In Boone County, Iowa, fertile farmland stretches as far as the eye can see. But as our van of Land Stewardship Project members rounded the corner on a rural road, we saw a disturbing sight: miles of black, vacant land where the landscape has been shaved to make way for the Dakota Access Pipeline. On… Read More →
Something Smells With the Feedlot Trend, and it’s More Than Just the Manure 3/16/25 Ron Way, former assistant director of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, writes in the Star Tribune about how factory farms have transformed the landscape in southern and central Minnesota. Highlights: Since the 1970s, backers of large-scale, industrialized livestock production have successfully… Read More →
In the early 2000s, I wrote a series of Land Stewardship Letter articles about a generic environmental impact statement study that was done on Minnesota’s livestock industry. The final report had an interesting finding related to phosphorus, a key source of crop fertility: small livestock farms had a medium phosphorus shortage of 17 pounds per… Read More →
MONTEVIDEO, Minn. — The bankruptcy and subsequent shutdown of the Pure Prairie Poultry processing plant in St. Charles, Iowa, has once more laid bare the dangers and the inadequacies of our industrial farming structure. “Too big to fail” is no longer just a condition of the financial sector, it is now a concept that is reaching… Read More →
Sara began her relationship with LSP as a participant in the Farm Beginnings course, which launched her farm business in 2012, thorough which she grew vegetables for CSA and wholesale. Sara credits the education, networking, and confidence she gained through Farm Beginnings, and later LSP’s Journeyperson program, in assisting her purchase of a farm in… Read More →
In July 2024, Alex joined LSP’s staff in the Montevideo, Minn., office to work on soil health and land access issues. Alex grew up part-time in rural Wisconsin, spawning an affinity for open space, vintage tractors, bird chatter, and frog croaks. After 20-some-odd years working in the nooks and crannies of the food industry, she… Read More →
Seth Kuhl-Stennes joined LSP’s staff as an operations specialist in May 2024. In this position, he supports LSP’s day-to-day needs in the areas of facilities, technology, finance, and administration. Seth is the organization’s lead on IT and facilities project coordination. Prior to joining LSP’s team, he had worked for 15+ years in customer/client service and… Read More →
Pam Hartwell joined LSP in October 2023, but has been a member since 2013, when she finished the organization’s Farm Beginnings class. She has a long history of working with a wide variety of nonprofits in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and California. Having served as a mayor and city council member in Fairfax, Calif., Pam brings the… Read More →
At the Land Stewardship Project, we value local control — the ability for smaller units of government to build upon laws set by larger units of government. While states like Iowa and Wisconsin have gutted or significantly weakened local control, Minnesota has stayed strong on this issue (because of organizing by LSP members and others)… Read More →
Claim: Grazed Grasslands Trump Cover Crops on Long-term Carbon Sequestration (6/5/22) The Food and Environment Reporting Network reports on research showing that rotationally grazed pastures sequester more carbon than annual cropping systems. An ongoing 29-year-old field experiment in Wisconsin shows that perennial pastures managed with rotational grazing accumulated 18% to 29% more soil organic carbon… Read More →
