• Cover Story: Changing the land's complexion -- Second of a two-part series on the loss of biodiversity in our agricultural systems;
• Sidebar: Putting plants to work ; One farmer is mixing it up in his northwest Minnesota fields
• Direct Marketing: A special message from LSP on the current pork crisis
• Commentary: Should we adopt farmland?
• LSP News: SFA to hold food fair; Consumers want a choice; Join a CSA farm in 1999;
• Report: Factory farms given free ride by regulators; 2 new staffers join LSP
• Office Updates: Policy -- Checkoff drive gains ground;
• Western Minnesota -- Caffeine-powered organizing
• Farm Beginnings: Stimulating the gray matter: Farm Beginnings does its part to reverse the rural brain drain
• Book Reviews: Biodiversity in Agroecosystems, edited by Wanda W. Collins Calvin O. Qualset ; Climate Change the Global Harvest, by Cynthia Rosenzweig & Daniel Hillel
• Membership Update: Why membership?
• Opportunities/Resources
• Stewardship Calendar

COVER STORY:

Changing the Land's Complexion

By Brian DeVore

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of two articles on the biodiversity crisis in farm country. The last issue of the Land Stewardship Letter examined the problems lack of diversity is causing in our agricultural systems. In this issue, we report on farmers and researchers who are attempting to bring diversity back to farming.

It's late September in northwest Minnesota, a time when a post-harvest hue of monochromatic browns begins to dominate the landscape. But one of Jaime DeRosierâs fields stands out like a patch of green velvet that's been tossed into the middle of a parking lot. A three-week-old stand of hairy vetch and winter rye is growing like crazy in this field. A walk across it finds the ground to be soft enough to take a nap on. A small leopard frog wrestles its way through this miniature jungle as DeRosier pulls up a few strands of vegetation.

Quack grass, the bane of crop farmers, isn't going to like this at all.

"If I can keep it green in the fall, I'm going to screw up the weed system," says DeRosier. "The weeds get freaked out."

But what may be an unstable situation for a weed pest translates into just the opposite condition for DeRosier's farm as a whole. Rye and vetch are two of more than half-a-dozen plant species he uses in a complex rotation-cover crop system on the 1,500 acres of land he farms near Red Lake Falls. DeRosier's soil has responded by building up its own nutrient-making and pest-fighting abilities. Such a variety of crops makes him less vulnerable to drought and pest outbreaks, as well as soil erosion. And a reliance on natural pest-control means DeRosier doesn't have to worry whether chemical failures will make or break his crop. All this means more stability in his bank account at a time when many of the 33-year-old farmer's peers are calling it quits.

"The local farm business instructor wants to work with me to compare my finances to other operations -- now that it looks like I'll be around for awhile."

Adding a little color

DeRosier is one of a growing group of farmers who are working to bring a little colorful biodiversity back into a mundane Midwestern crop farming system ruled by corn, soybeans and wheat. Ecologists and agronomists say such efforts are coming none too soon. Our agricultural system is less diverse than at any time in history and it's paying a price in lost resiliency. Dramatic swings in yields, disease outbreaks that canât be controlled and chemical-resistant pests are just some of the warning signs. Studies are emerging in respected scientific journals that show agriculture needs biological diversity if it is to continue producing food and fiber well into the next century.

For real-world evidence of that, just drive a few miles west of DeRosierâs farm near Red Lake Falls past a weather -beaten " Welcome to the Red River Valley " sign. This legendary agricultural production region serves as a harsh example of what happens when a diverse ecosystem is forced to produce a handful of crops for too long. A mono-crop loving disease called Fusarium graminearum is wiping out the small grains industry, taking farmers and Main Streets with it. In early 1998, the Red River Valley crisis, along with emerging problems in corn-soybean country to the south, prompted a coalition of farmers, agribusiness leaders, environmentalists and scientists to surmise that our monocropping system is on the verge of collapse -- environmentally, agronomically and economically. Even mainstream plant breeders are concerned that a lack of genetic diversity within species such as corn is making these row crops more vulnerable to weather and pest calamities.

Suddenly "biodiversity," a term long relegated to the ecological sciences, has become a buzz word in the halls of agricultural academia. Agronomists -- many of whom promoted mono-cropping in the past -- have joined forces with ecologists to harangue farmers into being more diverse. Don't plant so much corn and wheat, say these experts in an updated version of the don't-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket message.

The ideal system

Biodiversity needs to be returned to farm country in a couple of different forms. First of all, a greater variety of plants should be planted on individual operations. The more different these plants are from each other, the better, say plant ecologists.

"Be careful when you're talking about diversity," says Don Wyse, a weed ecologist and director of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture. "A series of grasses that are really annuals, I say, is that really diversity? I'm thinking a deeper diversity than that."

Research has shown that in many cases two very different plants growing side-by-side can work to create a more stable overall ecosystem. Some of the reasons behind why some symbiotic relationships work remains a mystery to scientists and farmers. In other words, it's become clear that diversity is not simply a numbers game: it's also how those plants interact and compete with each other that is key.

The importance of biodiversity in farm fields even extends below the surface. The roots of crops like corn and sunflowers are gigantic when compared to their hair-like counterparts in small grains and legumes. Just adding a root structure that provides more surface area for biological activity to take place on could help the soil cook up its own natural fertility while fighting off pathogens.

Ecologists are also promoting diversity on a regional scale. Perhaps one farmer could still raise all corn one year, while a neighbor produces alfalfa, small grains or pasture. When looked at on a big picture level, that landscape would then be more diverse, helping to disrupt pathogens that thrive on contiguous plantings of mono-crops. If markets allow, it could also diversify the economic base of that region.

Ideally, scientists worried about lack of biodiversity would like to see a farming system that more closely resembles natural processes; a prairie ecosystem made up of hundreds of species of plants, for example. University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman's research has shown that increasing diversity in plots of perennial grasses results in more resiliency and biomass productivity. But grain crops can't be produced in such an environment on a large scale -- at least not yet.

There have been some recent advances in the field of "perennial polycultures," food crop systems that combine the grain output of annual monocrops like wheat with the stability and ecological health of diverse perennial systems like tallgrass prairies. However, even researchers at the Land Institute in Salina, Kan., a pioneer in this area of study, say we may be 25 or more years away from any practical breakthroughs. By that time, the Red River Valleys of the world may not have the human, agronomic or ecological infrastructure needed to adapt such a system. Something must be done sooner if there is any hope of maintaining a core of family-sized independent farmers who can implement these more diverse methods. There has to be a way to meet nature half-way for the time being.

Can something be done in the short term?

A better row to hoe

Yes, say people like Rick Exner, who works with a group called the Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI). PFI is a pioneer in conducting on-farm research into methods of bringing more diversity back into agricultural systems. Farmers involved with the group are experimenting with using alternative crops in rotations, planting cover crops to build soil between growing seasons and establishing flowering plants near fields to serve as hosts for beneficial insects.

"In general, we're trying to make our agroecological system more complex, because it's the lost diversity that's causing us problems," says Exner. "There are ways to increase diversity on some of these operations without completely turning them over to something else."

Diverse rotations -- growing alfalfa and oats on a field once in a while instead of just planting it to corn every year, for example -- were a mainstay of farming before World War II. But chemicals made it possible to replace the soil building and pest-fighting attributes of diverse rotations. It turned out to be a temporary replacement.

Recent long-term crop trials in Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota show that diverse rotations not only suppress weeds and disrupt the breeding cycles of insect pests; they can also produce better yields when compared to mono-crop systems reliant on chemical inputs. How much diversity is needed to return ecological health to farm fields? Researchers and farmers aren't sure. What agronomists are certain of is that adding just one more plant to a one or two-crop system won't accomplish much -- economically, agronomically or ecologically.

"People have a mind-set there is one magic third crop. It's more like third crops," says weed ecologist Elizabeth Dyck. "It's like the Monty Python's Life of Brian movie where a guy yells out: ' You're all individuals, ' and the crowd yells back, ' Yes, we're all individuals!' It's laughable to talk about diversity if everyone is raising alfalfa as their third crop. The idea is to introduce new crops in the plural."

One problem with implementing rotations is the current state of land ownership economics in agriculture. In a region like the Red River Valley, where a lot of land is cash rented, many farmers can't afford to build up soil and break pest cycles by allowing a field to go fallow or to be planted to a non cash-crop plant for a season. They must pay the rent every year, regardless of whether that land produces a commodity that can be sold at the local elevator. Most landlords and lenders get nervous when farmers they deal with start planting crops that may not have an immediate, visible pay-off.

And so many crops that work well in a long-term rotation -- forages, oats, etc. -- only pay off if they can be fed directly to livestock. The same September day that Jaime DeRosier was checking out his new stand of rye and vetch, a local newspaper story about yet another dairy farming family going out of business competed with the Red River Valley crop crisis for headlines. It's no accident the demise of livestock as a major part of the region's economy is being followed by a major collapse of the cropping system.

Is there a way to introduce some sort of diversity into a cash crop system on an even shorter term basis?

Sharing the same row

"Boy oh boy," says Hans Kandel excitedly as he rolls his squeaky chair across the floor in the basement of the Red Lake County courthouse, frantically digging out charts and data. "You're really going to be glad you asked about this."

Kandel is an Extension crop specialist in Red Lake County, which is the heart of northwest Minnesota's wheat growing country. He likes to show visitors a beautifully symmetrical graph that starts high at one point, dips low in the middle, and ends up high again at the end. It represents the amount of sunlight that makes it down to the ground level of a stand of sunflowers during the growing season. In this case, planted at that ground level is hairy vetch, the same fern-like legume that farmer Jaime DeRosier uses in his cover crop system. Studies Kandel and others have done at North Dakota State University and on farms in northwest Minnesota show that the vetch is just shade tolerant enough to put up with low sunlight in the middle of the growing season. Once the sunflower (or corn) leaves dry up, sunlight returns to the ground and the vetch can start thriving -- just in time to become a biologically active winter cover crop. Ten farmers in the area, including DeRosier, tried the method on sunflowers last year, and had no reductions in oilseed yields ( as long as they planned the seeding so that the vetch didn't overtake the sunflower early in the season ). They ended up with a plant system that suppressed weeds, fixed atmospheric nitrogen in the soil and, when plowed up, served as a green manure source of nutrients. This is an example of intercropping: planting two crops in the same field at the same time. Because of different growing schedules and resource needs, the crops can co-exist, even thrive, on the same piece of real estate.

Kandel is particularly excited about intercropping's ability to build the structure of the soil while growing a cash crop. Since the tallgrass prairies were plowed under, the soil in his part of northwest Minnesota has had short term fertility added to it only through fertilizer and sometimes manure. These "flushes" of nutrients are difficult for the soil and plants to make efficient use of. Fertilizer applications may boost yields in the short term, but they don't create the long-term environment needed for soil to manufacture its own ecological health.

"Organic matter is probably half what it was when this area was prairie. With artificial fertilizer, we have kept up fertility from year to year, but there is no long-term building of the soil's organic matter," says Kandel. "Our system has basically been running on credit in my opinion."

Research that examines ways of making new, sustainable deposits in the ecosystem's bank account is going on across farm country. Tilman, the Minnesota ecologist, has done some breakthrough research of his own. He says in many cases farmers are ahead of researchers in seeking innovative ways for bringing diversity into cropping systems.

Some innovative farmers are starting to show that diversity can be brought back into the system in a profitable manner on a shorter-term basis. Their incentives and methods may differ dramatically, but their ultimate goals are the same: toss a little complexity into a simplified world. It won't bring about an ecological Eden by any means, but for now it will have to do.

Where's the incentive?

But the reality is that mono-cropping still rules the day in American agriculture. Theoretically, farmers should have good opportunities to diversify. After all, more than 200 different species of crops are produced in the United States. But 80 percent of this total production is accounted for by only four species: hay, wheat, corn and soybeans, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Now, a 60-year-old government system that penalized farmers for planting anything but a handful of row crops is being eliminated under the auspices of the Freedom to Farm law. However, that system has left behind an infrastructure that makes raising anything other than corn, soybeans and wheat a logistical nightmare. Don Duvick, a retired plant breeder for Pioneer Hybrid, says this infrastructure has been self-perpetuating even down to the research level.

"It just happens to be that corn and soybeans are the crops that make money for farmers and so they are the crops that make money for seed companies" so that's what gets researched, he says.

The phrase "make money" should be put in the past tense these days. This fall, corn and soybeans were selling for prices well below what it cost farmers to produce them. But as a testament to the vice-grip hold these commodities have on farmers, seed companies and industry analysts are predicting as much of those two crops as ever will be planted come spring, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"People ask, 'what's it going to take to get us out of the corn-soybean rotation?' I could stand here until I'm blue in the face and tell farmers it's not good, it's not ideal, there are better options. But that's not going to cut it," says Paul Porter, an agronomist at the Southwest Minnesota Experiment Station.

Freedom through limitations

Ironically, sometimes limiting one's choices can help shuck the shackles of a system that in the end was a prison. In some areas, it's the demand for a chemical-free fertility and pest control system that's bringing diversity back to parts of monocropping land. Because they cannot turn to quick fixes like chemical fertilizers and pesticides, organic farmers have to rely on diverse cropping systems to add fertility to the soil and disrupt weed, insect and disease cycles.

In recent years, crops like chemical-free soybeans have brought two to three times over the price paid for their conventionally raised counterparts. This has caught the attention of some keen "pencil pushing" farmers who ar e tired of losing money on monocropping, says Kandel, the Extension educator. In the past, lenders dismissed organic production as untested and on the edge of hocus-pocus, he says.

"This past year it was the banker who told some growers, 'You've been raising wheat and barley and you haven't made money the past few years, so why don't you look at these organic soybeans?' "

As another sign of the interest in a system that demands diversity, in August the Southwest Minnesota Experiment Station hosted 120 people during an organic crops field day. That's a phenomenal turnout for a region where 70 percent of the land is planted to either corn or soybeans. Researchers at the facility are hoping to put together a group of 25 farmers interested in converting at least part of their acreage to organic. They want to bring in established organic farmers to serve as mentors for making the transition. And in a holistic strategy that would have been unheard of just a few years ago, agronomists at the station are not just focusing on how to raise those crops; they are also looking at what financial incentives exist, or can be created, to encourage their production.

A public good

All of this brings up an important point: In the long term, what guarantee do we have that diversity will become a major part of agriculture in time to save it from collapse? There's a lot to overcome: Having many diverse species on one piece of land is in direct conflict with farming's bread and butter: maximizing the production of one single plant.

Organic premiums or health food niches can help diversity pay financially, but it's still a difficult system to adopt and manage. Even farmers who are proving diverse cropping can be viable concede they are still learning as they go, and are constantly in need of more information.

This is also a system that will require a reversal of the current trend of fewer and larger farming operations.

And what happens if price premiums disappear? The farmers who are turning to diversified, chemical-free production out of financial desperation may not have the deep ecological roots needed to stick with it through thick and thin. What incentives are there for the individual farmer to increase diversity then?

Not many, say economists, agronomists and ecologists. Although the argument can be made that increasing diversity on a region-wide basis benefits all farmers, it's difficult for an individual farmer to see an immediate pay-back. If the market is demanding corn, but it would be better diversity-wise if some farmers in the county raised hay, how do decisions get made as to who raises the profitable crop and who produces the one that's good biologically? The bottom line is that increasingly it's the market that makes such decisions. In the new book Biodiversity in Agroecosystems, economists Douglas Gollin and Melinda Smale argue that crop diversity is a " public good " that can't always be established and promoted via the free market.

Tilman says ultimately American consumers may have to find a way to support this public good via subsidies.

"The benefit to society in the long term may have to be weighed against the benefits to the individual farmer in the short term," he says. "Society may have to look at helping that farmer establish an infrastructure for growing more than one crop."

SIDEBAR:

Agrobiodiversity creating a stir Early in 1998, a 60-member task force concluded that more plant diversity is needed to avert a growing crisis in Minnesota. This task force is one of the first shots in the battle to publicize the problems monocropping has created in our agricultural system. For more information on the "Program for Enhancement of Landscape, Human, and Animal Health," contact the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture; phone: 1-800-909-6472; In addition, the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) has recently published a paper on the importance of biodiversity in our cropping systems. This is significant: CAST is often criticized for being dominated by pro-industrial ag interests. In fact, the think-tank has often used "science" to dismiss efforts to bring more sustainability into American farming. To obtain a copy of the Donald Duvick-David Tilman "plant diversity" paper, call 515-292-4512 or check out the CAST web site

SIDEBAR:

Putting plants to work
One farmer is mixing it up in his northwest Minnesota fields When Jaime DeRosier began looking for a low-cost way to transform his hay and hybrid poplar tree growing operation into small grains and other crops in the early 1990s, he was appalled at how reliant many farmers were on pesticides and artificial fertilizers.

"Farmers were borrowing 30, 40, 50 bucks an acre just for chemicals," DeRosier recalls. "And sometimes the chemicals didn't even work."

So he started experimenting with raising crops without chemicals. What became clear early on was that to do so would require a complex rotation system using cover crops, green manures and summer fallow. Even the best soils lose their ability to fend off pests and manufacture natural fertility after years of chemical inputs. Suddenly replacing chemicals with diversity without a transition doesn't work -- agronomically or economically.

Today, of the 1,500 acres that DeRosier farms, more than 1,000 acres is certified organic. He's done it through a combination of weaning crop acres off chemicals using cover crops and rotations, and renting or buying land that formerly laid fallow in the 10-year Conservation Reserve Program. He's used old, pre-chemical age methods ( a grandfather introduced him to the wonders of rye as a cover crop) and new ideas (he has gotten information from Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas and the now defunct New Farm magazine). DeRosier markets certified organic corn, soybeans and sunflower through brokers, sometimes at premiums that are two to three times the conventional market price. He's looking into raising other specialty organic crops like edible beans, sugar beets or even potatoes.

DeRosier says his yields are competitive with crops raised conventionally in the area. Although he hasn't done any direct comparisons, he knows his cost of production is much lower when compared to the average in the area. For example, he figures he can control weeds using hairy vetch for about $15 an acre -- a fraction of the price of chemical control. And herbicides don't build soil or provide erosion control.

In fact, a lot of the crops DeRosier grows pull double, or even triple, duty on the farm. For example, buckwheat crowds out weeds and reduces erosion. But its flowers also serve as good habitat for beneficial insects like the ladybug ( it loves to dine on lygus bugs and sunflower beetles) and the predatory wasp (it eats corn borers).
But one of DeRosier's favorite crops these days is hairy vetch. This legume is a good example of something that is not considered a "cash crop" in the conventional sense, but it still earns its keep in a variety of ways. For one thing, it can "fix" atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, providing a free source of fertility. In the spring he can plow vetch under to serve as a green manure form of fertilizer for the new crop being planted. It can also be grazed by cattle or cut for hay. Finally, DeRosier raises vetch to sell as seed to other farmers looking for a way to add diversity to their farming operations.

DeRosier has gained such a reputation for his successful use of cover crops and rotations that he recently wrote a how-to guide for other farmers ( he also works as an organic cropping consultant ). He's still willing to talk to farmers about how to establish diverse cropping systems, but hopes the booklet, My Cover Crop Rotation Program, will serve as a foundation for getting started. One section of the guide gives a snapshot history of a field. It provides a glimpse into the complexity of a system he says is constantly being refined:1993: Spring wheat on last year's alfalfa green manure.
1994: Barley harvest with alfalfa under-seeded.
1995: Alfalfa green manure; planted buckwheat for harvest; fall seeded vetch/rye.
1996: Green manure vetch/rye; planted sunflowers for harvest with vetch inter-seeded for fall green manure.
1997: Strip cropped corn and soybeans.
1998: Plant flax or summer fallow.

DeRosier says the key to getting a diverse cropping system established is to observe closely and note what works -- as well as what does not.

"People are always watching me pretty closely because they know that a field I'm transitioning out of chemicals will once in a while fall flat on its face," he says. "Every year I think I have my rotation down, until the next year comes."

But chances are such a fall is more like a temporary, character-building stumble, rather than a complete collapse.

Direct Marketing:A special message from LSP
on the current pork crisis

When it comes to the pork industry these days, the basic rules of economics can be tossed right out the window.

This fall, farmers were receiving under 15 cents per pound for the hogs they were selling. That's a 26-year low, and less than half what it costs the typical farmer to produce a hog. These record-low prices are the result of corporate agriculture's attempt to control the market through massive over-production.

But at your local supermarket, pork chops and sausages continue to sell for prices that have nothing to do with the depression that has hit farm country these days. In September, farmers received 21 cents of every pork dollar, less than half of what they received more than 12 years ago. In other words, in some cases a premium quality ham is going for more than an entire market hog. Someone is making money, but it sure isn't the independent family farmer. To make things worse, few consumers have any way of directly supporting with their food dollar hog production that is environmentally, economically and socially sound.

What can be done? Many Land Stewardship Project members offer pork for sale direct to consumers. This is a high quality product that is produced with a minimum of chemical inputs in a humane and environmentally sound fashion. Best of all, it's offered at a fair price for both the consumer and producer. For a list of sustainable farmers who sell pork direct, cal l LSP at 651-653-0618. And if you are an LSP member who wants to sell sustainably produced pork direct to consumers, let us know and we'll get you on our list.

COMMENTARY:Should we adopt farmland?By Dick LevinsThe Land Stewardship Project is, by its very name, dedicated to the care of the nation's most valuable agricultural resource, farmland. But all too often, we are frustrated by an economic paradigm that furnishes not only the ground rules, but the very language, governing treatment of farmland. Words like "care for" and "stewardship" have no counterparts in conventional economic theory. In conventional economics, we don't seek "caring," we seek "return on investment." We don't seek "stewardship;" we seek a "strong equity position."

This shows through especially in our "beginning farmer" programs. As with many other quality programs of this type, we have been relatively successful in training prospective new farmers in methods that would care for farmland. But we cannot get land for these people unless we can assure its owners that their "return on investment" will be protected. As a result, our new farmers sit idle as larger, established farmers take over more and more land.

This is but one of many ways in which our language and concepts governing land in this country defeat programs to provide effective land stewardship. Before we spend too much more time trying to play within the rules of conventional economics, perhaps we should step back and consider a different way of thinking about and talking about farmland.Land: Investment or child?One paradigm that is well-developed in this country is that of caring for children. "Family values" are held as part of the American fabric. In these values, children are to be nurtured and cared for, partly for their own sake and partly because they will grow to sustain us all in the future. The purchase and sale of children based on their productive potential is, however, both unthinkable and a felony.

It seems that this paradigm might have application in land stewardship. The language we would use would not be that of Wall Street, but rather that of the home. A " family farm " would include the land in a very direct, family-oriented paradigm. That paradigm would be the adoption and supervision of children in the United States.When someone does not want to raise a child, or becomes unable to, the child is not considered property of the birth parents and sold to the highest bidder. Instead, new parents are found after careful screening and, possibly, payments to offset the costs of the adoption process. The new parents, like all parents, are held responsible for the proper care and nurturing of the children. Gross violations result in children being removed and new parents being found. But again, this is not a market process. It is guided solely by ethics and stewardship.

Over 40 percent of the farmland in this country would be up for adoption if it were treated as if it were our children rather than our investment. This land is owned by absentees. Some have chosen not to farm; others are no longer able to farm. They by and large act by themselves or through financial intermediaries to put their land up for rent or for sale on whatever terms will earn them the most money. The land goes to those who can demonstrate they can pay the most for it, either through rent or outright purchase.

Alternatively, we might think of this farmland as up for adoption. It would be given, in trust, to those best able to care for it. That determination would be made by a land adoption agency. Landowners who put their land up for adoption would be assured that it would be well cared for in perpetuity.

This is very different than selling, or, for that matter, even giving land to someone who appears to be well able to take care of it. At some point, they will no longer be able to serve as stewards of that land, and the property will fall back into the conventional economic system without an agency to once again intervene. It is the agency, not individuals, that assures stewardship across generations. Once land passes to the agency, it will forever stay there.

A Land Adoption Agency?

What would a fully functional farmland adoption agency look like? We have some parts well in hand, and others that will require extensive thought and research.

For example, we have good models for developing a waiting list of "parents" for land that becomes available for adoption. LSP has been doing so with its beginning farmer programs and will continue to do so.

We also have a reasonable handle on determining if farmland is being cared for in a sustainable way. LSP's Monitoring Project has been successfully working along these lines for the past three years, and the organization's entire history has been one of developing and evaluating sustainable farming practices.

We do, however, need to do extensive legal research concerning a nonprofit structure that could accept farmland from private owners and assign it on a long-term basis to those who would farm and care for it. The terms on which land could be accepted, the conditions upon which payments to former owners could be made, and the situations in which payments for farmland assignments could be accepted would have to be carefully thought through.

We also need to learn more about absentee farmland owners. Our research has shown that these owners are difficult to identify. Once identified, we need to do interviews and focus groups to learn more about acceptance of various ways the land adoption agency might be formulated and operated.

What do you think?

A Land Adoption Agency could become an important part of LSP's long-term future. But before we move too far in that direction, we need your thoughts on the concept. Should we pursue it, or stay within the world of conventional economics? If we do pursue it, what other models could help us better visualize a working agency? What other strengths and weaknesses of the concept do you see?We look forward to hearing from you and will print some of your ideas in the next issue.

LSP News:

SFA to hold food fair

The Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota (SFA) will be connecting with consumers during a special food fair in March. The fair is part of the organization's annual meeting March 12 and 13 at the Earl Brown Center on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota (next door to the State Fairgrounds). This marks the first time the 11-year-old organization has devoted part of its annual meeting to reaching out to consumers who want to support sustainable food production. The rest of the annual meeting will feature speakers and workshops.

The Land Stewardship Project helped start the SFA in the late 1980s. The organization now has more than 1,000 members across the state and sponsors a number of field days, workshops and other sustainable ag-related events each year.

For more information, contact SFA state coordinator DeEtta Bilek; phone: 218-445-5475; e-mail: deebilek@wcta.net

Consumers want a choice

Twin Cities consumers are interested in buying food produced and processed in an environmentally responsible manner. That's the conclusion of a new Food Choices study based on four consumer focus groups held in September.

Food Choices is a collaboration of several groups, including the Land Stewardship Project. It is working to develop a food system among farmers, processors, distributors, retailers and consumers that is based on sustainably and regionally produced foods.

The new study shows that consumers are willing to support such a system with their pocketbooks. Consumers tend to associate organic food with good health and sustainable foods with being good to the environment, according to the focus group summaries.

The study also provides information about how consumers define what is sustainable, and how they would react to sustainable labels on food products. A copy can be obtained for $22 (that covers shipping and handling) by calling the Organic Alliance, 651-265-3678.

Join a CSA farm in 1999

The 1999 edition of the Twin Cities area Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) directory will be available soon. More than two-dozen CSA operations in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin are listed in this joint Land Stewardship Project-Minnesota Food Association publication.

CSA farms provide consumers with an opportunity to buy a share in an operation at the beginning of the growing season. In return, the farm provides fresh, sustainably produced vegetables throughout the season, usually on a weekly basis. Delivery systems, share prices and products offered vary by farm. Consumers in the Twin Cities region are fortunate to have a variety of CSA farm options to choose from.

To get your name on the list for receiving a free copy of the 1999 CSA guide, call or e-mail Louise Arbuckle at the Land Stewardship Project's Twin Cities office, 651-653-0618; e-mail: lspwbl@mtn.org2 new staffers join LSP

Mike McMahon has joined the Land Stewardship Project as a policy program organizer. McMahon has a bachelor of science degree in biology from Macelester College in St. Paul, Minn. For the past two years, he has done grassroots organizing and organizational development for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. McMahon is focusing on livestock concentration issues at LSP and will be based in the Twin Cities office.

Michele Skogrand is the new administrative assistant in LSP's western Minnesota office. Skogrand lives near Montevideo. She is a master gardener and has a special interest in the production and marketing of dried and fresh flowers.

Report: Factory farms given free ride by regulators

Although Minnesota's factory farms are fouling the environment at an alarming rate, government officials are doing little to control them, according to a new report released Dec. 3. This lax regulation of livestock factories is part of a nationwide trend that includes at least 29 other states, conclude the authors of America's Animal Factories: How States Fail to Prevent Pollution from Livestock Waste.

The Natural Resources Defense Council/Clean Water Network (the Land Stewardship Project is a Minnesota affiliate of the Clean Water Network) report documents -- for the first time in one place -- how little the states do to protect their citizens from factory farm pollution. Most states have few regulations, and do little to enforce what laws might be on the books. At the same time, federal rules do little to fill in major loopholes left by the states. The result is unchecked pollution leading to contaminated well water, fish kills, sickness from toxic gases in the air, and plummeting property values for neighboring land owners, says the report. It tracks several troubling trends in rural Minnesota alone, including:

- Some large-scale hog feedlots are emitting hydrogen sulfide at levels vastly exceeding state air quality standards.
- Only 3.5 percent of the state's 700 factory-sized farms (1,000 animal units or more) have been issued the federal Clean Water Act permit required by law.
- Thirty-four percent of the river miles and 30 percent of the lake acres within four major river basins in Minnesota are "impaired," or polluted, by feedlots.
- Manure-related fish kills are occurring in the state at an alarming rate.

" This state is going about this all wrong," says Monica Kahout, an Olivia, Minn., hog farmer and member of the Land Stewardship Project. " Instead of facilitating factory farm growth, we should be adequately enforcing our regulations, while redirecting public research and extension dollars toward more sustainable approaches to livestock production that offer us real solutions to the pollution problem."

America's Animal Factories offers several recommendations to control factory farm pollution. They include:

- Issuing a moratorium on Clean Water Act permits for new and expanding animal factories.
- Allowing local residents to participate fully in decisions regarding proposed factory farms in their communities, including whether one will be allowed at all, and what kind of pollution and siting controls will be required.
- Making corporate factory farm owners responsible for bearing the cost of waste disposal and cleanup.

For a copy of the 183-page report, send $10 (make checks payable to NRDC) to: Clean Water Network, 1200 New York Ave. NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005. The report can also be downloaded from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Office Updates:

Policy: Checkoff drive gains ground

By Mark Schultz

Momentum continues to build in favor of ending the mandatory pork checkoff.

Since April, some 9,000 hog farmers from across the country have signed a petition calling for a referendum vote on the checkoff. The petition drive is being sponsored by the Campaign for Family Farms, an eight-state coalition of farm and rural groups, including the Land Stewardship Project. Approximately 800 Minnesota hog farmers had signed the petition as of December. For a referendum to be held on whether to end the mandatory pork checkoff, 15 percent of the nation's hog producers must sign a petition by April 1999. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures, that will require signatures from approximately 21,000 farmers (because of corporate consolidation and poor prices in the pork industry, questions have been raised as to whether the USDA is grossly overestimating how many hog farmers are still in the business).

The pork checkoff is a tax collected on each hog sold in the United States. Money collected through the program, which was made mandatory in 1986, was supposed to benefit all hog farmers through promotional and research efforts. Nearly all the funds end up in the hands of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and its state affiliates.

Many hog farmers believe the money collected and spent -- $460 million since the checkoff became mandatory -- has not provided real economic benefits to independent hog farmers. Since the mandatory checkoff started, the U.S. has lost more than 207,000 hog farmers, 60 percent of all pork producers. According to the USDA, the hog farmer's share of the retail dollar dropped from 46 cents in 1986 to 21 cents this fall (when hog prices reached a 26-year low). The farmer's share is even less now, as hog prices continue their record slide. And yet the NPPC has continued to use checkoff funds to promote further expansion in hog production via factory farming.

The NPPC has also come under severe criticism for using checkoff funds to benefit large factory operations via research projects targeted at mega-hog production systems that are inefficient and environmentally unsound. That's why Preston, Minn., producer Dave Serfling not only signed the petition, but has been collecting signatures from his neighbors.

"I would like to make the checkoff voluntary and be able to direct where my money goes," says Serfling, who markets about 700 pigs a year. Pork production makes up about half of his diversified farm's income. However, lack of market access caused by concentration in the industry threatens Serfling's economic viability. "My checkoff money subsidizes an inefficient system that needs magic pills like antibiotics, feed additives and growth hormones to make it work. I don't need those, so why should I be paying money to have problems associated with those inputs researched?"Mark Schultz is LSP's policy program director.

Western Minnesota:

Caffeine-powered organizing

By Patrick J. MooreA big part of the work in my new role at the Land Stewardship Project is the broadening and deepening of our organization's message and values into the fabric of the daily small-town main street community. I'm doing that through a business venture my wife Mary and I started last summer in Montevideo. Java River is a coffee house right on Main Street. We serve up caffeine, sandwiches and lots of discussion about the future of the Upper Minnesota River. I still work as an organizer for LSP, but now do it from behind a lunch counter.

For years, LSP's western Minnesota office has operated out of an out-of-the-way (and literally underground) office. Because of the small staff and the need to travel to many distant meetings, office hours have been unpredictable.

Now we have a presence in the heart of town that is open six days a week for 12 hours a day. This presence has been an excellent addition to LSP's community outreach efforts. We are reaching areas of the community that we would have never reached otherwise -- most notably the business and entrepreneurial elements of western Minnesota.

Finally, to spend a day at Java River is to experience the wonderful serendipity and synchronicity of human life. We at LSP have always been good at organizing people to turn out for meetings that have great discussions and which generate action and a sense of belonging and purpose. Now imagine a place where little meetings like that between complete strangers and old friends happen all the time! So many relationships have been formed, so many ideas hatched, so many action plans developed -- all without a flip chart, a mailing list or a flyer!

Another big focus of my time and energy has been spent in laying the groundwork for LSP to play a major role in the development of stronger linkages between consumers and sustainable producers. The sustainable marketing kiosk is a part of that, but not the only part. Once we learn the basics of running a food establishment and navigate some of the unanticipated obstacles we've experienced, our hope is to build Java River's capacity to teach people about good food and the farmers who raise it through cooking classes and special farmers' market days.

Patrick J. Moore is an organizer in LSP's western Minnesota office.

Farm Beginnings:Stimulating the gray matter
Farm Beginnings does its part to reverse the rural brain drain

Roger Benrud is setting out to disprove the tired old adage that only those with no other options stick close to home and farm the land. When Benrud graduated from Goodhue (Minn.) High School at the top of his class in the late 1980s, his choice seemed clear: go to college and get the kind of training that allows one to become a respected, well-paid professional in the big city. So he enrolled at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and set to work acquiring a double major in physics and mathematical statistics. But here the typical career path of an academic all-star diverges dramatically.

Blame it on the two-hour commute from Goodhue to Decorah. The drive down U.S. Highway 52 takes one through some of the best farm country anywhere. When Benrud returned to his hometown on weekends and holidays, he saw enough cattle grazing on pastures to convince him farming was what he really wanted to do after college. The same strong will that had allowed him to do so well in the classroom also gave him the confidence to ignore the nay sayers that said farming is a dead end, especially for young people.

When he graduated from Luther with honors, Benrud half-heartedly took a job selling farm equipment. But he was still drawn to the production end of agriculture and soon gave up his sales job to work for local livestock producers. Roger and his wife Michele also started renting his family's cash grain operation. All of this helped satisfy the farming fever to a point, but it didn't ensure the Benruds a permanent place on the land.

That's why they began investigating low cost production methods that allow them to be economically viable, independent farmers long into the future. One route the Benruds see toward this goal is through a livestock production method called management intensive grazing. This method of meat and milk production can be set up at a fraction of the cost of conventional livestock production. In addition, it satisfies Michelle's desire not to have to work with a lot of heavy machinery. But, as its name implies, this technique takes a high amount of management ability, much of which can only be acquired through hands-on experience.

Then, about a year ago, they heard about the Farm Beginnings program. Farm Beginnings is sponsored by the Land Stewardship Project, as well as Goodhue and Wabasha County Extension. It was developed by a group of local farmers and business owners as a way to provide a foot in the door for people looking for low-cost entries into farming.

During 1998, 10 participants in the first Farm Beginnings class -- including Roger and Michelle -- spent much of the year getting hands-on experience with management intensive grazing. They took a series of courses on everything from livestock and pasture management to business planning and goal-setting. The participants also worked with established dairy farmers in southeast Minnesota to gain insights into what it takes to make it in farming. Classes and apprenticeships were scheduled so that participants could keep their regular jobs. For example, Michelle has a job in Rochester and Roger is working for a local farmer while setting up his own operation on family land. Roger, now 27, said the program opened the door for Michelle and him to get more involved in grass-based livestock production. They are currently grazing beef cattle and hope to have their own dairy herd in the near future.

"It gave me the extra incentive and an extra shove to get going on what I want to do," he says.

Farm Beginnings has helped the Benruds network with a local group of established livestock graziers. These dozen or so farmers meet regularly to discuss everything from pasture management to balancing finances. The experience has been a kind of grazing graduate school for Roger.

"That networking will be the longest lasting benefit," he says. "I'll probably keep in contact with the people I've met for many years. Hopefully I'll become one of their peers instead of one of their students one day."

The Class of 1999

Ralph Stelling, a 60-year-old Millville dairy farmer who helped develop the Farm Beginnings program, says it has helped debunk some myths about getting started in farming.

"I think several of the apprentices from 1998 are going to begin farming within the next year," he says. "That's exciting, because when they first started the class they were kind of apprehensive that farming was too expensive to get started in. But going through the class they found out that there are some low-cost, profitable ways of getting started."

The apprenticeship program is now seeking candidates for its 1999 class. It will expand beyond grass-based dairy farming in the coming year, according to Jill O'Neill, an LSP organizer.

"There are a lot of exciting low-cost innovations and resources available for getting people involved in farming," she says. "We haven't even begun to tap into all of them yet."

Book Reviews:Biodiversity in Agroecosystems

Edited by Wanda W. Collins
& Calvin O. Qualset
CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fla.
1998
334 pages
$59.95Reviewed by Brian DeVore

At almost $60 a pop, Biodiversity in Agroecosystems is certainly not being marketed to the masses. In fact, here's my self-serving tip: instead of buying the book, take that money and buy two $30 Land Stewardship Project memberships for people who care about biodiversity in our food and fiber system. Anyway, once one gets past the sticker shock of this work, there's an important for-the-masses message to be had: increasing biodiversity in our agroecosystems isn't possible without the cooperation of farmers; the scientific community can't do it alone.

Editors Wanda Collins and Calvin Qualset have worked hard to pull together the writings of a diversity of academic types with impressive credentials in numerous fields. In a sense, this book is an important symbol of a new team effort that's emerged in recent years as the negative impacts of monocultural agriculture become harder to ignore. Ecologists and agriculturalists are working together -- or at least speaking to each other -- about how to bring more biodiversity back into agriculture, both within and among plant species.

As a result, the fields of ecology, entomology, economics, wildlife biology, range management, crop science, genetics, and even anthropology are represented in the book's 16 exhaustively referenced chapters. This is fitting, since, as biologist Jon Piper points out in the "Natural Systems Agriculture" chapter: "Diversity is widely thought to be a beneficial, even essential, property of healthy biological, social, and economic systems, and agriculture intersects the realm of all three."

But it's the backgrounds of ouglas Gollin and Melinda Smale that make for some of the most interesting ideas in the book. These two are economists, and, not surprisingly, their "Valuing Genetic Diversity" chapter starts out by taking some swipes at those who would dare to say biodiversity's value can't be toted up on an accounts receivable book.

However, in the flawed process of trying to apply an accountant's mentality to a multidimensional problem, Gollin and Smale make a good point about how to save agriculture from itself. "Agricultural diversity cannot be conserved simply by setting aside tracts of uninhabited land; it necessarily involves people. ...agricultural diversity can only be maintained in farmers' fields as long as incentives are appropriate," they write.

The trouble is, our current economic system does not reward, and in many cases penalizes, farmers who do things that would increase biodiversity. Consider something as simple as trying to increase the number of wheat varieties present in the countryside. Increasing genetic diversity can help increase a plant system's resilience significantly. However, when a line of wheat is developed that produces more grain than any other variety, chances are all wheat farmers will adapt that variety. As a group, it would pay off if some farmers raised other, low-producing varieties of wheat to maintain diversity in the system. As individuals, such diversity does not pay in the short run. The same argument goes for across-species diversity. It may pay off for the community if one farmer raises corn, while another raises livestock on pasture. But if there is no market for grass-fed meat, then how can an individual family justify raising it?

The economists point out that biodiversity in agriculture is basically a "public good" that pure market forces cannot bring out. That means we must find creative ways of rewarding farmers economically for being diverse. Agrobiodiversity is apparently not in Cargill's interest, and so it won't pay farmers for producing it.

But it is in the interest of certain peasant farmers in Peru. Gollin and Smale report on how researchers are puzzled by the fact that these farmers maintain certain "thresholds of on-farm diversity" even when there are immediate advantages to switching to improved potato varieties. One theory is that these farmers have enough foresight to know that short-term production gains sometimes come at the cost of long-term sustainability.

I have a feeling there's nothing in a $60 book that these peasant farmers don't already know.

Brian DeVore is the editor of the Land Stewardship Letter.

Climate Change & the Global Harvest
Potential Impacts of the Greenhouse Effect on Agriculture

By Cynthia Rosenzweig
& Daniel Hillel
Oxford Univ. Press, New York
1997
324 pages
$60.00Reviewed by Robert M. Hogg

Like the Biblical story of Doubting Thomas, many Americans have wanted to see the hard evidence before accepting the theory of global warming and taking the measures necessary to guard against potentially catastrophic climatic changes.

Today, however, little room for doubt remains; the evidence of global warming is clear. Agriculture is confronted with two difficult, and simultaneous, challenges: (1) to prepare for the changes in climate and weather and (2) to minimize food and fiber production's contribution to the warming.

It is up to the sustainable agriculture community to lead the way in turning the challenges associated with global warming into new economic and environmental opportunities.

Climate Change and the Global Harvest, by Cynthia Rosenzweig and Daniel Hillel, climate scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, provides valuable insights into how the agricultural community should proceed. Although cautious and technical, the book reflects a substantial effort to catalog what is known about the science of climate change as it affects agriculture.A warmer climate

Rosenzweig and Hillel are cautious about attributing the warming experienced to date to human actions, but they confirm that the Earth is rapidly warming.

Overall, global average temperatures have increased about one degree Fahrenheit this century. The 11 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1980. The warmest year on record is 1997. As of October, each month in 1998 set a new record high temperature for the month.

Satellite data -- which were once thought to show global cooling --have been recalculated and now confirm that the Earth is warming. Around the world, glaciers are melting, permafrost is thawing and Antarctic ice shelves are breaking loose.

Moreover, scientists have concluded unambiguously that the Earth will continue to warm as greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) increasingly build up in the atmosphere.

Impacts on agriculture

Rosenzweig and Hillel's greatest contribution is to catalog what the likely impacts of global warming on agriculture will be -- not only in the United States, but around the world. The impact analysis is difficult because of inherent uncertainties about the local effects of global warming, and because the amount of climatic change depends on how much people reduce emissions.

Despite the difficulties, the authors have presented categories of expected changes. First, they explain that "not only is the mean temperature likely to rise, but so is the incidence of extreme events such as heat spells, droughts, and floods. Under changing climate conditions, records of past climate variability will no longer be reliable predictors of future events, and thus the likelihood of damage by unexpected extreme events will rise."

These projections are consistent with the catastrophes -- from the Flood of 1993 to Hurricane Mitch -- experienced throughout the 1990s. If these recent events are the product of global warming, it is important to remember that they are only preliminary changes -- even bigger changes are expected as the Earth continues to warm. Rosenzweig and Hillel write that "climate change, should it occur, is quite likely to change the hydrological regimes of entire regions."

The authors suggest that farmers will be required to switch to crops more suited for the warmer climate (replacing corn with drought-resistant sorghum, for example) and invest in more irrigation and other water control devices to deal with floods and drought.

And not only will the changing climate require new crops and intensive water management, but weeds and insects will also invade new ecological zones. Overall, agricultural pests are likely to thrive under conditions of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations and rapid climate change, according to Rosenzweig and Hillel. Pests currently in the southern United States will become problems in the Corn Belt. The implication of more pests, the authors say, is substantially more pesticide use, additional costs to farmers and greater environmental hazards.

Although Rosenzweig and Hillel believe that integrated pest management will become more important, they also warn that traditional biological methods to control pests "may lose some of their effectiveness." If the authors are correct, the success of organic agriculture may be threatened, and the sustainable agricultural community will need to redouble its efforts to minimize the cost and environmental impacts of pesticides.

The changes which Rosenzweig and Hillel foresee may also have negative social consequences for traditional family agriculture. As the authors explain, "Farmers' strategies grow out of experience. Under progressively changing climate conditions, the past will be a less reliable predictor of the future, and the accumulated experience obtained to date will be less useful as a tool for coping with what might be a very different future."Controlling global warming

It's clear that agriculture must prepare to deal with the changing climate. But it must also play a major role in reducing global warming. According to the authors, the most important strategies include:

(1) Produce Low Greenhouse-Gas Energy. Agriculture can produce renewable energy such as wind power and ethanol. Although ethanol from corn was a net energy loser in the past, a recent study by Argonne National Laboratory shows it substantially reduces greenhouse gases when it is produced and consumed in the Midwest. Feedstocks other than corn may make farm-grown fuels even more attractive.

(2) Carbon Sequestration. Agriculture can sequester carbon dioxide by reforesting marginal farm lands or by adopting conservation tillage that increases the carbon content of soils, a practice which sustainable farmers already use for other reasons. Indeed, if documented, carbon sequestration could become a major cash crop in the international market for greenhouse gas credits that would be created under the Kyoto Protocol or other comparable global warming treaties.

(3) Reducing Methane and Nitrous Oxide. Other promising agricultural measures for reducing global warming include further reductions in nitrogen fertilizer use ( which produces nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas ) and recapturing methane from animal waste for use as a fuel.With leadership from the sustainable agriculture community, such reductions can be done in a way that protects the environment and builds economic opportunities for the future -- which is what sustainable food and fiber production is all about.Robert M. Hogg is a Land Stewardship Project member and former climate policy adviser for Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ME3). For more information about global warming, please contact ME3, 46 East Fourth Street, Suite 600, St. Paul, MN 55101, 651-225-0878, or visit ME3 at its web site.

Membership Update:

Why membership?"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed itâs the only thing that ever has."
-- Margaret Mead

By Cathy Eberhart

More than likely you have seen or heard the above quote -- perhaps many times. Back in 1994, when the Land Stewardship Project decided to become a membership organization, it recognized the truth in that statement. Only with a broad-based group of people actively participating in the LSP mission could the organization expect to make a significant difference. And so staff and volunteers set out to ask LSP friends and supporters to officially become dues-paying members. This wasn't just a change in semantics -- it was a change in thinking. We wanted members to be able to say "we" (not "they") when talking about the work of the Land Stewardship Project.

In making the change, LSP believed membership would:
- Broaden and deepen LSP's constituency and power base for change.
- Gather diverse constituencies into a common vision.
- Broaden the exchange of ideas.
- Strengthen policy work at local, state and federal levels.
- Stimulate greater involvement by empowering members to take action and promote LSP's work.
- Keep LSP connected to the grassroots and on the "cutting edge."Additionally, the financial support from members provides LSP with much needed flexibility that project-based funding lacks. Unrestricted membership dollars are especially important for LSP's policy work, which is typically harder to fund. Furthermore, revenue from membership dues helps diversify funding sources, resulting in a more sustainable organization better able to respond to challenges as they arise.

With the re-creation of the Membership Coordinator position, LSP has made a commitment to strengthen and expand its membership program. We understand, perhaps better than ever before, that LSP is only as strong as its membership. Exciting ideas are being discussed for increasing numbers of new members as well as deepening the participation of existing members. Look for additional information in your mailbox and in the Land Stewardship Letter on ways that you can join in. As always, your ideas are welcome! p

LSPers get covered

Several Land Stewardship Project members are featured in the January/February 1999 issue of Sierra, a national environmental publication.

The article, " Bringing the Land Back to Life, " describes how some farmers are proving that sustainable livestock production can not only protect the ecosystem, but in some cases improve it.

Featured are LSP members Art and Jean Thicke, Jim and Lee Ann Van Der Pol, and Craig and Joanie Murphy. All three families have diversified farming operations in Minnesota. LSP members Tex Hawkins and Laura Jackson are also quoted in the article. Hawkins is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and Jackson is an ecology professor at the University of Northern Iowa.

In addition, the November/December issue of the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer features an article on LSP members Ralph Lentz and Larry Gates, who are proving that farmers and government environmental officials can work together to create a sustainable landscape. That article originally appeared in the October/November 1997 issue of the Land Stewardship Letter.

Stewardship Calendar

Check the Calendar for the latest on upcoming LSP events.

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