To Matthew Ott, three words could make all the difference as to whether farming systems that protect the soil year-round in Minnesota become a consistent agricultural presence in the state…. Read more »
Posts Tagged: cover crops
Crop Insurance: Good Enough for Monsanto-Good Enough for Sustainable Ag
From the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction department: In 2007, Monsanto talked the USDA’s Risk Management Agency into giving farmers a discount on crop insurance premiums if they planted the company’s triple-stacked GMO corn…. Read more »
Continuous Learning About Continuous Living Cover
When it comes to introducing and supporting innovative sustainable farming practices, nothing beats a field day. Such events provide an opportunity for farmers to see firsthand how profitable, environmentally sound… Read more »
Soil Health: Numbers vs. Knowing
Sometimes it takes a bit of an evangelist to remind us that praying at the altar of facts and figures can blind one to how they all connect in the… Read more »
Forever Green Receives $1 Million
The Minnesota Legislature took a major step last week toward supporting the kind of agriculture that can green up our landscape in a way that’s economically viable for farmers. Conference… Read more »
Forever Green & Highly Efficient Agriculture
To understand why the Forever Green Initiative is so important to the future of Minnesota’s landscape, one has to consider this: there is a big difference between agricultural productivity and… Read more »
Cover Crops: Insuring Against Disaster
Thanks to the recently passed 2014 Farm Bill, federally subsidized crop insurance is an even bigger player in determining what the landscape looks like. That’s troubling, considering that in recent… Read more »
Cover Crops: Not Just Foul Weather Friends
Cover crops proved themselves foul weather friends during the Great Drought of 2012. A groundbreaking farmer survey conducted in the Upper Mississippi River watershed showed that during that year’s brutal… Read more »
Snirt: A Stain on the Landscape
A drive through Farm Country this winter is a revelatory experience. Revelatory in that the impacts of planting the landscape to monocultures of corn and soybeans and plowing the ground… Read more »
A Disappearing World Beneath Our Feet
As Midwestern farm fields take a long winter’s nap, evidence is piling up that even when the temperature’s above freezing, all that soil is basically in a bit of a… Read more »