By Lura Roti, South Dakota Farmers Union While some ranchers are nervous about what will happen to their operation when they are ready to retire, David and Brenda Reis are not too worried. “All of our kids want to take over the ranch. That would not be sustainable, but the one thing about having a … Read More
Trump Administration Building Positive Record on Renewable Fuels, NFU Says
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 23, 2017 Contact: Andrew Jerome, 202-314-3106 ajerome@nfudc.org WASHINGTON (February 23, 2017) – Stressing the need for certainty around the administration’s support for the renewable fuels industry, National Farmers Union (NFU) recognizes the Trump Administration’s growing positive record in support of renewable fuels as a means to spur economic growth, provide good-paying … Read More
Access to Land: Ficke Farm Legacy Letter
By Del Ficke, Owner and Operator of Ficke Cattle Company This letter was originally published in The Future of Family Farms: Practical Farmers’ Legacy Letter Project To my future generations: In 1860, Johann Ficke made the trip from Germany to settle in the United States. Just nine years later, after first arriving in Wisconsin, he found a … Read More
What Can Farmers Do About Climate Change? Dynamic Cropping Systems
By Laura Lengnick, founder of Cultivating Resilience, LLC Some of America’s forward-thinking farmers and ranchers are innovating more flexible crop rotations that allow them to fine-tune crop choices in response to increasing weather variability. This kind of crop rotation strategy is called “dynamic cropping.” Dynamic cropping is an ecologically-based management strategy that optimizes production through the … Read More
Access to Land: Farm Legacy Letters
By Teresa Opheim, Editor of The Future of Family Farms: Practical Farmers’ Legacy Letter Project About five years ago, a farmer stopped during a farm tour and confided that he worried that his son would not be able to continue farming. The farmer’s land-owning mother had just died, and her farmland was being divided among her children. … Read More
Access to Efficiency: Kolousek Family & Intensive Grazing
By Lura Roti, South Dakota Farmers Union Shadowing an engineer for a few days his sophomore year of college was all the exposure Scott Kolousek needed to realize he would be happier building a career on his family’s Wessington Springs cattle and crop farm. “That experience saved me a lot of time pursuing the wrong … Read More
Access to Capital: Red Dog Farm & Farm Credit
By Karyn Williams, owner of Red Dog Farm I didn’t grow up in a farming family. In fact, I grew up in the suburbs of Seattle. My great-grandparents were farmers, back in Missouri, during the Dust Bowl years. When they moved out west with my then-6-year-old grandmother, I suspect they wished for a non-farming life for their … Read More
Access to Capital: Farm Credit
By Jimmy Dula, NFU Intern In previous weeks, the Beginning Farm Forum’s has presented several ways that beginning farmers and ranchers can access capital, including the Farm Service Agency and crowdfunding. Today, we’re examining Farm Credit, a national organization made up of over 70, member-owned cooperative associations that provide financial services to farmers, ranchers and rural business across the U.S. Farm Credit … Read More
Access to Land: Christensen Farm Family & Succession Planning
By Lura Roti, South Dakota Farmers Union Ask Marlow Christensen and his three sons, Dale, Don and Doug, why they chose farming as a career and their responses are similar. “It’s all we’ve ever known,” explains Dale, who, like his younger brothers, joined the family operation full-time right out of high school. His brother, Don, … Read More
What Do Farmers Need to Know About Climate Change? Developing Protocols for Environmental Markets
By Kristen Ford, Program Manager for Farmer Veteran Coalition Relatively few range or pasture land projects are producing marketable greenhouse gas (GHG) credits, and producer awareness of environmental markets is extremely low. Through a U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG), Farmer Veteran Coalition, a national nonprofit organization that … Read More