Longer days, shrinking snow drifts, missing motorists emerging from potholes—signs that spring is indeed nigh. Another hint that the growing season will actually make an appearance this year is that… Read more »
Posts By: Brian DeVore, Land Stewardship Project
The Economics of the Edible
This week’s Star Tribune article about how the USDA’s school lunch program is no bargain here in Minnesota despite its reliance on highly-subsidized commodities reminded me of a conversation I… Read more »
Ruling the Table with Pollan (& a little Wilde)
What has the world come to when one of our leading food and farming writers is moved to pen a book with the subtitle, “An eater’s manual”? That was my… Read more »
Thief River’s Yuck Mountain
Now that the MPCA has finally gotten around to taking steps to shut down that horrific health hazard that its owner, Excel, chooses to call a dairy farm, neighbors are… Read more »
A Long, Cool Summer
The end of January may not be the best time to whine about the unusually cool summers we’ve been experiencing in these parts (“Seventy degrees in August? I’m freezing!”). But… Read more »
MDA’S Long-Lost Atrazine Review is Out
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture released its long-awaited multi-agency review of the herbicide atrazine just after lunch today. No headline-making news here: “While the review finds that atrazine regulations protect… Read more »
Atrazine: Chemicals, Clients & Closed Doors
“Farmers like me are being put on the front line when it comes to the health risks of a chemical like atrazine,” says southwest Minnesota farmer Paul Sobocinski in a… Read more »
Biotech: Gagging on its Bragging
It hasn’t been a good year for genetically modified crops. Or rather, it hasn’t been a good year for those who promote these crops as the best thing to happen… Read more »
A Rural View of Local Food
When the 2009 summary for the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll popped up in my e-mail box yesterday, the first thing that struck me was this: a whole lot… Read more »
Putting Pasture out to Pasture
The latest U.S. Census of Agriculture shows that pastured land took a horrific hit between 2002 and 2007 in terms of the amount of landscape it covers. That means a… Read more »