Food and Sustainable Agriculture
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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 at the…
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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 human health…
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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 new report…
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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 to food…
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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 of farmers…
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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 significant privately-owned …
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Eating Native to this Place
While reading the late Paul Gruchow’s contribution to Our Neck of the Woods, I was reminded that becoming “native” to a place goes beyond simply being born there. It’s how you live,…
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Atrazine, Making Babies & Timing
Not to get too personal, but if you’re thinking of making a baby anytime soon, you might not want to wait until spring. That’s the conclusion one could draw from a recent…
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From Pixy Dust to Permanence
“I love to come up with great ideas and I sometimes think pixy dust is all you need to accomplish them,” Erin Yanish told me recently during a recent LSP podcast interview…
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State Supreme Court Ruling Bodes Well for Locally Grown Food
John Tuma’s Capitol Update – the Fall Version In the final installment in a series about Minnesota’s role in the local food movement, John continues his journey through the history and meaning…