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 →
On a recent morning in late February, a couple dozen farmers stood in front of a wall of words and pictures, imagining what the future might look like. Just a few minutes before, the farmers had sat at tables in a sunny room of the Chatfield Center for the Arts in southeastern Minnesota, using felt-tipped… Read More →
2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here. ♦ ♦ ♦ This is a story about how traffic jams aren’t all bad, the powerful draw of regenerative agriculture, an MBA project, and how one woman living in the suburbs got over imposter’s syndrome,… Read More →
The Land Stewardship Project’s mission is to foster an ethic of stewardship of farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop healthy communities. LSP believes that private, for-profit immigration detention centers have no place in Minnesota. When we became aware that there was a proposal being considered in Pine Island, Minn., a group of concerned… Read More →
Sign Up for E-mail Delivery of The Land Line Report Calls for Stricter Fertilizer Rules as US Nitrate Pollution Crisis Grows (6/1/26) The New Lede writes about a report that finds lax regulations and mismanaged applications are contributing to making nitrogen runoff a major water pollution problem in the U.S. Highlights: U.S. farmers annually apply… Read More →
Currently, more than 175,000 Minnesotans live in communities with elevated nitrate levels (>3mg/L) in their drinking water. This problem is particularly bad in southeastern Minnesota. Consuming too much nitrate can affect how blood carries oxygen and studies suggest that nitrate exposure increases the risk of cancer, as well as increases heart rate, nausea, headaches, abdominal cramps, and more. Nitrate is… Read More →
LSP Farmer-Members Demand State Policy Reforms, Investigations MANKATO, Minn. — Public officials need to take immediate action to address the farm crisis that is decimating Minnesota’s rural families and communities. That was the message farmer-members of the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) conveyed to state Commissioner of Agriculture Thom Petersen and Attorney General Keith Ellison at… Read More →
UPDATE (5/2/19): So far, the Senate has decided to punt on this issue by extending the current moratorium on HMO conversions from July 2019 to July 2023, instead of passing strong protections for our public money this year. During debate on the Senate floor, Senator Michelle Benson referred to Senator John Marty’s provision to protect… Read More →
Citizens Push MPCA for EIS Despite Agency’s 3rd Postponement of Decision NEWBURG TOWNSHIP, Minn. — The legal mandate for ordering an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a controversial hog operation in southeastern Minnesota’s Fillmore County has been met, according to a thorough analysis of the public record recently completed by the Land Stewardship Project (LSP)… Read More →
On Aug. 30, frac sand corporation Minnesota Sands filed a petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court in a continued attempt to subvert local democracy and undo the frac sand ban in southeastern Minnesota’s Winona County. The ordinance was passed by Winona County Commissioners after they listened to the will of the people, and has already… Read More →
