Farming

Eighty-eight big name environmental and food activists — including Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan, famed restaurant owner Alice Waters and Minnesotan Winona LaDuke — have written to President-elect Barack Obama urging him to appoint America’s first “sustainability Secretary of Agriculture.” And among their list of six candidates they include Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a former employee of Minnesota’s ag department and co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will ask for federal aid for farmers facing a loss of crops due to drought, according to a release from the governor’s office.

Pawlenty, a Republican, made the statement after visiting Morrison county in north-central Minnesota.

“Minnesota farmers are among the best in the world at what they do, but they can’t make [...]

The Gutknecht-Walz debate in Owatonna on Saturday was well covered by Bluestem Prairie, who observed it firsthand. Among newspapers, it seems only the Owatonna Peoples Press wrote it up, though it may yet come up in the AgriNews. And I could not find any mention of the debate in either the Rochester Post-Bulletin or the [...]