Farm Beginnings Profile: Kristianna Gehant & Nick Siddens
When a new food and farming model is introduced to a region, it can be slow to catch on—if at all. On the other hand, sometimes a new concept takes off like a galloping horse, challenging its...
View ArticleRolling Our Land to Death
I sat in a farmhouse one afternoon last month as a hot wind lifted rich topsoil from surrounding fields. On the drive in, I’d noticed a surprising amount of rill erosion on newly tilled...
View ArticleRestoring the Resource
I coordinate a project in western Minnesota that is based on the idea that producing positive environmental impacts in a watershed can happen without having to remake the entire region's landscape....
View ArticleSilica Sand Mining Fractures Leopold’s Land Ethic
On Aug. 28, Land Stewardship Project board member Tex Hawkins spoke to a busload of LSP members and friends who visited a farm near Dodge, Wis., to witness firsthand the effects of frac, or silica,...
View ArticleSpencer Award Winners: A Farm as Change Agent
On a blustery late summer day, Jan Libbey and Tim Landgraf hike through a waist-high prairie to the top of a dramatic knob on their farm in north-central Iowa. As they stand amongst big bluestem,...
View ArticlePollinators in Peril
As last week’s Congressional Research Service report on bee health makes clear, the crisis plaguing pollinators is not a single, big bad bogey man. It’s likely a combination of factors such as habitat...
View ArticleNightmare Before Christmas: Winona County Gets Frac Sand Review Wrong (Again)
This fall, LSP uncovered serious errors in the process of environmental review that was being done on proposed frac sand mines in Minnesota’s Winona County. Eventually, the county acknowledged that the...
View ArticlePutting People & the Land First
Below is a picture from the close of a thought-provoking, challenging and energizing two-day meeting the Land Stewardship Project hosted this week at our Minneapolis office. Leaders and staff from...
View ArticleComment Period on Winona County Frac Sand Review Extended to Feb. 6
The process of environmental review for frac sand mine proposals in Winona County has been seriously flawed from the start. But there’s still time for citizens to get involved and push for an in-depth,...
View ArticleMain Street Vs. Eat Street
I’m not sure I would recommend this, but I recently read two books back-to-back that represent the “how” extremes of today’s food system. I started out with The Town That Food Saved: How One Community...
View ArticleCooking Up Some Hope in the Phillips Community
On April 13, Hope Community intern Taya Shultz lead a cooking class at Hope’s community kitchen. “The topic was breakfast. We made almond milk, vegetable breakfast smoothies and buckwheat muesli...
View ArticleFrom Empty Lot to Full Blown Garden
Gardeners at Hope Community in the Phillips Community of South Minneapolis have been working hard this week to prepare soil and create a design for the urban agriculture space that has come to be known...
View ArticleLSP to EQB: It’s Time for 2-Way Communication on Frac Sand in SE MN
Southeast Minnesota citizens traveled to Saint Paul yesterday and presented copies of the People’s EIS Scoping Report to each of the state agency commissioners and citizen members who make up...
View ArticlePutting Farm Tools in their Proper Place
One recent August day, I stood in a field in North Dakota watching soil being spaded up and listening to farmers talk about the optimal cover crop seeding mixes, how long to mob graze a paddock and...
View ArticleGene Goven & MN Ranchers: Planning for Change
In western Minnesota we live in what used to be a grassland habitat, where warm season perennials were king and the whole system depended on herds of buffalo and the occasional wildfire to break down...
View ArticleOur Voices Matter: Minneapolis Park Board Adds Racial Equity to Urban Ag Plan
On May 21, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change member and Food Justice Leader Selam Yosief joined dozens of others in demanding racial equity in the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s (MPRB) Urban...
View ArticleUrban Ag: Growing & Raining Lots
The threat of heavy rain did not keep a group of prospective farmers away from the Seward Neighborhood of Minneapolis this past Saturday. Stefan Meyer of Growing Lots Urban Farm hosted a Farm Beginning...
View ArticleTaking That Next Farming Step? Consider LSP’s Journeyperson Course
The first decade of a farm is full of challenge, sweat, growth, difficult lessons, satisfaction and joy. In order to get more successful farmers on the land, new farmers need to establish their farms...
View ArticleA Winona County Comprehensive Plan for Everyone
Winona County is fortunate to be located in the heart of the Driftless Region, an area unique for its geographic and biological features. For this reason we need a Comprehensive Plan suited to such a...
View ArticleA Dairy Farm Rises From the Ashes
Not long ago, Rich and Carol Radtke were on a bit of a roll. They had graduated from the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course and felt the program had provided them a solid basis for...
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