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State offers grants for innovative farm projects

The challenge has vexed Jason Amundsen for a few years. He’s brought in engineering students from the University of Minnesota Duluth and St. Thomas University in St. Paul. He’s hired one of them full-time to tackle the problem.

At Farm LoLa in Wrenshall, the mission is capturing water from the air — in a sense, making the concept of the indoor humidifier work outside.

Amundsen said the world is starving, and he wants to find a way to better water crops. He cites endangered citrus crops in Texas and olive orchards in Spain.

“Right now, the event of our lifetime is hunger,” he said. “There are a...