Land Stewardship Project

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Justice & Stewardship

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The Land Stewardship Project envisions a food and farming system and thriving, healthy communities that work for everyone, no exceptions.

In 2020, LSP members and others in Litchfield, Minn., called for justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

Whether Black or white, immigrant or Indigenous, working class or middle class, queer or straight, man, woman, or non-binary, we all deserve dignified, productive, and creative lives.

Racism, patriarchy, and economic injustice are major barriers to accomplishing the Land Stewardship Project’s mission. Therefore, we must dismantle these systems of oppression and lift up collective liberation so we can all be free to live healthy and vibrant lives together.

As we care for the soil, we participate in the healing of the land. As we work to understand each other and eliminate oppression, we participate in the healing of community. Because we believe people and the land belong together, these aspects of stewardship and healing are inseparable.

Social Justice Reference Document

LSP has developed “Connecting Economic & Racial Justice to Expand a Rural Social Justice Network” as a reference document for any group, agency, or organization looking to establish and grow a social justice network in their locality. This report is also intended to guide other social justice networks through discussions and activities that draw out their values, experiences, and ideas for influencing social change in their communities. To read and download the reference document, click here.

Connecting Economic & Racial Justice to Expand a Rural Social Justice Network

LSP has developed “Connecting Economic & Racial Justice to Expand a Rural Social Justice Network” as a reference document for any group, agency, or organization looking to establish and grow a social justice network in their locality. This report is also intended to guide other social justice networks through discussions and activities that draw out their values, experiences, and ideas for influencing social change in their communities. To download this publication, click here.

Immigration Community Care Resource Page

LSP has developed a resource page for immigrants, allies, farmers, and institutions. On that page, you’ll also find fact sheets on issues such as the contributions immigrants make to the U.S. economy.

Subscribe to LSP’s Racial Justice E-letter

Amplify! is a Land Stewardship Project e-letter featuring updates, action items, and resources for LSP members engaging in racial justice work in their communities. To subscribe, click here.

Rural Voices for Racial Justice Videos

Check out our recent video series, “Rural Voices for Racial Justice,” which features LSP members across the Upper Midwest who are amplifying their voices for racial justice in the food and farming system. 

  • Abigail Hindson reminds us that we need to move beyond fear and white silence to stand up for the common good.
  • Dayna Burtness talks about how structural racism is real and that we need to pull together and have a sense of urgency around implementing solutions together.
  • Ben Doherty reminds us that when we talk about working to make things better for future generations, we should be working to do that for everybody’s kids and grandkids.
  • Eva Barr says, “If we’re committed to diversifying our fields in the interest of building our soil, we need to be committed to diversifying our society on the landscape to save our planet.”

What We Mean by Economic, Gender & Racial Justice*

Systemic economic injustice, structural racism, and gender inequity are major barriers to the advancement of LSP’s mission. These forces are interconnected and impact every facet of our work. Understanding how they affect our work and ultimately dismantling these systems of oppression is required for LSP to achieve the change we seek in the world. Addressing systemic injustices also gives us the opportunity to participate in the healing part of the movement. As we care for the soil, we participate in the healing of the land. As we work to understand each other and eliminate oppression, we participate in the healing of community. Moving forward, we will use the following descriptions to understand how our work is impacted by these powerful inequities and how we will work to dismantle them.

Economic Justice

We believe that each person has the right to have a dignified, productive, and creative life. We depend on each other, and we are invested in each other’s success. However, the economy we live in today is controlled by major corporations, which prioritize their profits and control above all else. Huge corporations exert influence over every aspect of our farm and food system, consolidating wealth, land, and profits for a few while rural communities and the land suffer.

What we need is an economy that supports the family-sized farms that are on the land now and expands land access and secures land tenure for all people who want to farm, including people of color, Indigenous people, and women. We need a people-centered economy and a people-centered government that support opportunities for meaningful work with compensation which allows families to flourish. We need quality housing, services, and infrastructure that connect us and allow for innovation. We envision stronger connections among people who live, work, and eat in rural, urban, and suburban communities, allowing them to build a shared prosperity together. We believe economic decisions should be shaped by the people directly impacted by them; these decisions about natural resources and the land should serve the people and promote stewardship of the earth.

Gender Justice

To achieve the vibrant, resilient communities we envision, everyone’s energies and full creative potential must be unleashed. This can’t happen without equity in opportunity for everyone, whatever gender identity they have. Women and gender non-conforming people increasingly make up the ranks of farmers. They have been essential farm partners for generations, and many more are inheriting farms and becoming beginning farmers.

We embrace all as farmers and welcome everyone who aspires to farm and care for the land. Family farms are part of the multitude of farming operations and relationships that make up LSP’s membership. There are many different kinds of household and small community relationships and structures that people rely on to farm together, and there are new kinds of farms emerging all the time. All of these farms matter and are part of the fabric of small and mid-sized farms that LSP believes is essential to stewardship of the land.

Women and gender non-binary people, those who farm and those who do not, are leaders in our communities, and their power and ability to create positive change grows with the advancement of gender justice.

LSP has the opportunity to demonstrate in practice what gender equity looks like and can mean for all of us. Ensuring one’s full contribution paves the way for a society based on stewardship, sustainability, economic justice, and racial equity.

Racial Justice

LSP believes every person — of any race, rural or urban, old or young — has value that can’t be earned or taken away. We believe healthy rural communities and sustainable agriculture are not possible without addressing racism and racial disparities in our communities and valuing the wisdom and contributions of people from all backgrounds. We all benefit when we are united behind a common goal of a society where everyone can thrive. We believe that achieving racial equity is the work of white people in collaboration with people of color and Indigenous communities. Towards this goal, LSP seeks to lead as a mostly white, mostly rural membership organization to act in real and sustained solidarity. This work takes many forms and we are learning as we move forward. In January 2017, LSP’s management team
adopted five strategies to advance racial justice:

• Organizing white rural Midwesterners, leading with values, and winning on issues that matter to
them, while being explicit that we stand for racial justice, and linking to the larger movement for
stewardship and justice that we are helping to build.
• Racial justice training, education, action, and analysis with LSP’s staff, members, and leaders.
• Movement organizing — LSP joining with, sometimes following and sometimes providing
leadership to, an emerging multi-racial movement of allies, working to achieve economic,
environmental, gender, and racial justice.
• Showing up and standing with allied organizations and communities of color and indigenous
communities that come under attack.
• Responding directly and effectively to racist statements and actions.

Furthermore, we recognize that the founding of the U.S. was via migrations of peoples from Europe and elsewhere, imposing new borders on land already occupied by Indigenous peoples. Today we are seeing increasing migrations of peoples across the world due to violence, stress over resources, and the effects of the climate crisis. We recognize our interconnection with such refugees and migrants as people like ourselves, seeking opportunity and security for their loved ones. Rather than build walls to exclude others, we understand the need to heal the planet and the violence that plagues our nations.

It is only by actively engaging in the dismantling of each of these types of systemic oppression
that we can achieve the truly sustainable and regenerative food and farming systems that we
want and need.

* This language taken from the Land Stewardship Project’s long range plan: Vision for the Future: 5 Year Plan 2019-2024.

Racial Justice Fact Sheets

• Justice on the Land: Responding to Police Violence

• White Nationalism & White Supremacy

Related Posts

  • Ear to the Ground 368: Big Ag-Big Problems

    An extractive economic system is decimating and dividing our rural communities. Now, more than ever, we need solidarity, says Cristina Ortiz.
    More Information
    • LSP’s Community-Based Food…

    Ear to the Ground 368: Big Ag-Big Problems
  • Ear to the Ground 188: Telling a New Story About Race

    Autumn Brown talks about how we can counter the myths that lead to racial injustice in rural America and elsewhere.

    Ear to the Ground 188: Telling a New Story About Race
  • Ear to the Ground 309: Stewards of the Land

    Two Puerto Rican filmmakers talk about Stewards of the Land/Serán las dueñas de la tierra, which documents the stories of three beginning farmers as they build relationships and…

    Ear to the Ground 309: Stewards of the Land

Contact

• Nick Olson, LSP organizer
e-mail, 320-269-1057
• Alex Romano, LSP organizer
e-mail, 612-767-9880
• Clara Sanders, LSP organizer
e-mail, 612-400-6340

 

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    • Justice & Stewardship
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  • Join, Donate, or Renew
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Upcoming Events

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May 2025

Thursday May 29

9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Storytelling for Sales: Digital Marketing for Sustainable Farmers
Thursday May 29
9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Storytelling for Sales: Digital Marketing for Sustainable Farmers
Zoom Online

Storytelling for Sales: Digital Marketing Best Practices to Get Your Farm’s Next Customer is designed to help farmers grow their customer base by sharpening their storytelling and digital marketing skills—whether they’re selling through farmers’ markets, CSAs, or direct-to-retail. This Greener Pastures and Meet the Minnesota Makers workshop will cover how websites and social media can actually convert viewers into buyers to creating content that builds community loyalty.

This workshop is also designed for ag educators, professionals, and partner organizational staff who support farmers directly and want to be well-versed on the marketing best practices to support direct-to-consumer farms. 

For details and to register, click here.

Saturday May 31

10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Multi-species Pasture Walk
Saturday May 31
10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Multi-species Pasture Walk
872 320th Ave, Frederic, WI 54837, USA

The NW Wisconsin Graziers Network, River Country RC&Dand UW-Madison Extension invite you to a multi-species pasture walk hosted by JohnsonFamily Pastures LLC. The farm is located five miles east of Frederic in PolkCounty. This educational event willemphasize direct marketing, multi-species grazing, part-time family agricultureand silvopasture development. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided.

TheJohnson Family Pastures farm is home to Chris and Tamara Johnson and their twochildren. They raise grass-fed beef, silvopastured goats, and recently raised anumber of other species. The farm consists of about 160 acres of gently rollingpastures, silvopasture, and forest. Use of both temporary polybraid fencing andhigh tensile permanent fences allow for rotational grazing of small ruminants andout-wintering of beef cattle. Use of long-term farm transition strategies, cost-shareprograms, silvopasture development with goats, regenerative grazing, cattlehandling facility and bale grazing will be discussed along with answering anyand all questions from pasture walk participants.

An extensive and diversified direct marketing programhas been developed by Tamara and Chris that has included farmer markets, e-maillists, newsletters, website ordering, on-farm freezer storage, and other strategiesand tools to support direct sales and services for their customers.  Come and learn all about their successfulapproach.

For more information,contact Chris Johnson at 920-960-4475 or Lynn Johnson 715-225-9882 at NW Graziers.

June 2025

Wednesday June 25

2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
LSP-PFI Grazing Field Day at Hoosier Ridge Ranch
Wednesday June 25
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
LSP-PFI Grazing Field Day at Hoosier Ridge Ranch
Hoosier Ridge Ranch, 15998 Wabasha County Rd 26, Altura, MN 55910, USA

Over the last 50 years, livestock have left many farms. Eric Heins is doing the reverse: bringing cattle – and their poop, pee and hooves – back to his land. Come see how Eric is using his Normande-shorthorn crosses in a variety of grazing situations. During this Land Stewardship Project-Practical Farmers of Iowa field day, you can view permanent pasture, where Eric (like everyone) is battling the cool-season grass takeover. You’ll also learn how Eric is using his cattle in cover crop mixes, prairie and woodlands.

Since purchasing the farm in 2020, Eric has converted the cropland to pasture. He also custom-farms a diverse rotation of crops, covers and small grains on neighboring farms, including an established prairie on Iowa Department of Natural Resources land. A possible bonus: Eric is hoping to have virtual fence collars by the time of the field day, but no guarantees!

A meal featuring Hoosier Ridge Ranch burgers will follow the field day.

See & Discuss

  • Cash-flowing the conversion to pasture on owned versus rented cropland
  • Stockpiling pasture for winter grazing
  • Mechanical buckthorn clearing for silvopasture
  • Grazing agreements on DNR prairie and neighboring cropland
  • A sudangrass mix after a canning pea crop
  • An extended rotation with oats, barley and Kernza

For details and to register, click here.

Saturday June 28

4:00 pm – 8:00 pm
LSP's Boots & Roots: A Celebration of Land & People
Saturday June 28
4:00 pm – 8:00 pm
LSP's Boots & Roots: A Celebration of Land & People
Dream Acres, Co Hwy 8, Spring Valley, MN 55975, USA

Join Land Stewardship Project members and supporters to kick-start the Driftless summer with an evening of good food, good music, and good times. We’ll have activities for all ages that will get you out in nature, exploring the connection between our region’s farms and your community’s food, land, and water. Bring a side or dessert to share for dinner, and the Dream Acres wood-fired oven will provide locally-sourced pizzas and flat breads. Dinner will be followed by live music and contra dancing by the Crater City String Band.  

To reserve a spot, click here.

Camping sites are available at nearby Masonic Park and Forestville Mystery Cave and Lake Louise State Parks. Camping at Masonic is rustic,first-come-first-serve, free, and does not require a reservation. Fillmore County, who manages the park, only asks that you call the dispatchers at507-765-3874 when you arrive with your vehicle information and phone number in case of emergency. State Park reservations cost $25 a night and can be made online.

July 2025

Tuesday July 15

5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Organic Fruit & Vegetable Field Day
Tuesday July 15
5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Organic Fruit & Vegetable Field Day
1805 Dudley Ave, Falcon Heights, MN 55113, USA

Join U of M researchers and Extension for updates on organic fruit and vegetable research and tour the Student Organic Farm and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station in Saint Paul. Topics include: organic insect management, integrating livestock into vegetable farms, new crops for Minnesota, irrigation strategies, and more. Free to the public.
 
For details and to register, click here.

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