The Legislature's Ag Land Assessment Task Force gets me to notice a tiny portion of our agricultural land assessment rules that show South Dakota thinking like Earl Butz, telling farmers to get big or get out... of agricultural land classification.…
Posts tagged as “agriculture”
Keenly interested rural observer Don Carr smells bull-fudgery in Senator John Thune's faint signal of sensibility on climate change. Carr says Senator Thune should get serious about science for the sake of agriculture: If Senator Thune actually believed what scientists…
There is something perverse about capitalism and the global economy when a shipping company suspends cargo runs from Minneapolis at the height of harvest. We have food, something human being needs every day, and big business would rather haul coal…
District 28 Senate candidate Rep. Betty Olson (R-Prairie City) earned herself some media attention this week. It seems only fair that we give her opponent in the Senate race, Parade Democrat Oren Lesmeister, a little air time. Lesmeister runs Fox…
Big Ag groups in South Dakota are raising a stink about the EPA's latest proposed regulations to keep our water clean. As we know, this industry-manufactured fuss is mostly myth. The EPA is using science to make clear, consistent rules…
Big Ag crowds out pheasants. To restore pheasant numbers and protect South Dakota's shotgun tourism season, Governor Dennis Daugaard proposes more Big Ag, backed with more big government subsidies: "Winter wheat is probably one of the best habitats for pheasants,…
Want to meet the King of the Netherlands? Go to Emmetsburg, Iowa, Wednesday and see His Majesty Willem-Alexander break a wooden shoe across the bow of the first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the country. The King is coming because…
Mike from Iowa asked for a close-up of bluestem grass. Can do, Mike!
Carter Johnson showed me this native grass and a whole lot more on his EcoSun Prairie Farm on a hot summer morning last week. I've written about Johnson's prairie farm and its philosophy before. The SDSU ecology professor gave a stirring speech on his vision for a working prairie at TedX Brookings last winter. But I wanted to see the Prairie Farm for myself.