Food and Sustainable Agriculture
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Ditching Dead Zone Apathy
Today’s news that the number of oxygen-starved “dead zones” in the world’s seas and oceans has risen by a third in the past two years is almost too much to comprehend. So…
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Will MDA Gut Environmentally Friendly Farming?
As you read this, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) is taking significant steps that may lead to the dismantling of one of the most effective sustainable and organic agriculture programs in…
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The Farm as Natural Habitat
As fall in the Upper Midwest goes into overdrive, migrations of ducks, geese and other birds remind us of the variety of feathered fowl that have been residing in our rural areas…
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It’s Enough to Give Popeye a Bellyache
When news broke that E. coli infections had been linked to raw spinach, some of it coming from certified organic farms, apologists for the conventional food system pounced. Organic vegetable operations can…
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Farming’s Other Public Goods
All this week, the Star Tribune has been running an excellent series of editorials on the relationship between farming, farm policy and water quality. One key point the editorials make is that…
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Gas, Grass & Biomass
As goes ethanol, so goes our landscape? On Sept. 6, the USDA’s chief economist announced that the U.S. would need 90 million acres of corn by 2010 to meet the burgeoning demand…
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Keeping Farming’s Natural & Economic Wealth at Home
It’s harvest time—during the next several weeks hundreds of millions of dollars worth of corn and soybeans will be extracted from Minnesota’s rich soil. Unfortunately, little of that wealth stays in our…
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Cast a Mealtime Ballot for Conservation
September is here, providing Minnesotans perhaps the best opportunity of the year to support good stewardship of the land. This is the time of the growing season when local farms producing fruits…
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Ads on WCCO Don’t Pass the ‘Reality’ Test
If you’ve spent any time watching WCCO-TV in recent months, you’ve probably seen the series of ads sponsored by the Minnesota Farm and Food Coalition. These ads, which feature colorful rural photos…
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Welcome
Hi folks – welcome to Loon Commons. Thank you for joining in with this experiment. As you will hopefully notice while looking around the site, we are working to make this a…