Ear to the Ground Podcast

“How do I make this pasture pay?” beginning farmer Heidi Eger asked a group of fellow graziers during an LSP Soil Health Hub gathering. They answered by measuring out an ideal paddock and putting pen to...

Chad and Melissa Crowley are using managed rotational grazing, soil health, and solar arrays to create a good energy flow on the dairy farm they’re transitioning into. They are also utilizing LSP’s Soil...

Paul and Delores Moechnig are working to prove to the next generation that the road to farming’s future doesn’t have to pass through corn and soybean fields. It turns out the bluebirds and swallows...

Emily and Ryan Kjesbo-Johnson vowed their lifelong commitment to community would not stop when they moved out of their urban neighborhood and onto a farm. Farm Beginnings is helping them keep that promise. More...

Jane Marynik’s pursuit of perfection ran into a brick wall called vegetable farming. LSP’s Farm Beginnings has helped her strike a more sustainable balance between work and life. More Information • LSP’s...

Livestock producer Frances Kelliher admits to being a bit cynical and burnt-out on her first day in LSP’s Farm Beginnings course. But the program helped revitalize her belief that regenerative grazing can renew...

Josh Bryceson sees The Good Acre food hub as a way to not only build markets for local vegetable producers, but to germinate the next generation of farmers (2 of 2 parts). More Information • The Good Acre Food Hub •...

A decade ago, veggie and livestock farmers Josh Bryceson and Rama Hoffpauir realized sweat equity would only take them so far in their ag journey, so they looked up from the grindstone long enough to take in the big...

Over the past three decades, the rotating Endowed Chair in Agricultural Systems has provided farmers and others a chance to build a more sustainable farm and food system in Minnesota. Farmer and community leader Marvin...

In 1986, Joe Paddock co-authored a book called Soil and Survival. Its message: the relationship between farming and the land is in serious need of repair. Four decades later, that message is more relevant than ever...

These three crop producers see no reason why productive farming and clean water can’t co-exist. But first, we need to stop the greenwashing and get our hands dirty. (2 of 2 parts; part 1 is here) More Information...

In the Corn Belt, water quality is not improving at a rate that is leading to meaningful landscape level change, and these poster boys for conservation farming say it’s time for the ag industry, commodity groups...

As a farmer and entrepreneur, John Strohfus sees the production of food-grade crops as a key opportunity for regenerative farmers to forge links in a value chain based on building healthy soil. More Information • Jan...

Alan Jostock uses the kind of diversity that builds soil health as a kind of insurance policy for his farm. That means meshing his crop and livestock enterprises in a way that they prop each other up through thick and...

Farmer and small grains marketer Matt Kruger sees a rotation based on raising food grade crops as a way for farmers to get rewarded for building soil health. It’s also a way to fight the only thing he truly hates...