Conditions are very dry in North Dakota. Most of the state is suffering from a severe drought.

I was very young — I had just turned 8 — to begin a torrid love affair but the St. Louis Cardinals made it easy. It was 1963, Stan Musial’s last year in baseball, and the young team began the season hot and stayed hot through July.

Even though I’ve never met Pete Larson, it feels as if I know him.

Due to the high costs, an ever-increasing number of farm operators are hiring out the machinery resources needed for their farm operations. This is especially true with new and younger farm operators, as well as with children that decide to start farming with their parents.

The “germ theory” of infectious disease is well-ingrained in us veterinarians through the multitude of microbiology courses we endure through our education.

What was that snap, crackle and pop I heard?

In our daily reading, we ran across several articles that discussed admission at Ivy League colleges and their peer institutions elsewhere in the country.

We had one kid and an hour of church to get through. I’d load the diaper bag with Cheerios, fruit snacks and sippy cups. It was an effective strategy that kept my son entertained and occupied many a Sunday morning.

The first cup of steaming coffee was just beginning to boot up my brain when I caught a glimpse of a large, shaggy beast lumbering past our living room window.

Spring is a great time to plant trees. What tree species or variety should I plant this year?

Like many global meatpacking companies, JBS SA, the giant Brazilian meat and poultry packer with extensive operations in North America, South America, Europe and Australia, spent most of the last six months buying its way out of trouble with U.S. customers and the American government.

Like the start of a big race or the beginning of a championship game, many farmers in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa are ready to begin full-scale field work as soon as field conditions are fit for planting. Most farm operators across the region reported almost ideal soil conditions; h…

“Woman loitering in Aisle 5.”

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the $15.00 minimum wage provision that was eliminated from the COVID-19 stimulus legislation, making a connection between price-support farm programs and minimum wage legislation.

One of the most fundamental aspects of rural practice burned into my brain as a new veterinarian was accessibility to your clients — particularly when you were on call after hours. Assisting this connectivity was the most advanced technology available at the time: the clinic telephone answer…

USDA came out with a very bullish acreage report March 31, with a projected 2 million acres less of corn and 2.4 million acres less of soybeans than expected by private traders.

When you hear the phrase “farms of the future,” what do you envision?

Wind is a constant source of botheration in this part of the world.

In a now too-common story in U.S agriculture, Archer Daniels Midland last month agreed to pay farmers $45 million to settle what the March 13 Wall Street Journal described as “price-fixing allegations leveled at its peanut processing division.”

The promotion of crop exports has been central to U.S. agriculture since the export boom of the 1970s, triggered by the entry of the Soviet Union into world grain markets in the early 1970s and sustained by international development loans to less developed countries that were, in part, used …

“We are having main-dish salads for dinner,” I said. “It will be good.”

The USDA prospective plantings report” released on March 31 indicated that the intended U.S. corn and soybean acreage for 2021 was well below the planted acreage projected by most grain marketing analysts.

The Easter lily is a symbol of beauty, hope and life.

It has been said that April is the cruelest month.

It’s finally spring!

On March 1, Nebraska’s attorney general threw the book at AltEn, alleging the 24-million-gallon-per year ethanol maker near Mead spent most of the last five years making an environmental mess of its biofuels plant and the surrounding rural community.

Farm operators have been wondering about the status of the additional Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) payments that were authorized by Congress in December, as well as 2019 WHIP+ payments and other government programs. For the latest details on many of these programs, farmers shou…

“This would make a good column,” my husband announced as he walked into the kitchen clutching a handful of papers.

In this third column in our series of analyses looking at agricultural exports since 1960, we turn our attention to wheat. In our examination we will be looking for evidence that U.S. export-oriented policies have led to steadily-increasing exports and higher crop prices.

Do you have an old apple tree in your backyard? Prune it now and you will rejuvenate it.

Many Americans either have or will soon be receiving some free money. Splendid simoleons! Cool cash! Marvelous moolah!

If you’re a corn and soybean farmer or an ag commodity futures trader, one of the biggest make-or-break days of the year looms: On March 31, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will issue its Prospective Plantings report.

Even though I’m staring out the window at the aftermath of a mid-March snowstorm, I’m ready to call winter done.

When I was a girl, a farmer brought eggs to our home regularly.

In last week’s column, we began this series of articles designed to provide insight into the question of whether or not a U.S. agricultural policy focused on exports has been able to sustain agricultural prices at a profitable level for a sustained period of time. In making this analysis, we…

Ask 10 people to describe a “family farm” and you will probably get 10 different definitions.

The tree-lined streets of the University of Massachusetts (UMass) and hallowed hallways of Yale University are two places most farmers would not expect to find a hot debate over soil erosion.

I have watched an ongoing fashion parade in the late winter and early spring as I looked out the window of our home office.

Like many fairytales, mine began with a jolt of misfortune.

People who have been at it for decades, the second or third generation in this idea that carcass quality matters, with a well-tested recipe for success. These are the farmers and ranchers who often appear in my articles.

Traders are waging a battle between bearish numbers due to improving U.S. and South American weather and continued strong export demand in weekly numbers. So far it looks like a stalemate, as the improving South American weather is almost perfectly offset by the strong U.S. export demand.

The continuous growth in crop exports has long been the great hope that would sustain unending prosperity for U.S. farmers. In some ways, ever increasing exports might be seen as a market-based solution to the farm income problem that would obviate the need for much of agricultural commodity…

Farm land values in the Upper Midwest appear to be making a bit of a correction after several years of uncertainty.

ORANGE CITY, Iowa — The I-29 Moo University 2021 dairy webinar series continues Friday, Mar. 26 from 12-1 p.m. This month’s topic is strategies for fly control.

I sometimes wonder if I would have made a good historian.

“Please come upstairs,” I texted to my 22-year-old daughter. “I need help!”

It turns out that I, my wife and Dolly Parton have a couple of things in common.

If you think growing food in rural America is a tough business, you should trying selling food — groceries — in rural America.

In the past, when we have advocated for supply management programs. Some have disagreed with our analysis by making the argument that “low prices cure low prices.” By that, they mean that in response to lower corn prices, for instance, farmers will reduce their corn acres which reduces the q…