face when trying to launch an agricultural business: access to land. According to farmer-members of the Land Stewardship Project… Read More →
2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. ♦ ♦ ♦ In a sense, when the brothers Andy and Ben Klein enrolled in the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course in 2023, it was a return engagement for at least one of them.… Read More →
When you’re wallowing in the pit of despair, it helps to know that others have preceded you and survived. And for John and Heidi Wise, they have another pit-beater: they didn’t exactly jump in without giving it some careful forethought. After more than a decade of classes, working with mentors, business planning and searching, the… Read More →
Sara is seeking a holistically minded individual, couple, or small family to co-steward 80 sacred acres in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin (La Farge, WI). This land features rolling limestone bluffs, 40 acres of diverse hardwood forest, and 40 acres of prairie, tamarack bog, and a trout stream. The vision is to create a healing… 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 →
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 →
On Thursday, April 13, over 300 Land Stewardship Project members, supporters, staff, and elected and appointed public officials gathered in Saint Paul for our 17th Family Farm Breakfast & Lobby Day – the largest Family Farm Breakfast in LSP history! This year, the event was co-hosted by: Clean Up the River Environment (CURE) ♦ Climate Land Leaders… Read More →
When considering significant changes to the way one farms, there’s nothing like a couple acres of convincer, a template for the potential offered up by tapping into the land’s ability to build soil health in an economically viable manner utilizing livestock and perennial plants. Mark Erickson points out just such a personal proving ground on… Read More →
Sometimes a Farm Transition is Done at a Distance On a brilliantly bright October afternoon, Chris Mosel makes his way over a clear-running brook and through a stand of basswood, oak and maple on his central Minnesota farm. As he approaches the edge of the woodlot, he steps over a strand of temporarily erected electric… Read More →
