In June the USDA released a proposed rule to bolster the ability of the federal government to protect farmers against abuses by corporate meatpackers—in other words, inject a little free-market… Read more »
Posts By: Brian DeVore, Land Stewardship Project
6,000 Questions About Atrazine
When defending the safety of one of the most widely used weed killers in North America, Syngenta often cites the fact that some 6,000 studies provide “overwhelming” evidence that atrazine… Read more »
Son of the Soil
What can be more iconic than an image of a farmer holding soil? But when I took the photo featured below, it was more than a symbol—it was visual proof… Read more »
When a Farmland Spring Gives Up its Secrets
I find springs—those places where groundwater exposes itself to the sunlight of its own accord—fascinating. There’s something special about seeing firsthand an entity that’s recently been lurking underground in dark… Read more »
A Street Corner Mix
Sholom Rubashkin was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison on Monday, marking yet another chapter in Postville, Iowa’s, tragic relationship with Agriprocessors Inc. I thought about this relationship the… Read more »
Erosion Down—Fingers Crossed
The federal government’s latest assessment of how much soil is being washed and blown off our farmland contains some good news: between 1982 and 2007, erosion dropped 43 percent nationally.
The Danger of Endangered Rivers
An endangered river is dangerous—the Cedar River proved that exactly two years ago this week.
Making Local Cuisine a Cafeteria Constant
My kids reminded me this morning that the final hours of another Minnesota school year are fast approaching. It’s amazing how scholars who can barely master adding or subtracting from… Read more »
CAFO Settlement Tells Us What We Already Knew
It was already good news for our state’s water when the Legislature killed a proposal that would have exempted many of our largest factory farms from getting NPDES permits. But… Read more »
Pro-Factory Farm Bills Killed
By the time the 2010 session of the Minnesota Legislature convened Monday, proposals that would have weakened environmental standards for factory farms and undermined environmental review on the local level… Read more »