April 4, 2017 Dear Members of the Minnesota House: We, the undersigned organizations and the citizens we represent, respectfully ask you to vote NO on the H.F. 707 – the House Omnibus Legacy Bill. In 2008, 1.8 million Minnesota voters approved the Clean Water, Land & Legacy Amendment, which dedicates 3/8th of 1 percent sales… Read more »
Posts Tagged: University of Minnesota
Forever Green: Alternative, off-season crops could benefit economy as well as ecology
By Julie Lund of the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences (CFANS). Posted on CFANS website: http://www.cfans.umn.edu/about/solutions/forever-green Minnesota has 27 million acres of farmland dominated by corn and soybeans. Over the years, as high-yield varieties were introduced, these food and feed crops edged out prairie and pastures, and the state’s… Read more »
Forever Green Receives $1 Million
The Minnesota Legislature took a major step last week toward supporting the kind of agriculture that can green up our landscape in a way that’s economically viable for farmers. Conference committee negotiations produced $1 million for Forever Green, an innovative University of Minnesota research initiative involving cover crops and perennial plant systems. Funding for this… Read more »
Bud Markhart’s Sustainable Legacy
The sustainable agriculture community lost a true friend this week when Bud Markhart passed away after a courageous battle with cancer. I had the opportunity to interview Markhart last fall for an LSP podcast. He was a professor of horticultural science at the U of M, and so it’s no surprise that he made his… Read more »
Troubled Waters Remain Troubled
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 Emmy award-winning film on farmland pollution in the Mississippi River basin—brought words like “dead zone,” hypoxia” and “nitrogen fertilizer” to the attention of… Read more »
Himle Resigns—Now What?
The announcement today that the U of M official who tried to pull the plug on Troubled Waters has resigned is an important step toward accountability at our land grant University. Karen Himle and U President Robert Bruininks can argue all they want that this has nothing to do with the controversy over the film,… Read more »
Industrial Ag Pressure at the U—An Inside Job
Throughout the Troubled Waters brouhaha, U of M officials have maintained that there was “no outside pressure” to censor the film. E-mails and other documents obtained through an LSP Data Practices Act request show that no overt pressure was needed: deans, vice-presidents and communications staffers as far back as April bent over backwards to make… Read more »
Agronomic Arrogance
When a U professor took the microphone after last Sunday’s screening of Troubled Waters to accuse two southeast Minnesota dairy farmers of basically poisoning their own well, it was a rude reminder of the wide chasm that still separates the sustainable ag community and the U of M. That’s too bad: because if the film… Read more »
The U’s Shifting Story Line on Troubled Waters
When the University of Minnesota announced late Thursday that the public showing of Troubled Waters was back on as scheduled, officials there were no doubt hoping this week-long PR nightmare would finally fade away. But now comes the hard part: explaining why the head of PR was allowed to declare a scientifically-balanced, professionally-produced documentary unfit… Read more »
Troubled Waters-Troubled U
When the Daily Planet revealed this week that the U of M has pulled the plug on the premiere of an important film about farming and the Mississippi River, it wasn’t just another hint that corporate powers are calling the shots at the state’s ag college. It was also a troubling peek into just how… Read more »