Land Stewardship Project

Policy and organizingthe Land Stewardship Project's policy organizing starts from values like Stewardship and justice and then organizes people, resources, and ideas to build the power to make a difference. Lsp works at the local, state, and national levels to change corporate, governmental, and institutional policies and practices. Key highlights on april 13, 2023, lsp held the largest family farm breakfast and lobby day in our history. More than 300 farmers, rural community members, allies, and public officials joined us for a breakfast sourced from lsp member farms, a motivating program, meetings with over 100 legislators (~50% of Minnesota's legislature), and town halls with the vice chairs of the agriculture committees, attorney general, and department of natural resources. This powerful example of lsp's organizing during the 2023 Minnesota legislative session helped to secure historic investments in beginning farmers, regenerative agriculture, rural communities, and climate. To support rural people working to stop the establishment of factory farms in their communities, lsp worked with residents of nine Minnesota counties to educate their neighbors and develop strategies to make their voices heard. Lsp has a long-standing commitment in our theory of change and long-range plan to addressing racial justice. Our unique role often involves working in partnerships as well as engaging rural people on issues of racial justice to identify interconnections between our issues and their own self-interest. This year, lsp deepened relationships with black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc)-led organizations through collaboration on policy work, especially around the farm bill. As part of this work, we traveled to Washington d.c. with lsp members and representatives of midwest farmers of color collaborative (mfcc) to advocate for policies that address the challenges of climate change, consolidation, and Land access.

Soil healththe soil health program works with farmers, landowners, natural resource professionals, and scientists to promote agricultural systems that treat soil as a long-term investment that can result in a more resilient landscape, thriving farms, and vibrant communities. Lsp's farmer-led model supports landscape-level change by directly supporting the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices that reduce runoff, reduce emissions, improve soil fertility and farm viability, and increase the Land's resilience in the face of the existing impacts of climate change. Based on responses to a summer 2022 survey, lsp estimates that we have directly impacted the adoption of soil health practices on more than 48,000 acres to date.key highlights more than 1,000 farmers and landowners attended events including film field days, pasture walks, and workshops to learn from farmers in their area and build community around regenerative agriculture. Four groups of 10-20 farmers and grazers participated in our soil hubs and grazing groups, small peer learning groups that meet regularly to share best practices for building soil health, troubleshoot, and build relationships that support them to set and work toward goals for building soil health on their farms. In the farmer-led movement for soil health, farmer leaders play a vital role by sparking interest, challenging the status quo, and acting as a role model for other farmers in their communities. Lsp supported more than 40 farmers to practice soil health leadership by hosting field days on their farms, presenting at workshops, and advocating publicly for conservation programs.

Membership and outreachthe advancement department houses lsp's membership and individual giving team, which conducts ongoing outreach, recruitment, renewal, fundraising, and engagement of lsp's members and supporters. Key highlights during the year ending june 30, 2023, the team engaged 3,700 member households with lsp updates, membership appeals, action alerts, and organic and paid social media. The team communicated directly with more than 225,000 people about regenerative agriculture, state and federal policies, and healthy communities through mailed letters, emails, phone calls, text messages, personal visits, and social media.

Community based food systemsin 2021, lsp relaunched our community based food systems work with an emphasis on strengthening community connections and leveraging public and private funding to increase investment in rural food systems. Key highlights lsp engaged at least 109 community members from madison, appleton, montevideo, granite falls and the upper sioux community via 4 local foods listening & asset mapping sessions, a social network analysis, and a regional food forum. This work has built connections between consumers, farmers, community organizations, economic development authorities (edas), and the statewide health improvement partnership (ship) offices. We are also working with the university of Minnesota extension and regional sustainable development partnership (rsdp) to expand this work. As a result of lsp's social network analysis and community foods forum, there are now 3 working groups focused on local food systems in west central Minnesota. These working groups are developing small grain production, processing, and marketing, 2) revitalizing pride of the prairie, a regional collaborative food brand that promotes agricultural products from the Minnesota river valley, and 3) planning new aggregation and distribution network for local foods in the region. Farm beginningslsp's farm beginnings program supports aspiring and new farmers to launch and sustain successful farm businesses. The program offers farmer-to-farmer training, support, and connection to lsp's broader farmer network while centering communities who have been historically excluded from agriculture. This work includes a nationally-recognized beginning farmer course that over 25 years has trained more than 1,000 people, 70% of whom are still farming according to our annual graduate surveys. Key highlights in august 2023, 45 participants, 15 of them bipoc, completed the 2022-2023 farm beginnings course. We awarded $11,160 in scholarships with $8,100 going to bipoc participants specifically. By the end of the course, 25 individuals representing 16 farms created a farm plan to support them to reach their farming goals. In january 2023 lsp kicked off a new climate resiliency cohort with 32 individuals representing 16 farms. As a result of participating in this program, 100% of farmers who responded to the evaluation survey said they were likely or very likely to change their business model and farming practices. 20 specialty crop farmers from the 21-22 climate resiliency cohort also met to share their experiences in implementing their climate resiliency plans. Land access/land legacylsp's work with retiring farmers transitioning their Land, previously referred to as the farm legacy initiative, is now known as Land access/land legacy (lall). This program serves retiring and beginning farmers seeking to build thriving rural communities based in Stewardship values by supporting both of these groups to prepare for their Land access/land transition process, actively creating opportunities for beginning and emerging farmers to access Land and addressing structural barriers to equitable Land access. Key highlights the lall program engaged 141 retiring farmers and farmers seeking Land in educational workshops and relationship building events, including two developing the building community for Land access initiative, which included networking meetings, public educational pieces, and policy work to support innovative Land access models to meet the needs of diverse communities. In 2022, lsp helped to coordinate and support ledc's leadership on a usda increasing Land, capital, and market access program grant. This grant which includes 4 years of funding for lsp's engagement of landowners around equitable Land transitions as well as funds to pursue the development of a third-party mechanism to acquire and hold Land with the intention of transfer to farmers of color. Communicationsthrough storytelling and in-depth journalism, lsp seeks to educate the public and targeted constituencies about environmental Stewardship, regenerative farming, rural issues, and social justice, and about its efforts to advance positive change in these areas. Key highlights in 2022-2023, lsp's communications department produced 2 issues of the Land Stewardship letter, which provided ongoing coverage of lsp's work and its role in the wider context of the movement. On average, 5,000 copies were printed and distributed for each issue. Lsp's e-newsletter, live-wire, was sent to 15,000 subscribers each month. Lsp's award-winning podcast, ear to the ground, produced 31 episodes, which averaged 8,000 listens per episode. Through direct contact with reporters, editors, and producers, lsp's work and its members' voices reached regional, national, and international audiences via coverage in various media outlets including the star tribune, Minnesota public radio, food freedom radio, agweek, agri-view, the winona post, rochester post bulletin, minnpost, Minnesota women's press, brownfield radio network, successful farming, lancaster farming, ambrook research, and various television stations. Lsp's communications department spearheaded the production of the 102-page book "making change from the ground up: 40 stories for 40 years of Land Stewardship Project." It also coordinated production of two special reports: "lsp 2023 farm bill platform and "connecting economic & racial justice to expand a rural social justice network."