Farmers Express Support for Beginning Farmer & Rancher Opportunity Act & Soil Health Initiatives Le SUEUR, MINN. — The next Farm Bill should emphasize support for beginning farmers and agricultural conservation, said farmer-members of the Land Stewardship Project during a meeting today with Tim Walz, the U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s First Congressional District. Walz and… Read More →
The temperature hovers a few degrees above zero and fresh snow swirls around their feet as Bryan Crigler and Katelyn Foerster bend into a fierce wind and head into a stand of walnut trees on a recent January day. In contrast to the wild woods, neat rows of ironwood logs are leaning on wires amidst… 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 →
A few years ago, Brad and Shelley Schrandt faced a dilemma: should they keep their dairy herd at around 20 cows for a few more years while working off the farm, or should they expand enough to justify quitting those town jobs? They went for the expansion in an attempt to simplify their life. Shelley,… Read More →
As the Land Stewardship Project begins the new year, Mike McMahon will be wrapping up his tenure as the executive director of LSP and the organization’s 501(c)4 political leadership development partner, the Land Stewardship Action Fund. McMahon would like to share this message with LSP’s members: “The Land Stewardship Project is a special organization and… 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 →
What will be your farm’s legacy? We often think of our legacy as related to our farm’s financial success. Our legacy will show how we were able to weather hard times — floods, droughts, hot weather, cool weather, low prices, pests, weeds, the farming crisis of the ’80s, changes in production methods and other enormous… 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 →
The $1.7 Trillion Landlord: New USDA Data Reveals the Shifting Face of Ownership (3/12/26) Farm Journal reports on new USDA showing a 47% surge in rented farmland value over the past decade, even as the footprint of available acreage shrinks. With $1.7 trillion in assets now held by a shifting demographic of landlords, the landscape… Read More →
Interested in hearing directly from the next generation of innovative farmers? Check out the Land Stewardship Project’s Ear to the Ground “Fresh Voices” podcast series. You can read profiles of Farm Beginnings grads here. You can check out all 295 episodes of our Ear to the Ground podcast here. Ear to the Ground 294: Rootless Regeneration … Read More →
