Agriculture has been an integral part of Minnesota’s land and water for a thousand years. While crops have changed, the spirit of farming has remained constant. MPR Archive presents a selection of stories that reflect the diversity of what has been harvested, such as corn, soybeans, wild rice, and even tree fiber. This collection is also about the many hands that toil in, and care for, the soil and water…from the migrant farm worker in Red River Valley’s sugar beet fields, the Hmong immigrant planting near Homer, the Chanarambie Township farmer amidst the 1980s farm crisis, and Ojibwe members following ancient harvesting traditions.
October 13, 1975 - MPR’s Steve Monroe interviews Jerry Perkins, a farmer near Worthington about the corn yield this year. Perkins discusses various harvesting challenges, including weather and where do you cut down on the use of fuel at the expense of crop loss in the field?
July 11, 1977 - MPR’s John Ydstie presents sound portrait of a migrant family working the sugar beet fields of the Red River Valley.
October 22, 1977 - The following edition of The Poet's Perspective is on the subject of harvesting, food, and the environment. The program features Southwest Minnesota regional poets Joe and Nancy Paddock.
December 10, 1977 - On this regional public affairs program, MPR’s Rich Dietman presents a sound portrait of "the farm." Includes various interviews with a Minnesota farm family outside of Cannon Falls.
December 10, 1977 - On this regional public affairs program, Hy Berman, history professor at University of Minnesota, discusses history of farmer organizations. Topics include political activities, strikes, and cooperatives.
July 10, 1978 - As part of an Insight series, MPR’s John Ydstie produces a sound portrait titled “Migrant Series, Part 1.” Ydstie follows the daily life of Guillermo Flores, a migrant worker in the sugar beet fields of rural Minnesota.
May 17, 1979 - Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Wahl speaking at the first Farm Women's Forum, in Rochester. The subject of address was on farmers, farmers wives and farm ownership.
October 4, 1979 - MPR’s Dan Olson interviews experts on what organic farming is and what its value is. The group includes Margery Peterson, principal author of a Minnesota Department of Agriculture publication on organic farming; Marilyn Larson of the Organic Growers and Buyers association; Lester Frohip, an organic farmer from Southwestern Minnesota; and Russell Adams, Jr., a soil biochemist at the University of Minnesota.
June 28, 1980 - Dr. Frances Hill, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, speaking at the second annual Farm Women's Forum in Rochester, Minnesota. Hill’s address was about the changes in the roles and lives of farm women, based on her interviews with over one hundred Midwestern farm women. These changes include the demise of the family farm, and secondly, a change in women's personal rights.
May 23, 1982 - A discussion of the trouble facing the farm economy, such as government subsidies, record high interest rates and the world food situation. Midday guest G. Edward Schuh, professor of Agriculture at the University of Minnesota, answers listener questions.