Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/tag/farming/page/5/)
Not all cows are created equal. In fact, says cattle breeder Kit Pharo, most beef cattle raised across the U.S. look and perform differently from the animals that roamed across our prairies just three generations ago. Today, they are larger and selected to finish their lives on feed lots where they’re fattened on grains laced with antibiotics. Continue Reading
The city that gardens together grows sustainably together. Gardening is perhaps the greatest tool for building sustainability that we can all share. Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. Gardens can improve water quality, air quality, access to food, and personal health. Cities that actively nurture the gardening and urban farming efforts of their citizens reap the benefits of healthy communities. The nurturing of sustainable cities starts with the roots of the community. Wherever there is a strong activist gardener population, you will find wonderful green ideas and initiatives sprouting up all over!Rain gardens capture and filter rainwater run-off, community gardens and urban farms grow healthy food for people, locally grown food requires less trucking which keeps our air cleaner, fruit trees on the boulevard provide habitat for migrating birds and meeting places for neighbors. A city full of healthy gardens is a sustainable city full of happy people. Each city in Minnesota has it’s own unique approach to sustainability. In this volume of the Seed, we’ll have a look at two cities in the metro area to see some great examples of how local governments work with residents to incorporate all kinds of great gardening into their sustainability plans in order to grow happy, healthy cities.MinneapolisHomegrown food, local food, or food security, however you want to look at it, Minneapolitans’ taste in food is rapidly evolving. According to Gayle Prest, the city’s official Sustainability Director, “Gardening is an integral part of the long term sustainability plan for Minneapolis”With more then 100 community gardens and 33 farmers markets, this city is obviously hungry for healthy change. Leading the charge for this change is an official city organization called Homegrown Minneapolis which is dedicated to nothing less then building a healthy, local food system for all Minneapolis residents. Homegrown has recently been hard at work on an Urban Agriculture Policy Plan that will guide city land use decisions related to urban food production and distribution. Continue Reading
Despite the significant trend away from family farming in Minnesota and elsewhere – for many reasons giving way to the power of (often polluting and environmentally unsound) corporate farming enterprises, chemical companies and federal farm policies, Minnesota is showing growth in small to mid-sized family farms. Why? Because we are blessed by a surge in farms run by minority and immigrant families as a counterweight to the massive feedlots, bio-fed livestock, and chemically infused fruit and vegetable crops. Most of us now know that farmers’ markets are multiplying throughout our cities, providing us with farm-to-table fresh and nutritionally better foods. Again, we can thank enlightened organic farmers who practice strong, sustainable and healthy alternatives to the highly processed foods peddled in most of our supermarkets. The Minnesota Food Association, the Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women in Minnesota, and the USDA-Farm Service Agency will jointly co-host the 5th Annual Minority and Immigrant Farming Conference (brochure/registration) – February 19-20, 2010, in the Wilder Foundation Auditorium in St. Continue Reading
The recession appears poised to roll out across farm country, and Minnesota farmers are still scratching their heads over how to use the new federal farm program as income insurance for the coming spring planting season. For instance, southern Minnesota farmers who lead the nation in growing sweet corn and peas for canning have until March 2 to signup for a new fruit and vegetable program. The purpose of this program is to protect the acreage planted in those crops for future eligibility in farm programs for the larger crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat should markets change. At the same time, farmers in west-central and northwest Minnesota complain they are getting conflicting information about how those larger crop programs are supposed to work. Congress passed a new multi-year farm program in 2008, and regulations and instructions are still trickling down from Washington to county offices in rural Minnesota. Continue Reading
There are at least 257,732 people living and working on Minnesota farms. If all people residing on farms were counted, Minnesota’s “farm” population would be larger than St. Paul’s and pressing Minneapolis’. This is among information that can be gleaned from the five-year U.S. Census of Agriculture, conducted in 2007, that was released Feb. 4. Most of the data are geared to economic understanding of agriculture and farms. As a result, the Census of Agriculture offers a wealth of information more concerned with counting farm units, acres, cattle, turkeys and pigs than actually counting people – a job for the U.S. Census Bureau every 10 years. Continue Reading
Like numbers? The 2007 U.S. Agricultural Census has lots of fascinating numbers for anyone who farms or cares about the food system. You can go on-line to download or read everything– national numbers or a state-by-state breakdown. (Minnesota here.) Among the more interesting findings:
• Minnesota farm figures track national trends in most areas. Farm numbers increased nationally, but growth came mainly in the biggest and smallest operations. Continue Reading
Our colleagues at the Iowa Independent hail Gov. Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for agriculture secretary, as a “consummate pragmatist” who has “endeared himself to both the left and the right.” But one group that’s not so fond of Obama’s selection is the Finland, Minn.–based Organic Consumers’ Association. It reacted to today’s announcement with a petition calling for organic producers and consumers to urge Obama to block the nomination, highlighting Vilsack’s support for factory farming and biotechnology. Last month the OCA outlined six reasons they oppose Vilsack for the job, including his support for genetically modified plants and animals, Vilsack’s apparently cozy relationship with Monsanto (the OCA says he’s been known to use the company’s jet), and his advocacy of plant-derived biofuels, “which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.” (The Iowa Independent’s Chase Martyn reports that Vilsack has “subtly tempered his enthusiasm for corn-based ethanol over the course of his candidacy, shifting to a more tenable position in favor of all forms of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels, using corn ethanol merely as a ‘transitional fuel.’”)
Obama’s words at this morning’s press conference might suggest that the OCA’s petition drive won’t sway his opinion about Vilsack. He hailed the Iowan for, among other things, “promoting biotech to strengthen our farmers and fostering an agricultural economy of the future that not only grows the food we eat but the energy that we use.”
Meanwhile, Minneapolis’ Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy expressed its reservations about Vilsack as well, echoing several of the points made in Martyn’s piece — namely, that Vilsack’s conservative track record doesn’t suggest he’ll bring real change to the office. “As Iowa’s Governor, Vilsack has shown a fairly conventional perspective on agriculture — particularly related to biotechnology and the siting of factory farms — that seems to indicate a status quo approach,” said IATP President Jim Harkness in a statement. Continue Reading
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, 1724-1804.Ever do this? You’re confidently traveling your chosen path when you suddenly notice that the landscape isn’t what you’d hoped for. You pause and wonder: Should I have taken a different turn a few miles back?Forks in the Road is an occasional column by Sylvia Burgos, a public relations professional who lives in Wisconsin farm country, and commutes to St. Paul. Continue Reading
Over 20,000 Africans live in rural Minnesota. Many of them are refugees who are grappling with adjusting to a new society culturally and socially. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy reached out to these new Minnesotans in its first annual Summit for Africa in St. Cloud.The last weekend of October, 2008, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) held what’s hoped to become an annual conference, the first of its kind in Minnesota and possibly the entire country. Founded in 1986 by an international board of directors who shared a common vision for farmers the world over IATP works to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm, and trade systems both in policy as well as practice. Continue Reading