Right now, the Twin Cities is home to over 200 community gardens and several urban farms. They provide food for families, beautify neighborhoods, protect our water, educate youth, create stable neighborhoods by decreasing crime and increasing social connections, and empower community leaders.

But while community gardens and urban farms are now a growing part of our city, they are a much smaller part than they were in recent history. Take for example the 1940s, when Victory Gardens were tended by city dwellers and occupying everything from vacant lots to school grounds to railroad rights-of-way, and provided as much as 40 percent of the fresh produce consumed locally. There is so much potential in the land we have around us.

I am a member of the Land Stewardship Project, which, in conjunction with Gardening Matters, is working to focus on the importance of securing access to land for community gardening and urban agriculture. Recently, I met with 20 community garden leaders. In these conversations, I heard from gardeners about land access arrangements that work well for them and the benefits that come when they have long term stability.

I have also talked to many gardeners who are at risk of being shut down because of land tenure uncertainty. Questions about future access to a plot of land fractures the relationship between the grower and the soil that is key to a sustainable food system. Struggling to make sure the garden will not be shut down takes valuable energy away from other garden activities.

Yet a significant challenge for community gardens and other types of urban agriculture is gaining long term access to land.

Everything from economics and misperceptions about food production, to outdated or misapplied government policies threaten the permanency of community gardens and urban farms. It is clear to me that gardeners and urban farmers need clear options for gaining long term access to land.

As energy costs rise and our economy shifts, so too will the ways our food system operates—and clearly locally grown is a viable, healthy and popular option. But that requires securing land for urban agriculture—literally transforming our urban landscapes to promote a more sustainable food system.

Long term, stable access to land allows gardeners and farmers to invest their time and talents in the ongoing success of their garden or farm as a vibrant part of the community, local environment and our food system.

When land is available year after year for growing on, gardeners are better able to develop the soil through cover cropping and perennials, host bees and other beneficial insects, and build systems for composting and water collection. When gardeners are able to create permanent spaces for people to gather in, strong relationships are cultivated through familiarity and stability.

When people have long-term access to land, they are able to invite more people into the garden, and people can trust that such community spaces will be there for many years to come.

The Twin Cities is home to a wide range of gardens, farms and markets, and each will need a unique approach that works best for them. Not every garden or farm needs long term access, but those that do require clear strategies to get there.

Community gardens have found secure land access through developing long-term leases with landowners, and through strong relationships with the community that they call home. They have found good partners in neighborhood associations, churches, schools and parks all around the metro area, and these partners are sometimes open to hosting a community garden for many years. Gardening Matters offers training and assistance for developing these vital community relationships.

Developing the many potential pathways for land security requires a collaborative effort. One working group, which includes the Land Stewardship Project and Gardening Matters, as well as several other local organizations, urban gardeners and farmers, has been exploring strategies for long-term access to land.

If you would like to learn more about this initiative or want to get involved, contact LSP or Gardening Matters at 612-492-8964 for more information.

I want to see the goal of long-term access to land realized for the community gardens and urban farms of the Twin Cities. Reaching this goal will be a key step toward transforming our local food system and our urban landscapes. So, the next time you walk by a community garden, stop in, say hello, and learn more about it, the food it produces and the people who are making it happen!

Megan Smith recently served an internship with the Land Stewardship Project’s Community Based Food and Economic Development Program.

Last week, Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy CEO Dick Kelly asked Congress to raise his taxes – specifically, his carbon taxes. In a statement that may sound the Paul Revere-like alarm for climate and energy policy, Kelly thinks the U.S. Senate chickened out of a climate bill. They backed off and “started calling it ‘cap and tax,’” Kelly told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Kelly is head of a multistate utility that has increasingly moved away from coal power and spent millions to retrofit some of its plants to cleaner-burning natural gas.  Kelly is joined in his attitude by Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. Rogers has also stated that the “growing consensus in the electric utility industry” is to “act now.” Rogers points to private capital that’s waiting for a predictable regulatory landscape to set the stage for investment into clean energy.

Follow that up with a cadre of banks that are also saying they will shift away from environmentally risky investments. Wells Fargo, a minor player in the mining, drilling, and digging world, said it will make its involvement with mountaintop removal companies “limited” and “declining.” Dutch bank Rabobank has even instituted a nine-point checklist for conditions for would-be oil and gas borrowers that includes commitments to improve environmental performance and protect water quality. Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America are also increasing scrutiny of companies that perform mountaintop removal. Of course, some of these lenders have also supported companies involved with tar sands mining, but that’s another story.

Of course, the bottom line behind these decisions is the bottom line.  Environmental clean-up is messy. Mitigating air and water pollution is expensive. Appearing anti-green is bad PR. Some say that companies could even be exposed to liability from investors if they fail to act on climate change-related losses to harvests, inventories, vehicles, buildings, and even lives. After all, companies can’t say they didn’t know global warming was coming.

Regardless of the reasoning, the more C-level business people who speak out about the need for climate policy that protects investors and profits from global warming, the better.

After all, where are the insurance companies? Where are the folks who stand to lose billions, even trillions, to environmental disasters that are becoming more frequent? Where are the risk managers who can only guess at the statistical factors where a one percent change in global temperature means an exponential amount of damage to holdings? Where are the car companies? Where are the folks who could actually stand up to the oil industry and demand standards that would create new markets for more efficient vehicles? Products that would renew trust in American ingenuity. And jobs that would endear them again to proud Americans.

If climate solutions are also your business solutions, your voice must be heard.  Links below:

http://www.startribune.com/business/101349314.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/business/energy-environment/31coal.html?src=tptw

His observations should cause concern.  Chuck says, “Global warming is real in Greenland. You can hear it.  You can see the shrinking glaciers, and the melt-water atop the massive ice cap, and you know that as it melts the seas will rise, with disastrous consequence.”  To read more about his adventure, click here.

Humble Expert Example No. 1
There’s little doubt Jon Stravers is one of the region’s top experts on birds, particularly raptors such as red-shouldered hawks. I first met him in June at a field day hosted by northeast Iowa farmer and LSP member Dan Specht.

Stravers, who is the Driftless Area Coordinator for the National Audubon Society’s Mississippi River Initiative, makes quite an impression. He’s the kind of person who has channeled his scientific expertise into an unflagging passion for preserving and improving the environment. That combination of passion and knowledge can be valuable in an eco-struggle, but it can also be a bit off-putting to farmers, who have to make a living on the land on a daily basis.

But Stravers told me about how a few years ago while doing research in some woods overlooking the Mississippi River town of McGregor, Iowa, he noticed that a dairy farm he had to walk through to get to the trees was full of bobolinks. This caught Stravers’ attention because bobolink populations have plummeted in recent decades. Audubon has listed them as one of North America’s eight most threatened birds, mostly because the Midwestern landscape has been converted on a wholesale basis from perennial grasses to annual crops like corn and soybeans.

The ever-observant Stravers also noticed he often had to modify his route through the farm because the fencing was being moved every few weeks. Could there be a connection between the wandering fencelines and the fluttering bobolinks?

Stravers started talking to the farmer, Phil Specht, who is Dan’s brother. It turns out there was a connection. All that fence movement is part of Phil’s managed rotational grazing system, which he uses to produce milk from a 170-cow herd. Managed rotational grazing has developed into a low-cost, profitable way for livestock farmers to produce meat and milk from grass. The added benefit is that all that grass provides good ground cover year-round, protecting water quality and building soil quality. And, as Stravers discovered, it also provides great habitat for grassland birds like bobolinks and meadowlarks.

Specht was delighted to learn from the expert that a farming system he was utilizing was good for the birds. Over the years he has created a rotational grazing system he tweaks throughout the growing season so that it  provides optimal forage for his cows while building the soil and reducing runoff on the steep hills of northeast Iowa (Specht provides a detailed description of his system in episode 82 of LSP’s Ear to the Ground podcast).

“It is incidental,” Specht told me about the added benefit his system provides birds. But Specht has a highly developed land ethic, one that is accentuated by a curious and open mind. So he’s modified his grazing system somewhat to make it even more friendly to grassland birds. “The expertise of Jon to note the benefits for birds just kind of gave me a little added incentive.”

And guess what? It still provides good feed for his cows throughout the growing season.

“It works,” Stravers says about the economic/environmental balance Specht has struck, adding that in the past he often thought production agriculture and environmental sustainability were mutually exclusive. No more. “Phil’s farm is a prime example of how agriculture and cow production can go along with bird populations and conservation. We’re both wanting long-term sustainability—me of bird populations and him of effective grasslands.”

As the recent LSP podcast interview of Specht and Stravers makes clear, these men have a ton of mutual respect for each other and are willing to participate in a lot of give-and-take conversations. Such a relationship can generate more innovation and forward momentum than any number of “I’m the expert, now listen to me” one-way lectures.

Humble Expert Example No. 2
This summer, Dennis Johnson wrapped up a four decades-plus career as a University of Minnesota dairy scientist. As I describe in the latest issue of the Land Stewardship Letter, Johnson executed a bit of an about-face around the midway point in his career.

In the 1980s he started questioning the automatic assumption (which is still widespread) that the more milk a farm produces, the greater the profit. He then began a search for an alternative to the high-input, high energy, highly-leveraged way of dairying.

This search led Dr. Johnson to do something that university scientists aren’t always so good at: he took his questions to farmers, and listened more than he talked.

“We weren’t used to that from the quote, unquote university experts, who usually came bearing the gifts of knowledge handed down from on high,” says western Minnesota beef producer Audrey Arner, one of those farmers Johnson sought out. “It was unusual and welcome.”

What Johnson learned from farmers like Arner was that managed rotational grazing could be a low-cost, profitable option for producing livestock in the Upper Midwest. He learned this from farmers who had been trying the system out pretty much on their own, with little help from university experts or the rest of the mainstream agricultural community.

But upon these pioneering farms, as well as farms in other countries where rotational grazing was being used, the scientist could see for himself this system was the real deal. He then took what he learned from the farmers and helped them make it even better adapted to this region. While interviewing Johnson for an LSP podcast (episode 81), I commented on how his experience showed farmers and scientists can have a two-way conversation about problems and innovations.

He corrected me: “Actually, it was one-way for many years, with the information coming from the farmers to us.”

As a result of his listening, in the wake of his retirement Johnson has left an impressive legacy at the U of M’s West Central Research and Outreach Center, which is now known nationally for its practical research into alternative livestock systems like managed rotational grazing.

School’s Always in Session
Stravers and Johnson are just two examples of how scientific expertise does not have to be a barrier to further learning. Unfortunately, such examples are rare, particularly at a time when education is geared toward producing “specialists” who can’t see outside their own thesis statements.

But it’s inspiring to know that there are “educated” lifelong students out there roaming the land with open ears and open eyes. Such an attitude is particularly valuable when we’re trying to bring about changes that don’t fit in the conventional framework of doing things.

“We’re learning, okay?” Stravers told me at the end of our interview near McGregor. “I’m the so-called expert, but you benefit from listening, from some other point of view. It’s definitely a learning process I appreciate.”

Great Lakes states are predominantly served by coal generation, the impacts of which are well-documented. Mercury advisories are in place across much of the Great Lakes, and global warming may cause other serious problems, including increasing water temperature in the lakes and decreasing water levels, impacting wildlife, fisheries, water quality and the associate tourism and shipping activities that rely on these attributes.

Wind generation on the Great Lakes could be part of the solution. Indeed, the Great Lakes is estimated to have 250 gigawatts (GW) of wind potential, enough to power 75 million homes. About 160 GW of that power is located in areas 30 meters in depth or less, where current technologies could most easily be implemented.

It’s not a surprise, then, that the National Wildlife Federation identifies 35 separate proposed wind farm projects on the Great Lakes. At the same time, the patchwork of state and federal regulations offer no clear or consistent set of development guidelines for wind developments. And a complex series of obstacles remain – questions about siting wind projects and constructing them to best address concerns about bat and bird populations; viewshed issues of how turbines located on the Great Lakes appear from shore; technical issues that make offshore wind development, at least for the immediate future, most feasible in depths no greater than 30 meters; and issues of siting transmission needed to bring wind onshore and connect it to the population centers who would use it. (There are two offshore demonstration projects in the world in depths greater than 30 meters; these are still in the research phases and will take time to commercialize.)

However, offshore wind development on the Great Lakes offers several compelling advantages as well. Offshore wind as a whole blows more consistently, day and night, and at higher speeds, than its onshore counterpart. Indeed, capacity factors are high enough in some proposals to allow the developers to gain a “capacity payment” from organized electricity markets, usually offered to fossil fuel generation. Moreover, offshore wind is often locate close to population centers. And because offshore wind is available during the day, it can offer power during peak pricing times, making the resource even more useful and more economic. This is to say nothing of the jobs and economic opportunity afforded by manufacturing and constructing these turbines in Great Lakes states, who already have a manufacturing base.

Significant questions, though, remain. Little is known about bird activity in the middle of Great Lakes – where birds land, the impact of taking away a particular landing site, for example – that will be critical to responsibly siting wind projects. Scientists in the Great Lakes area are already working to gather this data as quickly as possible. In the meantime, conservation and environmental advocates continue to work with wildlife experts, scientists, wind industry representatives and other Great Lakes stakeholders to determine what role Great Lakes wind might play in our electricity mix.

You, too, can see a map weighing these factors. The Great Lakes Wind Atlas includes “layers” to better understand the impact of various Great Lakes birds and wildlife, economic activity and other uses of the Great Lakes, available at http://erie.glin.net/wind/.

“May her memory save us from all pettiness, all unworthy ambition, all narrowness of vision, all mean and sordid aims… so may there be none in us, as she fought ever, without malice and without hatred, so may we fight.”

- The plaque in the Capitol Rotunda memorializing Mrs. Andreas Ueland, 1860-1927

This quaint and almost hidden plaque honoring Clara Ueland is affixed to the northwest corner of the Rotunda amongst the many memorials to the Civil War.  It is one of only two memorials recognizing a woman within the State Capitol.  Mrs. Ueland is one of the persistent heroes of the Minnesota Women’s Suffrage Movement in the early 1900s.  

Clara Hampson arrived in Minnesota in 1867 with her widowed mother and older brother from Ohio in search of a new future on the Western frontier.  Despite her poverty Clara was a very determined and successful student.  Like many learned women of her time, she became a teacher.  She raised eight children in a devoted marriage to a Norwegian immigrant, Andreas Ueland, who through hard work and dedication became a probate judge in Minneapolis.

Clara joined the long struggle for women’s suffrage in Minnesota in the early 1900s and was quickly recognized as a leader within that movement.  She demonstrated great poise and grace as the movement persisted through several failures at the State Legislature.  She became a self taught lobbyist who learned how to work in the rough-and-tumble world inside the Capitol Rotunda where she is now recognized by the plaque.  The Women’s Suffrage Movement was finally victorious in our state when Minnesota ratified the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution on September 8, 1919.

At the time of this great victory, Clara Ueland was the president of the Minnesota Women’s Suffrage Association.  She recognized that the battle was not complete and led the effort to transform her association into a new organization to encourage women to engage in their newly won civic responsibilities.  That organization was named the Minnesota League of Women Voters and Clara Ueland was elected its first president.  She continued to work tirelessly for women’s issues until her tragic death when she was accidentally hit by a truck crossing the street on her way home from a full day of lobbying at the State Capitol in 1927.  In the spirit set by Clara Ueland, the present day “League” has been an active and valuable member of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership working on issues of environmental health and protection of our valuable outdoor resources for future generations. 

In part thanks to the vision cast by Clara Ueland, Minnesota has been blessed with some hardworking and persistent women politicians who have been and continue to be champions of preserving our Great Outdoors for future generations.  Two of those individuals deserving recognition as conservation champions for their work today at the Capitol are Rep. Julie Bunn and Sen. Kathy Saltzman.  Both women represent districts that cover a substantial portion of Washington County.  One of Minnesota’s original counties, Washington County is the home of some of the most beautiful bluff country in America along the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers.  Their tireless work to protect this historically beautiful area and to safeguard the health and clean water of their constituents should be appreciated by Minnesotans.

The battle to protect their communities began a few years back when the organization Friends of Washington County discovered that Xcel Energy’s power plant on the shores of the St. Croix River needed to landfill their coal ash after passage of Minnesota’s nation leading mercury reduction legislation.  Prior to this legislation requiring toxic materials to be removed from the smokestacks, the resulting ash from burning coal was not toxic and could be used in concrete and other industrial purposes. With the requirement to pull these toxins out of the exhaust, the new coal ash became a toxic material needing to be landfilled.  Unfortunately, the landfill site that Xcel chose was on the bluffs of the St. Croix River in an area unstable for groundwater protection known as Karst terrain.

The characteristics of Karst terrains are typically limestone bluff country where the water inflows from the surface soil can quickly infiltrate underground aquifers.  Therefore, placing a toxic waste dump on top of this formation is only leaving a ticking time bomb for future generations to deal with once the landfill system deteriorates.  Xcel Energy would argue that they were forced to landfill this toxic material because of our environmental regulations.  Of course this somewhat begs the question, would you rather have them spewing toxic chemicals across our landscape or putting it into a landfill for future generations to deal with as a groundwater problem?  How about putting a landfill in a place where the soil types are far safer for long-term storage of toxic materials.  That is exactly what Rep. Bunn and Sen. Saltzman wisely recognized and began their work not only to protect their community, but to create legislation to improve our landfills on a statewide basis.

After the Xcel Energy landfill situation came to light, Friends of Washington County and several local municipalities dependent on healthy groundwater went to Rep. Bunn and Sen. Saltzman for help.  It would have been easy for these politicians to dodge the political bullet and not take on the powerful corporate interest; but these two dedicated women were not about to let the health of their community be put at risk.  In 2008 they required the Pollution Control Agency (PCA) to develop new groundwater protection rules relating to landfills statewide.  They placed a moratorium on the construction of new landfills until those rules were completed.  When the PCA dragged their feet and developed draft rules in a way that the Friends of the Washington County felt would not protect groundwater resources from contamination from aging landfills, Bunn and Saltzman did not relent. They returned to the Legislature to pass legislation requiring the PCA to develop rules by a specific deadline and requiring that Karst terrain areas be permanently exempt from landfill siting.

The civic engagement put forth by Bunn and Saltzman in their persistent and dedicated fight for the health of their community exemplifies what Clara Ueland envisioned when helping establish the “League” nearly 90 years ago by encouraging women to engage in their newly won civic responsibilities.  Those of us in the conservation community are indebted to these two conservation champions for their tireless work to protect our natural resources for our children and our grandchildren.  They are without a doubt present-day conservation champions; Clara Ueland would have been proud.

Despite sometimes harsh reactions, Paul says he will continue to speak out.  It’s a good thing.

Wyatt Bruce – Outland Renewable Energy

When Wyatt Bruce helped his college football team win a championship title as a defensive end during his freshman year, a career in wind energy was not on his mind. But after seriously injuring his left knee, he took six months off to recover before changing schools and pursuing a new concentration that led to an opportunity that changed his life: He interviewed for a job with Outland Renewable Energy, a firm focused on wind farm development, ownership and maintenance in rural communities.

“I owe them a lot – well, everything actually,” Bruce said, “for putting faith and trust into someone like me without a degree.”

That was nearly three years ago. Bruce, now 24, is a lead technician for Outland and makes sure his crews are safe, on-task and efficient while working on wind turbines.  A lot of the time, he’s on the road for weeks with the same field technicians, working 12- to 14-hour days. He finds that the teamwork-skills he learned on the football field prepared him for working on wind farm crews.

“From day one, Outland has been like a large family – easily my extended family,” he said. (Bruce, who identifies himself as a Native American, is “appropriately and affectionately” known by his co-workers  as “Brown Bear,” he said.)

Read the rest of Wyatt Bruce’s story

“You go tell your boss that I’ve got a loaded .30-.30 Winchester sitting in the corner of this cabin, and the next person in a uniform who steps on my dock is going to get blown into the lake.”

- Benny Ambrose, April 3, 1963*

In the early 1960s as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northeastern Minnesota took its next major step toward a wilderness designation, Dorothy Molter and Benny Ambrose found themselves at the center of a brewing storm.  A faction of local citizens unhappy with the federal intrusion and land use restrictions elevated Molter and Ambrose to folk hero status.  Neither of them looked for this battle with the federal government, nor were they looking for the notoriety.  They just wanted to live out their years in the wilderness they loved.

Molter arrived in the north woods as a young nurse from Chicago vacationing at a small fishing camp with her father on Knife Lake.  She fell in love with the solitude and the hard work of the wilderness life and made the resort her permanent home.  She took over the fishing camp after the original owner passed away and remained there for the whole of her life other than an occasional short stint to Chicago to work at a hospital and make money to support herself in the wilderness. 

Ambrose arrived in the north woods soon after World War I where he served with distinction.  He came for adventure and gold after hearing about this remote wilderness from an Ojibwe comrade in the Army.  He too fell in love with the solitude, developing a homestead on Ottertrack Lake as his base camp for mineral speculation and his fishing guide service.  His clients were some of our nation’s most powerful leaders from Washington, DC, including a Supreme Court Justice who would later be beneficial to him in his battle with the Forest Service to remain in his homestead.

The Forest Service officials had been trying in vain for over a decade to acquire the homesteads of both Molter and Ambrose, and the battle was coming to a serious head in 1963 when Ambrose was visited by two Forest Service rangers who reported the above quote to their supervisor.  It is safe to say that not too many Forest Service employees wanted to visit the remote homestead.  All Molter and Ambrose wanted to do was live out their last years on the property with a life estate as opposed to selling it outright.  A compromise was reached to sell the property to the federal government with the requirement that all human-made structures be removed in 1975.  With both Molter and Ambrose getting up in years, no one expected that to be a problem.  The crisis seemed to be avoided back in 1963 with no forest officials getting shot off of Ambrose’s dock.

But what seemed to be a smart solution back in 1963 only led to a reigniting of the wilderness dispute a decade later.  As further restrictions were being established on motorized boat use in the wilderness, Molter and Ambrose once again found themselves at the center of the wilderness storm.  The hope that they would both have left their homesteads by 1975 had evaporated when the two wilderness-hardened individuals still appeared to have plenty of living to do and no intention of leaving their wilderness retreats.

At this point some boneheaded bureaucrat could have ignited a wilderness war by sticking to the letter of the law and the contract signed a decade earlier by forcing the removal of Molter and Ambrose from their homes.  There was a great deal of tension in the 1970s over the wilderness designation and legislation moving through Congress to further restrict access for motorized use.  One wrong move could have tipped the scales in favor of local factions who wanted to continue to exploit the wilderness.  They could easily have found a publicity coup if the Forest Service attempted to enforce the Molter and Ambrose contracts for removal.

Thankfully, Harold Anderson, supervisor for the Superior National Forest, showed the exceptional common sense one always likes to see in our hard-working civil servants.  He carefully looked for an acceptable solution to avoid needless controversy and still accomplish his sworn duty to preserve one of our national treasures.  His simple solution was to designate Molter and Ambrose wilderness volunteers, with the duties to maintain their federally sanctioned wilderness outposts to provide information to the Forest Service about conditions in the wilderness and provide emergency assistance to campers.  Molter had already gained fame in the wilderness as the “Root Beer Lady” for providing assistance to wilderness trippers along with a cold homemade root beer from her icehouse.

Anderson’s diplomatic savvy came out in his quote in the Star Tribune where he said: “To us they are part of the culture of the area . . . They are oldtimers.  They are part of the pioneer group that went in there in the early days . . . I’ll be damned if I could be a part of throwing them out.” 

Ambrose led an active life at his homestead as a wilderness volunteer until he passed away in the fall of 1982.  Molter lived at her wilderness retreat on Knife Lake until she too passed away at her cabin in 1986.  You can still visit Molter’s wilderness retreat which has been moved to the outskirts of Ely as a historical site.

This chapter in Minnesota history could have been far more contentious had it not been for the common sense strategy developed by Harold Anderson.  Often the hard-working civil servants in our bureaucracy are forgotten and unappreciated.  What environmental and conservation advocates need to recognize is that without their hard work and dedicated behind-the-scenes common sense, all of our great ideas of saving and passing on our lakes, rivers and Great Outdoors to the next generation would be meaningless.  So in this series of recognizing some of our great conservation champions of today, it would be good to recognize some of those behind-the-scenes people who have used the same can-do common sense and diligence that Harold Anderson used to give us a wonderful wilderness.  Two of those diligent behind-the-scenes workers have been the director of the Legislative-Citizens Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR), Susan Thornton, and the executive director of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (LSOHC), Bill Becker.

Certainly as policymakers struggle with direction of the special natural resources funds, they will come in conflict with Thornton and Becker.  That is the nature of our democratic system. But if you step back and look at the bigger vista before us and the funding challenges we have faced recently, Thornton and Becker, along with their respective teams, certainly deserve to be commended.

Thornton took the helm of the LCCMR during a critical and tumultuous time for this flagship fund of the environmental and conservation community.  This fund is supported by a portion of lottery proceeds and could have easily been raided in the recent budget crisis.  It also could have faded into obscurity and drifted without focus following the passage of the Legacy Amendment.  To the credit of the staff and the council of legislators and citizens who oversee the LCCMR, they have maintained their relevance.  They continue to play a significant role in protecting our Great Outdoors and pushing forward world-renowned research in the area of environmental protection.  Thornton and her small team have juggled over 225 current projects covering a wide variety of natural resource and environmental protection focuses.  They remain an excellent source of institutional history and professional expertise for the Legislature and the commission that oversees them.  They can easily be forgotten as they toil away in their ground-floor “cave” in the State Office Building, but their impact on our Minnesota landscape is undeniably significant.

Bill Becker had to face a much different challenge for the fund he helps oversee.  One of the most contentious aspects in the Legislature when developing the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Constitutional Amendment was how the portion of the conservation proceeds would be handled.  It would be fair to say that the advocates and the Legislature did not always see eye-to-eye on how this should be developed.  There has been much contention swirling around the LSOHC and without a good common sense civil servant leading this picture it could have failed miserably.

Becker was near retirement from the DNR and could have easily coasted into the safe harbor of retirement at some quiet lake up north.  Instead he took on the challenge of guiding the LSOHC through extremely challenging waters in what looked like a severe August squall.  His over 30 years of experience provided the fund with a steady and experienced hand on the rudder, helping guide the LSOHC like a fragile birch bark canoe through very rocky waters.  In the first couple years of the fund they have successfully organized and, above all, delivered some amazing projects for future generations.  I’m confident our children and grandchildren will marvel at the foresight of the Forest Legacy easement preserving nearly 190,000 acres of forest land near Grand Rapids along the Mississippi River, and that’s only one of the projects they have delivered.

When canoeing the big lakes of the Boundary Waters, one learns quickly to get a good compass setting and point of reference when you start off from the portage.  Fail to do this and you will be miserably lost when you reach the other side of a big lake.  It’s always helpful to have some experienced wilderness guides in your party.  I think it’s fair to say that both Thornton and Becker, like good wilderness guides and common sense civil servants, have given the funds they help administer a good compass setting and point of reference for a successful trip across the big lakes of conservation funding and state budgeting.  We all will have to work together to make this trip a success so that future generations of Minnesotans may enjoy our great water and outdoor resources, but it’s good to know that we have a couple of experienced “wilderness volunteers” who just also happen to be great civil servants to help keep us moving in the right direction.

*The details and quotes were obtained from the article “Benny Ambrose: Life in the Boundary Waters,” Minnesota History, Fall 1994 by Ralph Wright-Peterson.

On Aug. 17, LSP farmer-members and staff will meet with Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson in Redwood Falls to discuss how to rein in corporate control in the livestock industries. Also participating in the meeting will be Lynn Hayes of Farmers’ Legal Action Group, Bill Bullard, head of R-CALF USA, and Rhonda Perry, livestock producer and director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center.

The Aug. 17 meeting will feature  a discussion on how to provide input
on the USDA’s proposed rule before the Nov. 22 comment deadline.

LSP members and staff are also attending a Department of Justice/USDA workshop
Aug. 27 in Fort Collins, Colo., on livestock concentration issues. This is one of several such workshops being held across the country, and it represents the first time two cabinet members—U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder—have taken input directly from farmers on livestock concentration issues. This is a big deal.

Providing better enforcement criteria through the existing Packers and Stockyards
Act has long been sought after by LSP and allied farm groups who advocated for the inclusion of a rule-making directive in the 2008 Farm Bill.

LSP is encouraged to see a proposed rule being released for comments by farmers and other members of the public. Consolidation and vertical integration within the livestock industry has created a playing field ripe for abuse in which corporate meatpackers and large integrators manipulate markets, stifle competition and limit the options of a broad range of both independent and contract livestock producers.

One thing is clear — farmers are increasingly working harder for less than their fair
share, while corporate packers continue to consolidate both profits and control.

One telling fact: according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, the share of
the consumer dollar received by America’s cattle and hog producers has dropped consistently and substantially over the past 25 years as corporate control over our food and agriculture system has accelerated.

For the average livestock producer, the proposed rule heads in the right direction, but should be seen as a start, not a finish. While not a cure-all for the ills of anticompetitive behavior and undue corporate influence in livestock markets, the new rule, when implemented, can address some of the egregious practices of meatpackers that farmers face.

Not surprisingly, the American Meat Institute (AMI) — the lobbying consortium for the nation’s biggest meatpackers — has come out blasting the rule. AMI members such as Cargill, Tyson, JBS and others are causing harm to America’s farmers and rural communities by providing undue preference and unfair advantages to preferred operators, which oftentimes include their own production operations.

Clearly, AMI and corporate meatpackers will fight the proposed rule and indeed any federal action that might hamper their ability to squeeze farmers and manipulate livestock procurement and pricing.

Just as predictably, the leadership of commodity groups such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council are
following the corporate meatpackers’ lead, voicing worn-out arguments as they prioritize their allegiance with packers rather than everyday working farmers.

While a fuller analysis is being conducted, LSP believes that the rule is a good
step forward but much more is needed. Our livestock-producing members are hopeful the series of USDA/Department of Justice workshops taking place across the country to solicit input on competition issues in agriculture will embolden Congress and the Obama Administration to take additional measures to create fair and competitive markets for farmers and consumers.

In terms of the new rule, of particular significance is USDA’s firm assertion that
farmers do not have to show competitive injury to the entire marketplace for an action to constitute a violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act. This is contrary to some recent court decisions, which have ruled that a farmer must essentially show harm to competition in general as well as injury to himself or herself in order to prove a violation of the Act.

In addition to our ongoing analysis of the proposed rule, LSP is reaching out to thousands of livestock farmers during the comment period. We will be gathering input, encouraging involvement, and not only discussing the new rule but also what other actions should be taken in farm country to ensure fair and competitive markets.

For details on how to make a comment on the proposed rule before Nov. 22  via e-mail or regular mail, click here, or contact LSP’s Adam Warthesen at 612-722-6377.