Minnesota
Minnesota-based Sustane Natural Fertilizer is a worldwide powerhouse in the industry
CANNON FALLS, Minn. — What began as a Minnesota farm family looking to turn poultry waste into a fertilizer good for plants and the environment has turned into a company that ships its products nationwide and to 60 different countries in the world.
Cannon Falls-based
Sustane Natural Fertilizer
was one of 12 fertilizer plant projects that was
announced last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is investing $83 million to enhance domestic fertilizer supply.
The family-owned company plans to use a $2,397,792 grant to enhance and expand its current facility and purchase new equipment to increase production.
USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development Basil Gooden and Colleen Landkamer, Minnesota’s director of USDA Rural Development, were in Cannon Falls on Thursday, May 30, to hear from Sustane’s founder, CEO and president Craig Holden and other company leaders.
Gooden said fertilizer prices have almost doubled since the pandemic.
“The Biden-Harris administration is focused on this supply chain for fertilizer, and reducing the costs and making fertilizer more available,” he said. “(USDA) really wanted to make that significant investment in fertilizer companies.”
Noah Fish / Agweek
The investment in Sustane, which specializes in products that can be used on certified-organic operations, also has an environmental impact, Gooden said.
“It’s a win-win,” he said. “I’m really just delighted that we were able to come here to learn more and to see it, and to show our support for such initiatives as well.”
A turkey farmer at the time, Craig Holden came up with the idea for the company in the 1980s when he was looking for a solution to having an excess of manure on the farm.
“That’s me, 39 years and 39 pounds ago,” Holden told Gooden and Landkamer, pointing to his face on the cover of a farm magazine for regenerative agriculture in 1985. “A local agronomist suggested that we donate the manure and give the manure away to crop farmers that could benefit from the nutrients. But we literally could not give manure away. Crop farmers didn’t want it.”

Contributed / Sustane Natural Fertilizer
Holden said he’d “never forget the look on the face” of the crop farmer across the road from him, who refused to take manure from his farm. Instead, he found ways like anaerobic composting to store manure safely to prevent disease transmission to flocks, but Holden said the costs were adding up.
“Even though we were able to get rid of it, at about 25 bucks a ton in those days, all of our income was consumed by transportation because we were handling this wet, humus, nutrient-rich product and transporting it only about 10 or 15 miles,” he said.
Blaize Holden, vice president of operations for Sustane, said that was when the family began to research the agronomic benefits of composted turkey litter.
“So we began dehydrating it and granulating it, and bagging it,” Holden said. “Now we ship it to over 60 countries around the world.”
Today, around 40 poultry farms in Minnesota and western Wisconsin contribute to the company’s products.
Sustane is currently the only manure-based fertilizer that’s permitted to ship to Europe, Blaize Holden said, and the only U.S.-based organic fertilizer that’s permitted to ship to China. The company has around 50% of its customer base inside the U.S., with the other half international.
The company’s products are sold to a diverse range of customer populations from home gardeners to large-scale organic farms, and is used on areas to regrow grass and reclaim damaged or depleted soils.

Noah Fish / Agweek
“We service agriculture, but we also service professional lawn and landscape, nursery and greenhouse, erosion control,” Holden said. “It’s a very high-quality, organic, sustainable product with low odor, low dust, so easy to handle.”
Holden said that products from Sustane Natural Fertilizer are used at exclusive properties, including the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Disney facilities, PGA Tour golf courses, and Premier League, MLB and NFL fields.
The USDA project funding will allow the company, which has been pushing against its capacity for several years, to expand
“We’re looking to increase fertilizer production capacity here in Cannon Falls, and we’re also building a second facility on-site for our seed treatment production,” Blaize Holden said. “We have developed markets all over the world, so we’re looking to be able to supply those better.”
Minnesota
Rosemount vs. Champlin Park: Live Score Updates of 2026 Minnesota High School Baseball Class 4A State Championship
MINNEAPOLIS — The No. 2 Champlin Park Rebels (22-6) play the No. 4 Rosemount Irish (24-5) in the Minnesota high school baseball Class 4A state championship game on Monday at Target Field.
Neither team has won a baseball state championship in its history.
The Rebels have won both state championship games by one run. They defeated No. 7 Andover 3-2 in the quarterfinal before outlasting Edina 8-7 in extra innings in the semifinal. The Rebels are led by senior catcher Cal Ockuly, who was scheduled to be in San Diego on Monday for Marine Corps training, but he is allowed to play.
Rosemount won its two state championship games via blowout. They defeated No. 5 Monticello 11-2 in the quarterfinal, and they defeated No. 1 Farmington 11-1 in the semifinal. The Irish scored 12 runs the section final, so they’ve scored 34 runs in the past three games.
Junior outfielder Oliver Anderson had four RBIs in the semifinal win against Farmington.
High School On SI will have half-inning recaps and score updates throughout the game.
Rosemount vs. Champlin Park: Live Score Updates of 2026 Minnesota High School Baseball Class 4A State Championship
Refresh for the latest update.
Live score: Rosemount 0, Champlin Park 0 — Top 2nd
SECOND INNING
FIRST INNING — Champlin Park 0, Rosemount 0
Senior Evan Boll is pitching for Rosemount to begin the game.
Rosemount gets a runner two second base with two outs, but Vendel gets a strikeout for the final out.
Champlin Park’s Donovan Vendel throws the first pitch of the game, and we’re underway after a long rain delay.
More from High School On SI
Follow
Minnesota
Construction starts on Highway 65 in Blaine, with work set to wrap in 2030
Preliminary work began Monday on a multiyear construction project to improve a Twin Cities highway considered one of the most dangerous roads in Minnesota.
Crews are starting construction on Highway 65 between 121st Avenue/Paul Parkway and 97th Avenue in Blaine. The goal is to transform the highway into a freeway through the city, improving travel time and reducing crashes, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Right now, Highway 65 is a 55-mph road with lights every quarter to half-mile. The city says 10 of the state’s 31 most dangerous intersections are on Highway 65. Approximately 60,000 drivers use the highway every day.
This summer, crews will work to widen it to carry traffic during construction, build crossovers to switch traffic and keep it moving during work at intersections, work on frontage and backage roads and install storm sewer pipes for drainage along the highway. As a result, some side streets will be temporarily closed and detoured.
The project will elevate the highway, converting existing intersections at 99th Avenue, 109th Avenue and 117th Avenue into interchanges.
A pedestrian bridge will be built across the freeway between 113th and 114th avenues, rerouting some existing local streets and driveway connections using frontage and backage roads between 97th and 125th avenues. Existing sidewalks will also be reconstructed to meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
The project is expected to cost $195 million, with construction lasting through summer 2030.
Minnesota
Idaho, Minnesota universities stonewall public records requests for controversial course syllabi | The College Fix
Key Takeaways
- The University of Idaho and University of Minnesota denied requests for course syllabi from the American Accountability Foundation, claiming syllabi are protected as intellectual property or trade secrets under state laws.
- The AAF argued that the universities’ justifications for withholding the syllabi misinterpret state laws and the definition of trade secrets, which require economic value and reasonable secrecy efforts.
- Both universities offered limited alternatives, such as in-person inspection of the documents, which the AAF deemed insufficient based on previous court rulings affirming the public’s right to access such records.
The University of Idaho and the University of Minnesota refused to provide class syllabi to a conservative research group that submitted requests under the respective states’ public records laws.
In the case of UI, the American Accountability Foundation requested syllabi for Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and four Ecology of Health & Medicine–Foundations courses. In its demand letter to the university, AAF said the courses were “related to how the University of Idaho has changed its practices to comply with Idaho anti-DEI laws.”
The university “denied the request with respect to the syllabi on the grounds that they are ‘trade secrets’ exempt from disclosure under the Idaho Public Records Act. The university is wrong,” the demand letter to the school’s chief compliance officer states.
UI spokesperson Jodi Walker told The College Fix that the university’s “Board of Regents has outlined in policy that syllabi are intellectual property.”
“U of I policy is written to follow that state policy. Therefore, we do believe syllabi are protected under patent, trademark, copyright or other laws and are not subject to disclosure as a public record,” she said.
However, the foundation urged the school to pay closer attention to the state law’s definition of a trade secret, which requires it to derive “independent economic value” from “not being readily ascertainable by proper means” and to be protected by reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.
The foundation also requested syllabi copies for University of Minnesota’s courses of Human Sexuality; Justice, Law, and Medicine; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health; and Sexual and Gender Health in Clinical Practice.
According to the foundation’s demand letter to UMN, the school refused the request “because the syllabi ‘are copyrighted and protected intellectual property.’”
However, it did offer to “‘provide [AAF] with an opportunity to inspect the data in-person.’”
The research group called this response “inadequate.”
It pointed to a Minnesota Court of Appeals case in which the State Colleges and Universities system was barred from denying a public records request for syllabi solely on copyright grounds. In that case, the system had similarly “offered to allow the plaintiff to ‘inspect’ the syllabi in person—a mirror of [UMN’s] response.”
The court “breezily rejected that unsupported argument,” the foundation noted.
The College Fix reached out to the University of Minnesota’s media relations team twice to ask the university’s thoughts on the relation between this case and their own, but received no response.
Matt Ehling, treasurer for Minnesotans for Open Government, told The College Fix in an interview that UMN’s offer for inspection but refusal to copy is “frustrating” and “suspect” since the university owns the copyright.
Ehling said that while there would have been some merit to the university’s claim if the copyright were owned by another, there is no excuse for the current state of affairs.
Ehling said “they absolutely have the right to waive their copyright claim to produce copies of their own material.”
He also pointed to a 1995 opinion from the Minnesota Attorney General, which states that a department cannot use copyright as a reason to block the public’s right to inspect and copy public records “at reasonable times and places” under Minnesota law.
The foundation gave both universities a hard deadline of June 12 to provide the requested documents. If the universities persist “in violating [their] statutory obligations” under the states’ respective laws,” the foundation reserves its rights to seek all appropriate relief [in] court,” the group wrote.
MORE: ‘BIPOC’ language scrubbed from geoscience fellowship after College Fix questions
-
Los Angeles, Ca1 hour agoStress on San Andreas Fault reaches highest levels in 1,000 years as scientists await next ‘major rupture’
-
Detroit, MI1 hour agoNew home demand, construction soften in Metro Detroit amid high rates
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours agoDozens of apparent shopping carts stuck in marsh along SF Bay: ‘How did they get there?!’
-
Dallas, TX2 hours agoJapanese fans win hearts cleaning up Dallas Stadium after World Cup match
-
Miami, FL2 hours agoSuspect accused of throwing man off 25th-floor Miami Beach balcony released on bond
-
Boston, MA2 hours agoIraq fans celebrate on Boston Common before first World Cup match in 40 years
-
Denver, CO2 hours agoFilled with stories, Denver’s Rockmount Ranch Wear owner Steve Weil shares inside scoop on famous customers
-
Seattle, WA2 hours agoWorld Cup security operation runs smoothly in Seattle’s first match