Whenever I walk past an agricultural field or go to a farmers’ market, I can’t help thinking about the importance of farming and food production in Minnesota’s landscape and culture. While some of the details of our state’s agricultural practices are changing over time, the importance of food production remains the same.
Minnesota lost more than 6,000 farms between 2007 and 2012, with the average size of farms increasing slightly (1). These numbers suggest that large scale farming operations, which are often unsustainable, are expanding, but that is not always the case. Minnesota’s organic farms are about 3 times larger on average than traditional farms. As of 2012, less than 1% of the state’s 74,500 farms were certified organic (1), but that number continues to rise. The Minnesota Grown Directory, which lists local CSAs, farmers markets, self-pick farms, and more, had more listings than ever before in 2015. Minnesota’s natural food co-ops seem to be experiencing similar success, with Lakewinds, Mississippi Market, East Side, and Seward Co-ops all undergoing recent or pending expansions.
Homegrown food is also seeing a surge in popularity in Minnesota, and we expect this trend to continue into the future. Backyard gardens have long been popular, but the rise in community gardens is providing access to gardening space to apartment dwellers and homeowners with small lots. Seed libraries have also emerged as an important part of food availability and gardening in the past two years. Seed libraries provide members of the public with free or low cost seeds; participants pick up seeds, garden with them, and can then return the seeds from that year’s crop or other excess seeds to the library. In the fall of 2014, many Minnesotan seed libraries were shocked to learn that the sharing of seeds that hadn’t been professionally tested and labeled was against state law. A wave of dissent against this policy led lawmakers to change the law in the spring of 2015, and seed libraries throughout Minnesota are once again flourishing. Backyard chickens and beehives are also growing in popularity, and with the renewed interest comes an increase in regulation, as cities and towns attempt to find a compromise between the desires of chicken and beekeepers and neighbors with concerns about noise, safety, and sanitation.
The passage of laws and regulations about seed sharing and urban animal rearing emphasizes the important role that the government has in how we interact with the environment. As issues like eliminating plastic microbeads and updating the acceptable sulfate levels for growing wild rice come to the forefront of environmental policy in Minnesota, it is more important than ever before that members of the public have an active voice in these decisions and share their opinions with state lawmakers.
(1) 2012 Census of Agriculture. 2014. USDA.
Photo: USDA
