Pivotal Issues Blog

By: Jodi Henke Perhaps the property lines of the multi-generation family farm you live on were originally laid out with a big oak tree on one side and a giant rock on the other. But the old oak tree isn’t there anymore. Do you fight about the exact boundary line with your neighbor or work […]

By: Jodi Henke Your neighbor could be buying more land every year to farm, but bigger doesn’t always mean better. Greg Ibendahl is an associate professor of ag economics at Kansas State University. He and another researcher reviewed 10-years of data from the Kansas Farm Management Association to develop a ranking of several hundred farms […]

By: Raylene Nickel In 2006 Randy Roecker expanded his dairy near Loganville, Wisconsin, to 300 cows. But a few years later the price of milk plunged, throwing the family operation – Roecker’s Rolling Acres, LLC – into a financial tailspin. Roecker’s emotions took a deep dive, too. “I got depression really bad,” he says, “and […]

By: Mitch Kezar When Gary and Amy Cammack looked out over the open prairie near Union Center, South Dakota, several decades ago, they thought how nice it would be to have a big woods to create a break in the open and endless prairie landscape. That forest seemed a bit of a stretch, but they […]

By: Jodi Henke If you want a unique insight into your farm business, sit everyone down for a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Lynn Kime is a senior Extension associate at Penn State University. He says the session should include family members, business partners, employees, and anyone else who can […]

By: Heather Barnes To say it’s been a wet spring in North Carolina is an understatement. That’s good news for farm boys in muck boots who love to jump in muddy puddles, but not such good news for farmers trying to get crops planted. Over the last three weeks, we’ve been out of the field […]

By: Successful Farming When soil suffers compaction, myriad challenges arise. On the surface, appearances can be deceiving on the extend of the damage. But often, compaction leads to: reduced water infiltration and drainage, increased likelihood for erosion and sediment loss, and poor seedling emergence and yield. Andrew Phillips is an agronomist and Channel seed salesman […]

By: Paula Barbour On his last Christmas break from school, Alvin Homier, 15, didn’t play a lot of video games. Instead, in one week of working full days, he built a rolling steel storage rack for his dad’s farm and commercial shop. Homier used mainly scrap metal for materials: two old harrows, scrap rasp bars, […]

By: Raylene Nickel Hettinger, North Dakota, ranchers Sean and Kat Weinert learned at the outset of their ranching career that they would have to ignore the negative outside messages boxing them in if they were going to have a fighting chance at opening the doors to a life of ranching. For Sean, who grew up […]

By: Harlen Persinger Dave Barlogio’s touchstone of tradition is a Cat 30 that’s not very pretty to look at. For Barlogio, though, the crawler embodies the memory of his grandfather, Giacomo (James), and his wife, Angelica. The Cat 30, the Paso Robles, California, farmer points out, has anchored this operation since the day it came […]