Farming group marks 30 years

Who grows our food? Where is it grown? How is it grown? How long will production last? Folks with ready answers to these questions probably know a member of the Lake Superior Sustainable Farming Association (LSSFA). For three decades, residents of northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin have benefited from the more than 120 farmers with modestly sized operations who commit to organic and regenerative methods that LSSFA advocates. Forty of those producers gathered for the association’s annual meeting and conference at the Grand Lake Township Hall in south St. Louis County on Saturday, Feb. 4.

Following a business meeting chaired by board president John Beaton that revealed a robust organization with youthful, eager leaders, the attendees enjoyed a lunch of chef-prepared specialties.

The afternoon was devoted to three presentations on the association’s dynamic vision for farmers and landowners. Sarah Foltz Jordan of the Xerces Society explained how to enhance biodiversity with practices favoring beneficial insect populations, including cover cropping, flower patches, shrub hedgerows, and more. Tyler Carlson from Sauk Centre outlined climate change models predicting that the Arrowhead Region boreal forest will become an oak savanna ecosystem within 50 years and how to mitigate that outcome: silvopasture intentionally mixes livestock grazing with tree and shrub planting; agroforestry integrates food production with tree growing. He made reference to the Forest Assisted Migration Project, which aims to maintain forests by planting seeds from southern species farther north.

The most ambitious idea came from John Beaton and Charlie Hanson, who plan to create a food hub in the Duluth Armory basement. The concept is a center that receives produce from small local farms and arranges sales to large food preparers such as hospitals, schools and soup kitchens; it would include temporary storage, a shared-use commercial kitchen, and logistics for aggregation and distribution of local food. This idea is not new: the Sprout food hub in Little Falls (Morrison County) has served central Minnesota since 2012; The Good Acre in St. Paul opened in 2015, and a virtual food hub was tried in Duluth 10 years ago. What makes this project compelling is the determination of the leaders; they have worked strategically for several years to build relationships with entities such as Essentia Health, Lutheran Social Services, the Minnesota Farmers Union and political leaders.

The LSSFA was started in 1992 by three Wrenshall County farmers: Joel Rosen, John Fisher-Merritt and Mark Thell. In order to attract attention, they invited the public to a harvest festival. The annual Lake Superior Harvest Festival now takes place at Duluth’s Bayfront Park on the Saturday after Labor Day. It features scores of food producers, exhibitors and vendors, provides musical entertainment, and draws thousands of people. Viewing the current winter landscape, it is healing to recall the warm sunny day of last year’s event. Throughout the year, LSSFA, under the leadership of Julie Allen, organizes events and programs that give farmers a chance to share ideas, encourage each other, and improve food production. It is one of a dozen SFA chapters in the state.

As an indication of prospects for the next decade, one of the old-timers at the conference remarked that the attendance was the largest seen in years.

Writer John Sanford “Sandy” Dugan and his wife are stewards of 54 acres in the Wrenshall area. They tend two acres as gardens and pollinator habitat; most of the land is rented out to grow forage for organic beef; a barn serves for occasional regional arts events.