http://www.thelandonline.com en-us Copyright CNHI All Rights Reserved. 5 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:08:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_226165858.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_226165858.html This year’s flooding marked the second “500-year flood” in less than two decades. Overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change means more severe and more frequent weather events, including more record-breaking floods. Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:22:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_184131953.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_184131953.html Despite the price of corn, the nay-sayers rumblings about using corn for fuel, the headlines about world food price concerns, even rumors of shut downs of ethanol plants, despite all the chatter the renewable fuels industry continues to grow across America. Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:12:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_184103747.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_184103747.html American Energy for the 21st century has the potential to benefit the rural communities of the Upper Minnesota River Watershed and, in contrast to the coal imported from Wyoming and burned in South Dakota, it can be clean, renewable, sustainable, distributed, and to every extent possible, owned and to the benefit of the people who live here in Minnesota. Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:19:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_171122700.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_171122700.html Is there any profit left in raising pigs, regardless of market weight? Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:18:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_171122013.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_171122013.html Ron Friesen pointed out the irony of falling pork prices in the midst of food prices going up: “We are talking about euthanizing pigs; we are an industry in crisis.” Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:13:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_150154908.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_150154908.html Markets for sustainable and organic products are exploding and creating new opportunities to keep farmers on the land and get new farmers started. Fri, 23 May 2008 03:19:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_142115529.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_142115529.html Historically forests have been managed to the property line of a particular owner. Step across the property line and you’ll step into a different forest management scheme. Usually, each landowner managed for a specific result such as timber production or recreation. If the goal of forest management is to preserve forests, and the services and products they provide, that piecemeal approach is largely a failure. Fri, 23 May 2008 03:18:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_142115304.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_142115304.html In 1995 Chuck Erickson gave up his herd of registered Holsteins and retired from teaching. At about the same time he began taking a second look at his 200 acres of woodlands and non-tillable acreage. He began to recognize their value both to him, as an individual landowner, and as part of the overall mixed forest and prairie landscape in the county. The waste he saw in his forest began to bother him. Fri, 23 May 2008 03:11:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_141173855.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_141173855.html After the farm bill vote, it’s put-up or shut-up time for the White House: The president has promised to veto the $285 billion, five-year legislation so many times that he just may do so regardless the political and market consequences. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:18:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_115115050.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_115115050.html It was the idea of putting tractor power to work blowing snow that jump-started Hector-area farmer Dick Loftness into the manufacturing world back in 1956. Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:14:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_102104251.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_102104251.html Sitting with nearly 100 people March 14 in the Renville County Commissioner’s Chamber at the county office building, I witnessed a most interesting demonstration of grass-roots activism. Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:22:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_073135432.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_073135432.html Bob and Sarah Lea both grew up in the city, but you’d never know it by looking at their Milk and Honey Farm near Cokato. Great Pyrenees guard dogs watch over the farm’s many animals, including sheep, chickens, geese and a few ducks. A 10,000 square foot organic garden provides an array of vegetables, herbs and flowers, while fruit trees round out the scene. Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:28:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_059141753.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_059141753.html "The old principal of giving a fish is fine; teaching them to fish is even better. But unless they have access to the fishing pond, are you really helping?” Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:15:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_059113353.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_059113353.html Reflecting back on my recent two-week experience in South Africa, memories linger of the beautiful rolling hills, the moderate temperatures and the gentle black South African families that we visited. And strangely, I wonder about America. Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:12:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_031095158.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_rurecon/local_story_031095158.html While it’s noble for a farmer to think of the past — the family’s farmers who toiled the same land, he must also think of the present and the future. Hanging onto a losing enterprise for the sake of the family name can ruin the family’s present and future.