In central Minnesota, potatoes are pushing out forest land

Agriculture is eating into central Minnesota’s forests so aggressively that state regulators and a prominent legislator are sounding the alarm about threats to wildlife habitat and a large, sensitive aquifer that stretches below parts of four counties.

The latest case is a 1,500-acre project in Cass County, which triggered a contentious legislative hearing last month over the owner’s plans to grow potatoes for McDonald’s and other customers on land that was covered with trees just 10 years ago.

In recent years, 5,000 to 6,000 acres of pine forests in Cass, Wadena and neighboring counties have been cleared for chemically intensive row-crop agriculture, and state officials say nearly 100 square miles of timber land now owned by Potlatch Corp. is at risk as the company divests itself of commercial forests in Minnesota.

R.D. Offutt’s project in Cass County is a case that shows what’s at stake and the powerful forces driving land conversion. It also has focused the legislature’s attention on an increasingly difficult question on the environmental impacts: Who should pay?