Land Stewardship LIVE-WIRE, August 2, 2004
Hello:
This is the 13th issue of "Land Stewardship LIVE-WIRE," the Land
Stewardship Project's e-mail update. We send this out periodically to provide an update on activities and information related to LSP's work. We hope you enjoy this service, and are looking for feedback. Please send your comments to Brian DeVore at bdevore@landstewardshipproject.org. If you prefer not to receive this newsletter, please e-mail lspwbl@landstewardshipproject.org and write, "remove LIVE-WIRE" in the subject line.
IN THIS ISSUE
1) Volunteer at the State Fair
2) Stewardship Gallery is Open
3) Farm Beginnings™ Celebration Aug. 7
4) Farm Beginnings™ Deadline Oct. 5
5) Farm Beginnings™ Grads on @agriculture Online
6) Livestock Task Force Raises Concerns
7) Get a Handle on Grazing
8) Women in Ag Featured at Iowa State Fair
9) St. Martin's Table to Benefit LSP in August
10) New CSP Fact Sheet Available
11) Have You Signed up for CSP?
12) Worth Repeating
1) VOLUNTEER AT THE STATE FAIR
Volunteers are needed for the second annual Taste of Tuesday-Minnesota
Cooks! event being held Aug. 31 at the Minnesota State Fair. This event
will highlight Food Alliance Midwest certified food. Food Alliance
Midwest is a joint project of LSP and Cooperative Development Services.
Well-known local chefs will cook up these products and talk about them.
Last year's event introduced over 1,500 fair goers to sustainably-raised
local food. Volunteers are needed to set up, wash dishes, serve food and
help break down. In return for their help, volunteers will receive free
admission to the fair. And don't forget to visit the Food Alliance
booth at the Minnesota Farmers Union Building during the fair. To
volunteer, contact Jim Ennis at 651-265-3684 or jim@foodalliance.org.
For more information, including a listing of retailers that carry Food
Alliance certified products, log onto
www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_mwfa.html.
2) STEWARDSHIP GALLERY IS OPEN
The Land Stewardship Project's online art gallery is up and running. The
Stewardship Gallery provides a showcase for images that reflect efforts
to foster and support stewardship of our food and farming system. The
theme of the first gallery show is "The Farm as Natural Habitat." Last
year we asked LSP members to send photos, illustrations or paintings
they felt reflected that theme. You responded with some excellent
entries, getting the gallery off to a smashing start. To see the show,
check out http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/index-gallery.html.
Now, it's time to expand the gallery. The theme of the next show is
"Abundant Harvest." We'd love to be on the receiving end of how you
interpret that theme artistically. Late summer and early fall should
provide plenty of inspiration.
The entries should:
--Celebrate the bounty of food that we receive from the land.
--For photos, candid shots work well, black and white or color are fine.
Entry guidelines:
Please do not send originals.
--Send entries as digitals or scanned files. If you are using pictures
from your digital camera, they will work just fine if they are JPEG
files. If you are scanning the images yourself from photographs or
artwork, it is better to save them in either TIFF or EPS format. When
scanning, use a 150 PPI ("pixels per inch") setting.
--Please title your photo, telling us when and where you took it.
Send entries by Dec. 1 to:
--Louise Arbuckle at lspwbl@landstewardshipproject.org. If you have any
questions, you can e-mail Arbuckle or call her at 651-653-0618.
3) FARM BEGINNINGS™ CELEBRATION AUG. 7
The 2004 Farm Beginnings™ Celebration and Potluck Picnic will be held Saturday, Aug. 7, from 5 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. at the Brad and Leslea Hodgson farm near Fountain, Minn. This event will recognize participants in the Farm Beginnings™ program, a Land Stewardship Project initiative that provides people an opportunity to learn firsthand about low-cost, sustainable methods of farming.
For more information, contact Karen Stettler in the Land Stewardship Project's Lewiston office at 507-523-3366 or stettler@landstewardshipproject.org.
4) FARM BEGINNINGS™ DEADLINE OCT. 5
The application deadline for the 2004-2005 edition of LSP's Farm Beginnings™ program is Tuesday, Oct. 5. Classes will begin Saturday, Oct. 23, and will run twice a month until the middle of March. After March, course participants will have the opportunity to attend a series of on-farm educational field days. The course fee is $400, which covers 34 hours of class time, on-farm education
including farm tours, and one-on-one mentoring. The class usually fills by early fall, so those interested should apply soon. More information on Farm Beginnings™ is available at http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_farmbeginnings.html. A new pdf format fact sheet on Farm Beginnings is at http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/fb/fb_factsheet16.pdf.
For a free paper copy, contact Louise Arbuckle at 651-653-0618 or lspwbl@landstewardshipproject.org.
5) FARM BEGINNINGS GRADS ON @AGRICULTURE ONLINE
Although it has its roots in Minnesota, Farm Beginnings™ is increasingly being seen nationwide as a viable avenue for getting started and established in farming. Graduates Mark and Wendy Lange were recently featured in the "Farmers for the Future" section of @agriculture Online. This Web site is operated by Successful Farming magazine. Check out the article at http://www.agriculture.com/future/advice/040611devorelange.html.
6) LIVESTOCK TASK FORCE RAISES CONCERNS
Gov. Tim Pawlenty's recently released Livestock Advisory Task Force
report undermines independent family farmers and township and county
rights, according to a diverse group of family farm, rural and citizen
groups, including LSP. The organizations met recently to evaluate the
report as part of the Citizen Task Force on Livestock Farming and Rural
Communities. The strongest criticism was aimed at the report's top
recommendation of weakening the right of township and county governments
to determine where large feedlots are located in their communities. Go
to http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/04/newsr_040728.html for
details.
And for more on this issue's relationship to local democracy, check out
Paul Sobocinski's excellent commentary, "Cementing democracy's building
blocks" at
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/opinions/04/opin_040701.html.
7) GET A HANDLE ON GRAZING
Between now and November LSP is helping organize a series of hands-on
workshops with Natural Resources Conservation Service State Grazing
Specialist Howard Moechnig on grazing management in southeast Minnesota.
To register for these free workshops, or for more information, contact
Caroline van Schaik in LSP's Lewiston office at 507-523-3366 or
caroline@landstewardshipproject.org.
Speaking of grazing, there will be a pasture walk on Wed., Aug. 11, in
west-central Minnesota. The walk, which will be at the Dan and Rosie
Middendorf farm near Verndale, will feature a discussion on irrigated
grazing. For more information, contact Dennis Johnson at the West
Central Research and Outreach Center by calling 320-589-1711 or
e-mailing dairydgj@mrs.umn.edu.
For the latest on field days and other events, check LSP's on-line
calendar at http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/index-calendar.html.
8) WOMEN IN AG FEATURED AT IOWA STATE FAIR
If you're attending the Iowa State Fair Aug. 12-22, make sure you stop
by the Agriculture Building to check out the "Voices of American Farm
Women" booth. This is a video/photo exhibit put together by Cynthia
Vagnetti. It gives farm women, including some who are LSP members, a
chance to tell their own stories. The project shows some women creating
successful alternatives to conventional farming practices. The booth
will be on the second floor of the Agriculture Building and will provide
women visitors an opportunity to record their own stories. On Saturday,
Aug. 14, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., there will be a public presentation on
the ground floor of the Agriculture Building. This will include a panel
discussion involving farm women, as well as a presentation that puts
contemporary experiences in an historical context.
9) ST. MARTIN'S TABLE TO BENEFIT LSP IN AUGUST
For several years, St. Martin's Table in Minneapolis has been the
epicenter of activities related to promoting non-violence,
economic/social justice and hunger prevention (meetings that launched
the Community Supported Agriculture movement in the Twin Cities region
were held at St. Martin's, for example). If you haven't dined at the St.
Martin's Table restaurant yet, August would be a great time to check it
out. During that entire month, volunteer servers at the restaurant will
be donating their tips to LSP. We appreciate this recognition on the
part of St. Martin's and its volunteers. The restaurant/book store is
located at 2001 Riverside Avenue in Minneapolis (near the west bank
campus of the University of Minnesota). The phone number is
612-339-3920.
10) NEW CSP FACT SHEET AVAILABLE
Finally, two years after it was made into law, one of the most
innovative farm conservation programs ever passed by Congress has gotten
off the ground. The first farmer sign-up for the Conservation Security
Program (CSP) ended July 30. If implemented properly, CSP would reward
farmers for using environmentally friendly production systems such as
management intensive rotational grazing and resource conserving crop
rotations. This is a significant shift from traditional government
commodity programs, which pay farmers to plant commodity crops such as
corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat and rice. LSP has added a new fact sheet
to its CSP series: "CSP: Interim Final Rule Released--Next Steps." This
is the sixth CSP fact sheet developed by LSP. To download pdf versions
of these fact sheets, visit
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_csp.html. You can also
get free paper copies by calling LSP's Policy Program at 612-722-6377.
11) HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR CSP?
Have you signed up for the Conservation Security Program? Was the
process simple or complicated? Were you able to customize it to fit your
needs and situation? We would love to hear about your experiences with
the program so far. Contact LSP's Policy Program at 612-722-6377 or
marks@landstewardshipproject.org.
12) WORTH REPEATING
"We're in a race to the bottom around the world, playing one country's
people off against another's just for the benefit of a few large
corporations." --Farmer & LSP organizer Paul Sobocinski, quoted in
Douglas McGill's Rochester Post-Bulletin column on July 7, 2004
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/04/itn_040707.html
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