Land Stewardship Project

The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a nonprofit organization based in Minnesota and committed to promoting an ethic of environmental and agricultural stewardship. The group believes that the natural environment is not an exploitable resource but a gift given to each generation for safekeeping. To preserve and pass on this gift to future generations , for the LSP, is both a moral and a practical imperative.

Founded in 1982, the LSP is an alliance of farmers and city-dwellers dedicated both to preserving the small family farm and practicing sustainable agriculture . Like Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson (with whom they are affiliated), the LSP is critical of conventional agricultural practices that emphasize plant monocultures, large acreage, intensive tillage, extensive use of herbicides and pesticides, and the economies of scale that these practices make possible. The group believes that agriculture conducted on such an industrial scale is bound to be destructive not only of the natural environment but of family farms and rural communities as well. The LSP accordingly advocates the sort of smaller scale agriculture that, in Berry's words, "depletes neither soil , nor people, nor communities."

The LSP sponsors legislative initiatives to save farmland and wildlife habitat , to limit urban sprawl and protect family farms, and to promote sustainable agricultural practices. It supports educational and outreach programs to inform farmers, consumers, and citizens about agricultural and environmental issues. The LSP also publishes a quarterly Land Stewardship Letter and distributes video tapes about sustainable agriculture and other environmental concerns.

[Terence Ball ]

RESOURCES

ORGANIZATIONS

The Land Stewardship Project, 2200 4th Street, White Bear Lake, MN USA 55110 (651) 653-0618, Fax: (651) 653-0589, Email: lspwbl@landstewardshipproject.org, <http://www.landstewardshipproject.org>