Chippewa 10%

Saving Minnesota’s Grasslands: Conservation, Cattle & Community

August 13, 2014
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Land Conservation, Loon Commons blog
beef cattle, Chippewa 10%, Chippewa River Watershed Project, DNR, Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, Glacial Lakes Prairie Implementation Team, grasslands, invasive species, Land Stewardship Project, managed rotational grazing, Nature Conservancy, prairies, public lands grazing, Simon Lake, Simon Lake Challenge, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife Management Areas, wildlife refuges

It’s that age-old struggle: accepting a little short-term disturbance in the name of long-term stability. Dave Trauba regularly faces the challenge of explaining that tradeoff to hunters who visit the Lac Qui…
Troubled Waters Remain Troubled

September 26, 2011
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Water
Bell Museum, biofuels, Chippewa 10%, Chippewa River, Emmy, ethanol, farmland runoff, Gulf dead zone, Mississippi River, nitrates, nitrogen fertilizer, perennials, Troubled Waters, University of Minnesota, watersheds

A three-hour drive separates the rolling hills of Minnesota’s Douglas County from the front steps of the Bell Museum of Natural History. But a year after the controversy over Troubled Waters—the Bell’s…
Mob Rule in Livestock Land

September 2, 2011
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture
beef cattle, Chippewa 10%, grass, grazing, Greg Judy, Holistic Management, Land Stewardship Project, livestock, managed rotational grazing, mob grazing, pasture, profits from perennials, young farmers

What do you do when a resource becomes increasingly scarce? One option is to use it more efficiently. That’s a key point livestock producer Greg Judy is going to make Sept. 9-10…
Farmland Need Not be a Sacrificial Lamb

August 20, 2011
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture
bees, biodiversity, Chippewa 10%, Dan Jackson, Forbord, George Boody, Land Stewardship Project, North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory, PAm, pollinators, The Farm as Natural Habitat, working lands conservation

During yesterday’s otherwise excellent field day at the USDA’s soil conservation lab in Morris, the “S” word reared its ugly head. “S” as in our best farmland needs to be “sacrificed” in…
Stripping Erosion Control to its Bare Essentials

June 25, 2011
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Water
Chippewa 10%, climate change, erosion, Land Stewardship Project, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Matt Helmers, Matt Liebman, Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, perennials, praries, profits from perennials, row crops, STRIPs, working farmland

While walking through a knee-high prairie planted on a central Iowa hillside Tuesday, I happened to look down. Trapped amongst all that vegetation was an impressive amount of rich, black glacial soil,…
The Local Bias of Biomass

October 20, 2010
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture
biomass, Chippewa 10%, gasifier, perennials, prairie grass, sustainable farms, University of Minnesota-Morris, water quality, watershed

In a recent LSP podcast (episode 84), James Barbour provided a nice explanation of why an energy system based on biomass has a lot to offer local economies.
Profits from Perennials

September 28, 2010
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Water
biodiversity, Chippewa 10%, grass, grazing, Gulf dead zone, local foods, Minnesota River, Mississippi River, perennial farming systems, perennials, runoff, sediment, sustainabkle agriculture, Troubled Waters, working lands conservation

One bright spot in the dust-up over the showing of the film Troubled Waters is that it highlights an important water quality issue: we need more perennial plant cover on the land…