row crops

Cover Crops: Not Just Foul Weather Friends

February 21, 2014
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Loon Commons blog, Water
cover crops, erosion, Gabe Brown, Howard G. Buffett, Land Stewardship Project, mob grazing, National Conference on Cover Crops and Soil Health, Ray Archuleta, Rob Myers, row crops, runoff, SARE, Soil and Water Conservation Society, soil health

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 growing season…
Prepping Prairie Strips for the Real World

January 27, 2014
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Loon Commons blog, Water
birds, Gary Van Ryswyk, grasses, grassland birds, Land Stewardship Project, Matt Helmers, Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, nitrogen pollution, Pauline Drobney, perennial plants, pollinators, prairie, row crops, runoff, sediment, soil erosion, STRIPs, water quality

Gary Van Ryswyk’s concern for how his farming methods impact the landscape is obvious. A practitioner of a no-till system that avoids disturbing a field’s surface as much as possible, he is…
Nitrogen Pollution’s Farm Policy Roots

June 28, 2013
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Groundwater management, Loon Commons blog, Water
corn, crop insurance, dead zone, diverse agriculture, Farm Bill, federal farm policy, Land Stewardship Project, monocrops, MPCA, nitrates, nitrogen fertilizer, perennials, row crops, tile drainage, water pollution, watersheds

By Adam Warthesen, Land Stewardship Project Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room. When Minnesota environmental officials announced the results of a new major nitrogen pollution study on Thursday, they were…
Rolling Our Land To Death

June 8, 2012
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Loon Commons blog
conservation, corn, crop insurance, Farm Bill, land rollers, Land Stewardship Project, row crops, Senate Farm Bill, soil erosion, soybeans, stewardship, tillage

I sat in a farmhouse one afternoon last month as a hot wind lifted rich topsoil from surrounding fields. On the drive in, I’d noticed a surprising amount of rill erosion on…
Why is James E. McWilliams Ignoring the Facts on Sustainable Ag?

April 20, 2012
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Loon Commons blog
carbon sequestration, confinement livestock, erosion, grass, grazing, greenhouse gases, James E. McWilliams, Joel Salatin, pasture, row crops, sustainable livestock production, sustainable meat

History Professor James E. McWilliams’ recent doubled-barreled attack on sustainable livestock production and the local food movement in general is so contradictory and full of factual holes, it’s tough to know where…
Crop Insurance: A Safety Net Becomes a Threat

April 12, 2012
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Loon Commons blog
agricultural subsidies, beginning farmers, commodity groups, commodity program, commodity subsidies, commodity title, crop insurance, CRP, direct payments, Farm Bill, LSP, revenue assurance, revenue insurance, risk management, row crops, soil erosion, USDA

When it comes to the crop insurance sweepstakes, southwest Minnesota farmer Darwyn Bach is a winner. But he concedes that his good fortune presents a quandary, since the way the program is…
Denying the Science, Derailing the Solutions

December 23, 2011
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Water
commodity groups, crop rotations, cross-compliance, Lake Pepin, Land Stewardship Letter, Land Stewardship Project, Minnesota River, Mississippi River, MPCA, no-till farming, Norm Senjem, row crops, sedimentation, snirt, soil erosion, tile drainage, water quality

I talked to a Todd County farmer yesterday who uses 100 percent no-till and other conservation measures to raise his crops. Conserving soil is important to him, and so he’s quite upset…
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,…
What Lies Beneath Doesn’t Lie

March 5, 2010
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture
erosion, farming, Lake Pepin, Minnesota River, Mississippi River, row crops, sediment, soil, St. Croix River, sustainable agriculture, Water

Spring flood predictions are in the air, and you can bet that within the next several weeks a whole lot of that wayward water will be taking Grade A Midwestern topsoil along…