After a lifetime of working for others in agricultural jobs, and retired after a career with the postal service, Tom Hoekstra and his wife, Lisa, bought a 150-acre farm outside of Plainview in southeastern Minnesota. Tom was 59 when they bought the farm in 2009. Right after their purchase, they immediately went to work re-building… Read More →
When Lauren Barry pulls a weed or harvests a tomato this summer, she’s doing so on a one-acre plot of land steeped in history. Not the ancient, dusty kind that may or may not have relevance to the current situation, but history rooted in recent growing seasons, when other beginning farmers faced the same meteorological,… Read More →
MADISON, Minn. — “Welcome to my midlife crisis,” joked Peter Haugen on a Saturday morning in early August as a couple dozen farmers stood in a semi-circle around him and his wife, Brittany, at the edge of a 12-acre field south of Madison. The “crisis” Peter was referring to was what was growing in that… Read More →
LEWISTON, Minn. — The public is invited to learn via fun, hands-on activities about the connections between clean water, fishing and sustainable farming Saturday, July 12, during a Land Stewardship Project (LSP) event at Farmers Park near Lewiston (23274 Arches Road). The “Fishing, Farming & Food: Rush Creek’s Fish Kill Anniversary & Why it Matters” event is… Read More →
LEWISTON, Minn. — The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) applauded today’s ruling by the Minnesota Court of Appeals upholding a county’s right to limit the size of large animal feedlots operating within its borders. The ruling confirms an earlier state District Court’s decision that there was “no actual evidence of bias” when Winona County denied Daley… Read More →
Feb. 5: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities More Farmers Are Planting Cover Crops Thanks To State Incentive Programs (1/29/21) Harvest Public Media reports on how state incentive programs are boosting the planting of cover crops in Iowa and Illinois. Highlights: In both states, farmers can qualify for discounts on their… Read More →
You’ve probably never heard of the “Buy the Farm” law, but if you think corporations have too much power and that it’s time to put people before corporate profits, this is a law worth knowing about. The “Buy the Farm” law is a result of the hard fought negotiations between family farmers and utility companies… Read More →
Note: This is the 5th installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series. Grazing livestock have been described as “combines that poop.” That’s an accurate, if somewhat graphic, depiction of how moving cattle and other animals through well-managed paddocks can rebuild soil that’s been decimated by tillage, chemical use, and compaction. Langdon… Read More →
Note: This is the 6th installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series. When your context is farming in the city, everything is a little faster, denser, and louder. “We grow everything very intensively,” said Elyssa Eull on a warm evening in early September while she stood near the entrance to California… Read More →
Note: This is the 10th installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series. There’s nothing like getting diminishing returns on your investment in time, labor, and resources to put things in context. “I just got sick and tired of spending money on fertilizer, planting in the dry powder, and watching the soil blow… Read More →
