Carrie Calvo’s 7,000-mile journey to the heart of farming and local food. More Information • LSP’s Farm Beginnings Course • Farm Beginnings in other Regions: the Farm Beginnings Collaborative • Land Stewardship Letter article on Owl Bluff Farm • Fresh Voices: the Ear to the Ground podcast series on beginning farmers You can find LSP Ear… Read More →
LEWISTON, Minn. — One of the most successful beginning farmer training programs in the country is now accepting applications for its 2022-2023 course session serving the Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa region. The Land Stewardship Project’s (LSP) Farm Beginnings initiative is a year-long training program that focuses on the goal-setting, marketing and financial skills needed to… Read More →
Smaller doesn’t always mean simpler. Consider Cella Langer and Emmet Fisher’s foray into being a Grade A micro-dairy — one that produces, processes, packages, markets, and sells pasteurized milk and yogurt. In a state that has lost 40,000 dairy farms in the past four decades, they are a tiny push in the opposite direction. How… Read More →
Government regulators may be befuddled by Cella Langer and Emmet Fisher’s tiny dairy, but these Farm Beginnings/Journeyperson grads know exactly where it fits into their business. More information: • Land Stewardship Letter Oxheart Farm profile • Oxheart Farm • LSP’s Farm Beginnings • LSP’s Journeyperson • MOSES Farmer-to-Farmer Mentorship Program You can find LSP Ear to the… Read More →
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — As discussions around the 2023 Farm Bill get off the ground, a key group of people are being asked to share their views on the future of agricultural policy: farmers. During the next several weeks, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is circulating the National Young Farmer Survey in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin in… Read More →
Pack-shed or people? That’s the question Les Macare and Els Dobrick are grappling with on a dank day in mid-March as they brave a biting wind to inspect the garden plots, cover crops, and outbuildings on Racing Heart Farm in western Wisconsin. With the exception of some onions sprouting in one of the hoop houses,… Read More →
Pack-shed or people? LSP’s Journeyperson helped vegetable producers Les Macare and Els Dobrick make a big decision about a recent growing season. More information: • Land Stewardship Letter Racing Heart Farm profile • LSP’s Journeyperson Course • LSP’s Farm Beginnings Course • Racing Heart Farm You can find LSP Ear to the Ground podcast episodes… Read More →
Anna Racer and Pete Skold have used state and federal “spark plugs” to build a farm enterprise infrastructure that’s good not just for them, but the community as well. Back in 2012, we interviewed Racer and Skold soon after they graduated from Farm Beginnings and launched Waxwing Farm. Check out that conversation on Ear to… Read More →
Rachel Henderson and Anton Ptak’s secondary enterprise could be a boon for farm country pollinators. (In 2010, Henderson and Ptak were featured on Ear to the Ground soon after they launched their orchard enterprise. Check out episode 78 here.) More information: • LSP’s Farm Beginnings Course • LSP’s Journeyperson Course • LSP’s Grazing & Soil Health web… Read More →
There are upsides to launching a farm on raw, open land: no broken-down outbuildings or junk piles to deal with, the ability to truly start anew from the soil up. Then…there’s the other side of the fence, so to speak. “I decided to move the sheep before they move themselves,” says Hannah Bernhardt with a… Read More →
