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… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Food and Sustainable Agriculture
Purebreds, Pluggers & Profitable Soil
On a recent August evening in south-central North Dakota, soil scientist Kristine Nichols laid out what I like to call the “purebred vs. the plugger” approach to farming. “With healthy… Read more »
Flash Flood? Flash Drought? Time for a Little Slow Soil
The U.S Drought Monitor released its latest figures yesterday, verifying what we already knew: Minnesota is extremely dry. In fact, 55 percent of our state now falls under the “severe… Read more »
Grazing, Cover Crops, Climate Change & Resilience
The best farming system in the world means little if it isn’t resilient enough to bounce back from all the nastiness nature can toss its way. That’s become painfully clear… Read more »
Making Diversity on the Farm Pay its Own Way
Long term sustainability of our soil requires farming systems that can not only keep soil in place, but also help it build its own resiliency. Such systems can’t just work… Read more »
Fertilizer, Fishing & Farmer Specht
Dan Specht, who was taken from us all too soon last week by a haying accident, was the embodiment of the stewardship farmer. His kind, curious nature—housed in a powerfully-built,… Read more »
Nitrogen Pollution’s Farm Policy Roots
By Adam Warthesen, Land Stewardship Project Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room. When Minnesota environmental officials announced the results of a new major nitrogen pollution study on Thursday,… Read more »
Corn Planting Sends Tremors Through Bee Country
Sometimes laboratory science and the reality of what’s happening on the ground intersect in a graphic way. That’s what struck me this morning as I was watching a video shot… Read more »
How Farmworker Wage Theft Bankrupts our Rural Communities
A few years ago LSP organizer Doug Nopar was told of a southeast Minnesota farm operation that was withholding wages from a worker after he had accidentally damaged a door… Read more »
Main 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… Read more »