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The Vanishing Prairie series

Vanishing Prairie series

In harnessing the land, Iowa farmer's model also preserves it

An Iowa farmer has carved out a middle ground between the extremes of organic purism and the chemically intensive agriculture that is the norm in the Midwest. Updated Dec. 29, 2012

"The Vanishing Prairie'' is a Star Tribune series examining the way that agriculture is profoundly transforming the landscape of the Upper Midwest and its valuable native ecosystems.

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Debbie Carlson

Minnesotans pay a price for crop fertilizer at the faucet
Article By: JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY ,Star Tribune Publish December 23, 2012 2:00 AM / Update December 23, 2012 6:45 AM
As crops spread, some land can no longer cleanse nitrates from groundwater.

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Herb Hamann, a cattle rancher in Clear Lake, South Dakota

Plowing away the prairie, at a price
Article By: JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY , Star Tribune Publish September 23, 2012 2:00 AM / Update September 24, 2012 11:07 AM
Farm policy and food demand are eating up a once-vast ecosystem, alarming conservationists.

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Danny Serfling tilled a field on his farm in Preston, Minn., in late October. He lost part of this field and a whole other one to rootworm. The solution? “We will have to use more insecticide,” he said.

Those bugs 'are going to outsmart us'
Article By: JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY , Star Tribune Publish November 24, 2012 2:00 AM / Update November 24, 2012 6:41 AM
As nature adapts to chemicals and genetically engineered seeds, farmers face new threats.

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