It’s June in Wisconsin, and that means June Dairy Month. From my days working in a cheese plant, I’ve never missed the chance to support our s…
If you’ve ever butchered anything from a rabbit to a hog — and butchered is the right word, not the bleached “harvested” — you know there will…
Every Memorial Day, my long-time friend David would honor both his family and fellow Vietnam War veterans with a visit to his hometown cemeter…
A New York Times article on May 14, 2020, noted that Iowa hog farmers are estimated to euthanize 600,000 hogs in the following six weeks while…
As if 20 percent unemployment, wretchedly weak commodity markets, shuttered ethanol and meatpacking plants, and a coronavirus pandemic aren’t …
What’s happening right now in the dairy sector is the equivalent of the Titanic slamming into an iceberg. The problem is, instead of trying to…
While Tyson Foods says it’s “feeding you like family,” we recently learned that it and the rest of America’s Big Meat members sometimes need a…
Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District is home to over 18,000 farms, and as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, most of them are in a crisis. N…
I have been told nearly all of my life that I shouldn’t talk politics. It’s ugly business, this political talk. It’s impolite, distasteful, ar…
For over a month now, nearly anyone who can lift a fork has asked what the “new normal” in American agriculture will be after COVID-19 loosens…
Before we take the next unsteady step into a very different future, let’s make sure it’s a step up the ladder and not a step off the plank.
From social media threads to the daily news to overheard conversations in the grocery store, it is clear that many Americans are worried. For …
One reason — there were others — for my departure from farm magazine writing was laughter. Let me explain.
Over the past month, Minnesota and our country overall have been focusing on two co-occurring crises: the COVID-19 public health emergency and…
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In tough times, I sometimes think about my all-time favorite movies. Lately, I’ve been thinking about Smokey and the Bandit. The theme song pa…
No one could foresee a crippling global pandemic.
There’s a brittle beauty to this year’s spring. Amid the swaying daffodils, cotton clouds, and already roaring tractors and dust-shaking plant…
Wisconsin Farmers Union has received a number of inquiries from concerned consumers along the lines of, “Can’t farmers do something with the m…
Coronavirus, a farmer in a recent news story noted, “is the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Despite overwhelming evidence from literally every corner of the world, a farmer friend recently related to me that three — not one, not two, …
We speak for family dairy farmers in Wisconsin who have had a very rough four years — low prices for milk and other commodities, high supply p…
My father wasn’t a stoic. Instead, his temperament was one of acceptance. He simply accepted the fact that he wasn’t in complete control of mo…
February is a paradox. Leap Year or not, it’s the shortest month of the year, yet it always feels like the longest month of winter. Endless gr…
Citizens throughout the state subject to the abuses of the industrial farm model, known as CAFOs, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, w…
In just one, unwelcome week in America, the coronavirus drained $3.6 trillion from the stock market, clipped Apple shareholders for $220 billi…
Before a bill becomes a law, a process exists to ensure policymakers develop the most effective policy proposal, and with good reason. Decisio…
If you’re a farmer or rancher, you might be in for a bad day when you open your Monday morning email and five of the six headlines sent by an …
Geography isn’t static. Rivers change course, mountains erode, and islands disappear under rising seas.