On the Internet, you’re only as old as you feel—at least until the person you’re corresponding with travels from two states away to meet you face-to-face. When Dave and Deb Welsch started communicating via e-mail with Steve and Shelley Lorenz in 2007, a lot of assumptions were made about the age of the parties on… Read More →
SCANDIA, Minn. — Members of the East African farming community and area landowners are invited to a special networking event Sunday, Oct. 22, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., at the Scandia City Hall Community Center (14727 209th St. N.). This Land Stewardship Project (LSP) event is free and food will be provided. Children are welcome… Read More →
When you grow up on a farm in the shadow of the Jolly Green Giant, you can’t help but think that size matters when it comes to success in agriculture. Josh Reinitz’s family’s land sits between Minneapolis and Mankato, just a few miles from where a wooden likeness of the Green One and his apprentice… Read More →
We have learned that quality produce on our eight-acre vegetable farm starts with the soil—soil that teems with life at both the macro- and micro-level. First, some background: I had grown up on a conventional hay, corn and soybean farm in western Iowa and moved to Rochester, Minn., for work after getting a mechanical engineering… Read More →
There are numerous ways of communicating the value society places on having more family farmers on the land, not fewer. This morning, the USDA announced it was awarding $18 million in grants to groups that are helping beginning farmers nationwide. That sends an important message that the federal government, thanks to initiatives put in the… Read More →
Farmers Face One of the Highest Rates of Suicide. This Social Worker Believes the Solution is Buried in Their Land (4/10/25) The Guardian newspaper describes how a social worker in Kansas has developed the LandLogic Model, a new way to train healthcare providers that uses farmers’ relationship to their land to identify and treat depression,… Read More →
I talked to a Todd County farmer yesterday who uses 100 percent no-till and other conservation measures to raise his crops. Conserving soil is important to him, and so he’s quite upset at how mobile humus has been on neighboring farms this fall/early winter. “You know that little skiff of snow we got the other… Read More →
Jan. 7: An LSP Round-up of News Covering Land, People & Communities As the Livestock Industry Touts Manure-to-Energy Projects, Environmentalists Cry ‘Greenwashing’ (12/7/21) Inside Climate News reports that as utilities, oil companies, and livestock companies pitch biogas (turning manure into energy) as an emissions-reducing solution, critics say it simply locks in systems that allow two… Read More →
The sustainable agriculture community lost a true friend this week when Bud Markhart passed away after a courageous battle with cancer. I had the opportunity to interview Markhart last fall for an LSP podcast. He was a professor of horticultural science at the U of M, and so it’s no surprise that he made his… Read More →
Improving Soil Health Not Just Feel-Good Endeavor (4/1/25) Indiana Prairie Farmer describes how Rodney Rulon’s 30-year soil health journey utilizing no-till and cover cropping is paying dividends not just environmentally, but economically as well. Highlights: The National Association of Conservation Districts and the Soil Health Institute performed a budget analysis on 29 farms across the… Read More →
