Hogs - General

Top Producer Next Gen Award

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 21:32:11 GMT

The Top Producer Next Gen Award (formerly Tomorrow’s Top Producer Horizon Award) will be given to a grower under the age of 40, who demonstrates excellence in the business of farming, including:

Marketing
Farm finance
Family and employee relations
Technology
Environmental stewardship

Entrants are judged on entrepreneurial originality (50%), financial and business progress (30%) and industry or community leadership (20%).

Any farmer, rancher or partnership that gets at least half of their income from farming and farm-related ventures may apply.

The winner’s prizes include:

A trip for two including hotel accommodations and a flat travel reimbursement stipend to attend the 2027 Top Producer Summit (Feb.15-17, 2027 in Nashville, TN)
Additional prizes provided by award sponsor(s)

Deadline: Sept. 1, 2026

For questions, contact meckelkamp@farmjournal.com.

Click here to download the Next Gen Award Application

Read about the 2026 winner, Tim Nuss, Lodi, Calif.
Read about the 2025 winner, Dalton Dilldine, Half Moon, Ark.
Read about the 2024 winner, Hallie Shoffner, Newport, Ark.
Read about the 2023 winner, Trey Wasserburger, North Platte, Neb.
Read about the 2022 winner, Brendan and Elaine Martin, Mt. Solon, Va.
Read about the 2021 winner, Matt Splitter, Lyons, Kan.
Read about the 2020 winner, Chase Dewitz, Steele, N.D.
Read about the 2019 winner, Tony Schwarck of Riceville, Iowa
Read about the 2018 winner, Maggie Holub of Scribner, Neb.
Read about the 2017 winner, Cody Goodknight of Chattanooga, Okla.
Read about the 2016 winner, Chris Noble of Pavilion, N.Y.
Read about the 2015 winner, Matt Sims of State Line, Ind.
Read about the 2014 winner, Jeremy Weaver of Needham, Ind.
Read about the 2013 winner, Joanna Carraway of Murray, Ky.
Read about the 2012 winner, Michael Daniels of Salem, Wis.

Solar Panel Plague or Progress? Controversy Explodes as Farmland Disappears

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:40:39 GMT

Roughly 2,200 acres of prime farmland is vanishing under a blue blanket of glass, plastic, aluminum, and silicon in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. The disappearing act, increasingly common in rural America, is a sweet source of income for some farmers, but a bitter pill for many adjoining producers and landowners.

“Giant solar panels mean prime farmland gone forever and the ruin of rural life, not to mention a potential environmental mess,” says Kate Smit, whose farm sits close to the proposed solar facility.

Smit’s property will be the next-door recipient of 461,000 solar panels strung in 5,400 rows, much of it surrounded by 7’-high fencing.

Bill Peter, a homeowner adjacent to the incoming facility and former longtime employee of Liberty Farms, the same operation that leased the acres for a solar transformation, is opposed to the installation: “Don’t insult me by calling it a ‘solar farm.’ I’m not fooled. What’s happening is sick, and whether you live in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, or any other state, it’s coming to your backyard. Today here and tomorrow everywhere.”

Peter was fired by Liberty Farms on March 27, he claims, as a direct outcome of his opposition to the solar lease. “I don’t agree with the ‘tiny percent of overall farmland’ excuse,” he adds. “This is one of the saddest things I’ve seen in American agriculture in my lifetime. It ends with glass and metal covering millions of acres.”

Is Peter correct? How many solar acres are planned: 10 million by 2030? 20 million by 2040? Less? More?

Eyesore or Green Beauty?
Standing at the edge of her 97 acres of grain outside Richland Township, Kate Smit sweeps an arm toward the horizon. She soon will be surrounded by a sea of solar panels. Her property almost rubs nearby Liberty Farms—which leased 2,268 prime acres to Consumers Energy, the second largest electric utility in Michigan, for a solar facility with construction and operation scheduled in 2026.

Proposed coverage of the 2,268-acre solar panel site in Richland Township.

(Image by Consumers Energy)

“Our family farm dates back 100 years and now my kids will inherit our fields beside a sprawling, industrial mess,” Smit describes. “We’re an example of what’s going on all over Michigan and the U.S.”

(The Liberty Farms solar installation is not a done deal. The Richland Township planning commission has not yet approved Consumer Energy’s application.)

“Our area in Richland has gorgeous nature with abundant deer, ospreys, bald eagles, cranes, and you name it. We’re also a wonderful agriculture community, and it’s all the bigger shame because prime farmland is what they’re using for this solar project.”

According to a release, Consumers Energy “expects the Project to be in service for at least 35 years. Consumers Energy has worked diligently with nearby landowners and residents to minimize Project impacts on the surrounding community.”

“Are you kidding me? That farmland is lost way past 35 years or 50 years, or whatever ridiculous number they throw out,” Smit says. “No one wants solar panels here, and Consumers knows that. Our community is fighting this tooth and nail. Consumers came here hush-hush, did deals with MDOT, and suddenly our landscape is permanently destroyed.”

(Consumers Energy declined Agweb interview requests regarding the Richland solar installation.)

“We want to stall Consumers’ solar project until we can get a bill passed in our state senate to where townships and counties have to vote if a solar panel company wants in,” Smit continues.

Solar lease rates for agriculture land are significantly high.

(Graph by AFBF)

Two miles from Smit, Bill Peter, 70, who sits on the Richland Township board as a trustee, lives down a mile-and-a-half road dotted with seven homes. “I’m about to get circled by solar panels,” he says. “Literally, Consumers Energy is putting panels all the way around. They’ll take out the tillable ground and replace it with glass.”

Ironically, until March 2026, Peter was employed at Liberty Farms, the new landlord of Consumers Energy. “I’m not afraid to tell the truth and they fired me for it. That’s their choice,” he emphasizes. “I’m not sitting quietly while 450,000 solar panels permanently replace the best farm soil around.”

Generally, solar panels are made of 76% glass, 10% plastic, 8% aluminum, 5% silicon, and 1% copper.

“There’s nothing green about this green energy,” Peter contends. “They want to put glass, steel, aluminum, and plastic on top of a natural watershed area, and completely cut the ground off from photosynthesis, and then tell you it’s environmentally safe for 50 years, and won’t hurt the soil with contamination? What happens when a tornado or natural disaster tosses grinds all these panels to particles?”

“We’re all tired of this renewable energy talk,” he adds. “It funnels to tax dollars and tax breaks, and backroom deals and mandates. This Richland installation is rumored to be a $50-plus million contract, ultimately paid for by us in one way or another.”

“Wake up,” Smit echoes. “No matter where you’re at in the U.S., the land beside you or the land in your community could be next. How many panels will they put in if they can get away with it?”

Battle of the Pens
In 2021, President Biden (Executive Order 14057 ) mandated that the federal government reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. A massive solar push was included in the plan. How much farmland was needed to reach the net-zero goal? Estimates ranged from 10 million to 26 million acres, with upper end projections of 50 million.

“We’re supposed to say nothing while solar panels and data centers explode, and we’re told about the wonders of green, renewable energy,” says Smit.

(Photo by iStock)

However, in 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14148 , revoking Biden’s mandate.

In 2024-2025, solar infrastructure covered approximately 1 million-plus acres of farmland, with roughly half of the acreage directly on cropland. Overall, the U.S. contains almost 880 million acres of farmland.

“It’s not that complicated to me,” says Ed Yelton, a cattle producer in Dearborn County , Indiana. “They’ll build as many as they can get away with. If you think it’s not a big deal because they’re only on a fraction of total farmland, wait till one pops up beside you. Who in the hell wants to see the monstrosity?”

“And if a different presidential administration comes in, they might pick up a pen and sign another executive order and we’ll be at 50 million acres before you know it. Let me be direct: Whatever number the government pushes, that tells me they want far, far more.”

A mile from Yelton’s pastures, Linea Energy has a lease on 1,200 acres of planned solar panels. “It’s beautiful farmland, or was,” Yelton says.

Prime agricultural land is popular for solar installations, partially because it’s often open, dry, and relatively flat. Construction costs for solar conversion on farmland are generally lower than on other types of ground.

The pressure from solar installations and data centers on rural landowners and communities is just beginning, Kate Smit says.

(Graph by AFBF)

“The energy people slipped in here and signed leases with people without nobody knowing it. These are the same people that tell you that solar isn’t permanent while they’re hauling in glass, fencing, and concrete. This is same story you see in North Carolina, New York, Kentucky, Oklahoma—it’s all over the place.”

“We’re pressuring our zoning board to do something,” Yelton exclaims. “That might be the solution in the future: Only allow solar panel installation beside the homes and properties of county officials and board members. Hell, that might sincerely stop some of this.”

Private Land v Public Choice?
Whose ox is gored? When millions of dollars in lease contracts are at stake, how does the right to use private land as a property owner sees fit weigh into the solar equation? Simply, solar pays tremendously well compared with corn, cotton, rice, or soybeans.

“It’s a tough one,” Yelton admits. “I believe a person should be able to do with their land whatever they want, but solar is something else. If you’re the next to get panels beside your land or house, you’ll be sick. The only solution to panels and AI data centers is to let a community decide.”

“The power companies and the government all know this is wrong. That’s why they call them ‘solar farms.’ They use words to trick and influence the public, but that’s an insult to anyone in agriculture. I’m sticking with common sense: Once you put glass, aluminum, and plastic all over a field, that’s no longer a farm.”

Well and Good
As of 2024, American Farm Bureau Federation estimates over 1.25 million acres of farmland has been covered by solar installations:

The ERS (Economic Research Service, USDA) approximates solar’s footprint as of 2020 at 336,000 acres of rural land based on the total solar production capacity installed in U.S. Census designated rural areas. As solar capacity has more than doubled since 2020 and is increasingly coming from utility-scale solar, this estimate is woefully out-of-date. Using SIEA’s current estimate of 200 GW of installed solar capacity, ERS’s estimate of 7.5 acres used per MW of production, and AFT’s estimate that 83% of solar installations are on farmland, we roughly estimate that 1.25 million acres of farmland have been converted for use in solar production. While that may be a startlingly high number to some, it would represent 0.14% of the 879 million acres of farmland in the United States.

“No matter where you’re at in the U.S., the land beside you or the land in your community could be next,” says Smit. “How many panels will they put in if they can get away with it?”

(Photo by iStock)

Whether eyesore and erasure, or energy godsend and income windfall, the pressure from solar installations and data centers on rural landowners and communities is just beginning, Kate Smit says.

“We’re supposed to say nothing while solar panels and data centers explode, and we’re told about the wonders of green, renewable energy,” she concludes. “If it’s all so well and good, then who wants one outside your bedroom window?”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

How One Mississippi Farmer Turned Data Into $330K in Fertilizer Savings

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 20:19:18 GMT

As the planter rolls across a Mississippi Delta field, row by row, it’s making split-second decisions on how much fertilizer to apply, where to apply it and where to apply nothing at all — a task that’s doesn’t require any second-guessing.

The decisions aren’t happening by instinct nor by habit. The planting and fertilizer decisions on this farm are all driven by data.

For Adron Belk, who farms in the Delta’s rich soils of Sunflower County, that shift — from gut feel to data-driven execution — isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about survival in a tight-margin environment, and ultimately, about profitability.

“This whole field, see how it’s calling for 8 gallons right there? It tells it the target. We’re looking for 8 gallons of fertilizer, and it’s putting out real close to 8 gallons,” Belk says as he’s making a planting pass through the field. “There’s areas in the field where it calls for none. So where it calls for none, it actually cuts it off on its own.”

On this farm, data doesn’t sit in a spreadsheet. It moves. It acts. It makes decisions in real time as equipment moves across the field.
That level of precision means decisions aren’t just guided by data, but automated with every pass.

“Where our phosphorus and zinc levels are low, the starter system turns on and it applies it. And where the phosphorus and zinc levels are adequate, it cuts it all and don’t put anything,” he says.

A Farm That Functions Like a Test Plot

Every acre Belk farms doubles as a testing ground. Every pass is an experiment. Every season is another opportunity to learn something new.

That mindset even extends to what he plants.

“I have never planted cotton on my own. My dad was a cotton farmer until 2007, when he quit growing cotton. We’re going to plant just a little bit this year though, about 130 acres. We’re going to get it custom picked. We’re just really planting the cotton to get a little bit of experience with it on a very, very small amount of acres. I believe it’s the tool I need to have in my toolbox for the future. And right now, I don’t have that tool,” he says.

At a time when many farmers are moving away from cotton, Belk is moving toward it.

“Some would say I’m just a glutton for punishment, I guess,” Belk says as he laughs.

A First Generation Farmer

Belk’s approach to farming didn’t come from following a playbook. In fact, it started with the opposite.

“I’m a first generation/second generation farmer,” he says. “My dad does farm, but we do not farm together.”

That decision for Belk to farm on his own was intentional from the start.

“My dad came through the 1980s. He just had a passion for it — worked really hard, started off with with almost nothing,” Belk explains. “And he did really well, and he knew all the lessons that he had to learn from being on his own, and mainly from messing stuff up on his own and learning. He knew how valuable that was. And he just really wanted us to always enjoy each other’s company and never have work come in between us or our family.”

So when Belk wanted to farm, his father gave him guidance — but not a safety net.

“He said, ‘I’ll give you all the advice you want,’ but he said it’s going to be beneficial if you do it on your own,” Belk remembers.

Belk took that to heart, starting his own farming operation by renting a few hundred acres while still in college. And like many young farmers, he learned by trial and error.

“I have made a lot of mistakes, and if I would have been farming with my dad, I probably wouldn’t have learned from those mistakes. I probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make them to learn on my own,” Belk says. “The mistakes I’ve made have taught me more than the things that I’ve done right, for sure.”

No Silver Bullet — Just Small Gains

While Belk admits he’s learned the hard way and made plenty of mistakes, in an industry often searching for big breakthroughs, Belk focuses on incremental wins.

“I think in farming, we’re all looking for that silver bullet that is going to get you 15, 20 bushels more per acre. But most of those big yield gains like that have already been discovered or have already been done, and so it’s very hard to find those silver bullets,” Belk says. “So, we are really tailoring our farm to finding the 2-, the 3-, the 5-bushel [per acre] differences,” he says.

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That mindset is what led him deeper into data.

“We started really trying to look at data. And when we first started, I thought we were doing it right. I thought were interpreting things the right way. And then realized that we really needed to be going a little deeper,” he says.

Data Into Decisions

That realization led Belk to work with Chad Swindoll, founder of J19 Agriculture, to bring a more advanced level of analysis to the farm.

“He is very honed in on how to analyze data. And working with him has really brought a whole new perspective to ‘Not only now that we have this data, how do we analyze it? And then once we analyze, what do we do with it?’” he says.

For Swindoll, that last question — What do you do with it? — is where many farms fall short.

“There’s lack of implementation on the farm,” Swindoll explains. “There’s a lot of technology that’s available. I mean, we’re with the United States. We’re a very sophisticated production agriculture, but the execution and implementation piece on taking the information that the technology will provide — and then using it to really make a decision beyond just something that looks cool or sounds cool — but really driving change on the farm, that’s very lacking,” he says.

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When Swindoll started working with Belk, he quickly realized Belk is different in not only the way he farms, but how he thinks about farming. What sets Belk apart, Swindoll says, is his willingness to act.

“He does a very good job of collecting the things that we need to make those decisions, and then if if the information is telling us we need this or that, he does,” Swindoll says.

Swindoll says Belk is a good executive, and that ability to not only know what needs to be done, but then implement it, is something that’s fueling Belk’s success.

“That’s something that I try to emphasize and talk about a lot in our industry and with my customers and non-customers. The farmer is the CEO, and an executive’s job is to make decisions,” Swindoll says. “And so we can get hung on a fence and make no progress. At some point, you have to move. And to be a good executive, it goes back to having the right pieces of information and the willingness to act.”

Swindoll says it also takes courage to do something different than what everybody else is doing.

“It’s not easy, because some of the things that we’ve found over the years are contrary to what we have been taught or told,” he says.

A $330,000 Turning Point

That willingness to trust the data — and act on it — led to one of the biggest financial shifts on the farm.

“About three or four years ago, we started really letting the data, we started analyzing the data and looking at it. And what we started seeing is, we were spending a lot of this money on fertilizer, and we didn’t really know if we’re getting a return out of it,” Belk says.

The result was a major change in how fertilizer was applied and how much was used.

“Three years ago, we cut about $330,000 out of our fertilizer budget that I would not have done without good sound data that we trusted,” Belk says. “Now, it took me a little while to get to that, to understand it. Then having J19 really run statistical data and showing us what was real and what was not. When you realize you cut $330,000 out of a fertilizer budget, and you still made the equivalent yields, that’s pretty eye-opening,” he says.

Finding Yield in the Details

While something like fertilizer savings have added major cost-savings to their farm, sometimes, the biggest gains come from the smallest adjustments. That includes what the data told them about tire pressure.

“Because we grow everything in the Delta on a raised bed, in between the tires it really pinches that row. We started noticing where we would run 20 lb. of air where the tire would kind of squat, it was pinching the row more, and we were getting more compaction under the tractor,” Belk says. “In some cases, it was costing anywhere from 10 to 17 bushels of yield on the rows just up under the tractor,” he says.

That prompted Belk to boost tire pressure to 30 lb. or air.

Rethinking the Playbook

On Belk’s farm, the field itself has become the ultimate teacher.

“That field is our textbook,” Swindoll says. “That’s kind of how we do this. If you read something in a book and it doesn’t line up, I think it was William Albrecht who said, ‘If you observe nature, and the textbook doesn’t agree, then you throw the textbook away.’ And we’ve had to do that in some cases.”

That philosophy carries through every decision Belk makes.

“Actually, my dad always told me, ‘Never tell somebody who asks you why you’re doing something, to tell them because your daddy did it.’ You know times change. I mean, we’re in a whole different world right now than we were even 5 years ago, especially 10 years ago. And so I feel like agriculture is changing very fast. I feel like we’ve got to learn to adapt and adopt really fast. Doing all this stuff has allowed us to stay kind of current with the changes in agriculture. It’s allowed us stay current with new products, with new things,” he says.

The New Equation for Farming

Farming has always involved risk. Whether it’s weather, markets or input costs, none of it is guaranteed.

But on this Mississippi Delta farm, the approach to risk is changing. It’s no longer just about taking chances. It’s about measuring them. Testing them. Understanding them. And ultimately, deciding which ones are worth it.

Because in today’s agriculture, that difference between guessing and knowing, may be what separates farmers who keep up from those who get ahead.

Beyond the Blame Game: Navigate the Mental Toll of Modern Ag

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:55:11 GMT

When market pressures mount, it is easy to succumb to the “blame game.” Yet, the most resilient operations are those that anchor themselves in a mission larger than the current balance sheet. For leaders like James Burgum and Lamar Steiger, coping with stress isn’t just about managing the books, it’s about managing the mindset.

The Many Hats of the Modern Producer

James Burgum, CEO of The Arthur Companies, believes the first step in managing stress is acknowledging the sheer weight of the roles farmers play.

“One of the things I did when I stepped into my role is an exercise where I said to our team, ‘Help me understand all the hats on the farm – farmworker, agronomist, grain merchandiser, mechanic, truck driver, snow removal lead, banker, economist,’” Burgum said during a discussion at Top Producer Summit. “You start to go down the list, and its dozens and dozens of roles that an individual farmer plays.”

By recognizing the complexity of these roles, Burgum argues that producers can move toward servant leadership—prioritizing the team’s needs.

“There are things that are much more important and much bigger than the challenges we’re wrestling with on the job every day,” Burgum says. “It’s hard to juggle all the balls, but at the end of the day, we want everyone on our team to make sure they get home at night and be there for their families.”

Choosing Abundance Over Scarcity

Lamar Steiger, owner of The 808 Ranch, learned about stress through the lens of his father, a man who seemed to face every possible setback: health crises, financial downturns and missed market peaks.

The farm struggled during times of high interest rates in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s and his father was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, Guillain-Barre, that left him paralyzed for six months.

Still, his dad always had an attitude of abundance, not scarcity, Steiger says.

“With my brothers holding other obligations, I was left to milk the cows,” Steiger says. “We were so far behind, and all my dad would say is, ‘It could be worse.’”

Breaking the Silence

Eventually, his family lost the dairy. After hitting rock bottom and battling depression , Steiger realized that the “tough it out” mentality was a liability, not an asset.

“When the stresses pile up, you’ve got to find help,” Steiger says. “I wasn’t ‘man enough’ to step up and say, ‘Hey, something’s wrong here.’ I should have said, ‘Time out—this is not working.’”

Steiger’s advice for those feeling the weight of the current market is simple: Find your “who.” Whether it is a spouse, a neighbor or a professional, talking through the stress is the only way to separate your self-worth from the volatility of the markets.

“In agriculture, we’re so reliant on outside forces,” Steiger says. “You’ve got to have an attitude that it’s going to work out. As my Dad would say, ‘Well, we never missed a meal.’ That was his bottom line for ‘It’s okay.’”

From Constraints to Catalysts: How Ag Leaders Turn Hardships into Strategy

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:19:02 GMT

In an industry defined by “one-year-at-a-time” cycles, the greatest threat to a growing operation isn’t just a market downturn—it’s the inertia that comes with size. Farm Journal CEO Prescott Shibles argues that long-term survival requires a rare blend of faith and agility. To maintain an entrepreneurial mindset, leaders must lean into “conviction” as the core of a strategy that survives the lows.

Here is how four industry leaders are turning today’s constraints into tomorrow’s differentiators.

1. Build when times are hard.

When Brent Smith, president and CEO of NewLeaf Symbiotics, joined the company in 2023, the grain market was entering a significant down cycle. While some saw a risky time to lead a startup, he saw an opportunity.

“I learned in my first startup that the best time to build a business is in hard times,” Smith said said during a discussion at Top Producer Summit. “Because if you can’t withstand tough times, you’re not going to survive long term.”

For Smith, survival meant doubling down on the company’s core: science. Despite the pressure to cut costs, NewLeaf continues to spend half of its operating expenses on science.

“It would be very easy to peel that back,” he admits. “But we focused on projects that make the most impact the quickest, while keeping an eye on the long-term innovation in our pipeline.”

2. Control what you can control.

Farmers face the ultimate constraint every year: the weather. Scott Beck, president of Beck’s Hybrids, recalls the planting crisis of 2019 when constant rains kept tractors out of the fields well into May.

“I was concerned for our customers not being able to plant, but also for us not being able to plant our seed for the next year,” Beck says. “There was nothing that we could do to control the weather, but we could control how we interacted with our customers.”

Rather than retreating, the Beck’s team focused on transparency and empathy, using video series to connect with farmers and even forming small groups for prayer and support. Ultimately, they wanted farmers to know they cared and were there to support them however they could.

Despite the financial reality of what could happen if farmers didn’t plant and returned seed, Beck’s decided their course of action would not include employee layoffs. Instead, they prepared to sell land to protect their people.

“Fortunately, the weather broke and everybody was able to get planted,” he says. “Then the second miracle happened. We had the second warmest September on record, and that’s what brought the crop through to enable 2019 to not turn out as bad as it started.”

3. Turn disadvantages into advantages.

In 2014, Lamar Steiger, owner of The 808 Ranch, was tasked with a monumental challenge: helping Walmart reinvent its beef supply chain. At the time, the retail giant was at a disadvantage, forced to accept whatever the major meatpackers provided.

Steiger’s strategy was to turn that lack of control into a new kind of independence.

“I convinced the Walmart team to go around the traditional supply chain,” Steiger says. Today, Walmart sources 28% of its beef from its own “farm-to-table” supply chain.

There’s no question that decision was really good for Walmart. But Steiger says it was also really good for him personally.

“It reminded me that no matter how big you are, there are always challenges,” he says.

4. Create “white space” for the future.

When the day-to-day tasks of an operation become overwhelming, long-term strategy is often the first thing to go. James Burgum, CEO of The Arthur Companies, believes leaders must intentionally carve out “white space” for their teams.

“It’s important to find ways where people can actually spend their time working on the business, not just in the business,” he says.

By protecting time for team members to execute ideas that are three to five years out, Burgum manages the tension between short-term urgency and long-term viability.

“It’s hard to step away from the daily fires you’ll face in your operation, but it’s important,” he adds. “How we manage that tension of short term and long term is creating that white space and making sure that we consciously work on the business.

The Long Game

Ultimately, resilience in agriculture is about knowing when to push and when to pivot.

“You have to know when to put the gas down, and you need to know when to tap the brake,” Smith says. “And regardless of what you are doing, you need to stay focused on what you’re doing.”

Whether it is investing in science during a downturn or choosing customer empathy over the bottom line, these leaders say constraints don’t have to be roadblocks; they can be the very catalysts that drive an operation forward.

Finding Color Again: A Story of Love, Loss and Healing

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 19:38:27 GMT

It’s true that the pork industry is driven by data and science, but it’s ultimately built on the strength of the people who are in it. Sometimes that strength arises out of the darkest times of our lives. Dan Hamilton, senior director for product performance in the Americas for PIC, experienced a profound tragedy in 2005.

When Hamilton was a student at the University of Illinois, he met Rachel – a dynamic powerhouse who captured his heart quickly. Always the life of the conversation, she made people laugh and brought joy to everyone she was around, he says.

“We couldn’t wait to start our storybook life together,” Hamilton says. “We were young and of the mindset that you set a goal and achieve it. Then, you just keep doing that. We both had successful careers, bought our first house, and decided it was time to have a baby.”

He will never forget the morning when it was time to go to the hospital after nine months of waiting.

“We had the bag packed in the car like you’re supposed to, and the nursery was ready,” he recalls. “We went to the hospital and they took Rachel back. I went with her and they said, ‘You know, her blood pressure is a little bit variable. Why don’t you step out?’”

They told him they were going to get her blood pressure under control before moving on to the next step of the delivery process.

“It wasn’t a few minutes later that a lot of sirens started going off, and they were having some sort of a code event,” Hamilton says. “I wasn’t sure if it was her or what it was, because they had me in the waiting room with no direction. The next thing I know, the doctors were approaching me with a very grim face.”

They sat him down and explained that Rachel died in the delivery room that morning from either an amniotic or pulmonary embolism. A rare, one-in-a-million event, there was nothing the doctors could do to save his wife. In that very same moment, he found out he was the father of a baby girl, Kaitlyn.

Stunned, Hamilton didn’t know what to do next. The doctors were talking about the duress Kaitlyn endured while his heart smashed into pieces.

Black-and-White Memories

Because Kaitlyn experienced a lack of oxygen for a period of time, doctors whisked her off to the neonatal intensive care unit for the first four days of her life to stabilize her respiratory tract.

“I don’t think any dad goes into the hospital thinking he will leave a single father,” Hamilton says. “Not only was I grieving the loss of Rachel, but the stress of how I was going to care for Kaitlyn on my own put me to the limit.”

An outpouring of support from family and friends surrounded him at that moment.

“It’s unfortunate that it takes a traumatic event to realize how many people in the world care,” Hamilton says. “And that continued for years afterward. My parents were really close and they came and spent a lot of time with me. Rachel’s mother had just retired, so she was able to help me with Kaitlyn during the day. She was a godsend for sure. Friends would come on nights or weekends and give me a break when needed.”

When he looks back, he sees that time of his life in black and white.

“Memories are usually in color,” he says. “But that first year was definitely in black and white for me.”

Although watching each step of Kaitlyn’s development was the greatest gift, he says not having Rachel to share it with him was hard. He constantly questioned how he was going to be able to raise a young lady.

“Rachel would have been so good at this,” he says. “I asked a lot of questions. Why did this happen? Why was she taken away from me?”

He learned to stop asking those questions.

“You may never find reason with those,” he says. “Focus on the positive and the good things around you. Be grateful for the people that support you, because that is what God is sending you – the help, support and strength to move forward.”

Be in the Moment

When you’ve gone through a trauma like this, Hamilton says it’s important to take time to heal and reflect.

“My grief for Rachel will always be there,” he says. “I still tear up every time I think about it and it’s been 20-some years. I just want to encourage people walking through grief that someday you can reformulate your life and have positive experiences again. It may not feel like it at first, but there are good things ahead.”

And let people help you, Hamilton adds. People want to help, but don’t always know how to help. He believes letting people in allows both parties to process and that’s a good thing.

“One thing I’ve learned is to be in the moment,” he says.

Don’t let things get out of balance that shouldn’t get out of balance, he adds. For example, your job shouldn’t compromise your relationship with your family. That’s something he takes seriously.

Three years after Rachel’s death, he met his current wife, Carrie, and her daughter. Today they are raising three daughters. Kaitlyn is now a junior at the University of Illinois and doing amazing, he says.

“Looking back at what I went through, there’s always some guilt that I could have spent more time or done this or that,” Hamilton says. “Live your life so you don’t have those regrets as you go forward. You just never know when you’ll get that next chance.”

You can listen to more of Hamilton’s personal story of resilience on “The PORK Podcast” on YouTube or follow The PORK Podcast anywhere podcasts are found.

The Identity Trap: What You Do is Not Who You Are

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:56:51 GMT

I will never forget how helpless I felt on Jan. 24 when I watched my son stumble across the wrestling mat. He took two major blows to the head during a match – a sound I could hear from the top of the gym bleachers. As he struggled to orient himself, I felt like I was going to throw up.

In a matter of seconds, he was on his back convulsing with trainers at his side trying to take off his shoulder brace so he could breathe. Sweat poured off his body in a way no workout ever could have done.

I held my hand over my mouth and wailed, watching nearly 13 years of hard work, sacrifice and commitment get carried off the mat on a stretcher. I knew in my heart that this was not a “shake it off” moment as they raced him to the emergency room by ambulance.

By God’s grace, the X-ray of his neck was clear. He never lost consciousness. He answered his questions correctly. Minus the uncomfortable neck brace, within an hour, our son seemed a little drowsy, but normal. We were able to leave Loyola Hospital in Chicago later that day and made it home through the snow that night. With time and rest, he was expected to make a full recovery, but it just wasn’t enough time for his brain to heal to allow him to wrestle in his senior year state series starting a couple of days later.

As a parent, this was a pretty excruciating moment because for thousands of days, I watched this kid commit his whole heart to this sport – a three-time state qualifier who overcame a hip avulsion fracture suffered during his sophomore year during the state tournament, a car accident at the end of his junior season and a torn labrum in his shoulder just weeks after his senior season began. It seemed like all of that was enough. And yet the disappointment was not over.

If I can be honest, I’m angry. Not at anyone in particular, but I’m just angry at the way it played out for him. There is nothing worse than watching your kid hurt and not be able to fix it.

The following weekend of regionals was hard to sit through, though we absolutely wanted the best for his teammates. At church the next day, some friends we hadn’t seen in a while came up and talked to our son. I overheard him say, “Wrestling is something I do, it’s not who I am.”

Parallel Paths: From the Mat to the Ranch

Fast forward a few days to the Top Producer Summit where I listened to a powerful panel. Leaders of top companies in agriculture weighed in on a variety of thought-provoking topics, but one message stood out to me.

“All too often, we confuse what we do with who we are,” said Lamar Steiger with The 808 Ranch. “As farmers and ranchers, we are our job. It’s our identity. That was my problem as a young man.”

Steiger grew up on a dairy. High interest rates in the late 1970s made farming particularly challenging. When he was in his 20s, their family lost the dairy. After working so hard to make that operation work, Steiger took this as a deep personal failure.

“There was nothing I could do to save the dairy because outside forces were at hand. But it’s so hard for farmers and ranchers to separate that,” he said. “Looking back, I had depression for quite a while after that, but we didn’t talk about that then.”

When he was in his mid-30s, Steiger attempted suicide.

“I had to be removed totally from my working life and start completely over,” he shared. “I learned the hard way how to separate my identity from my role.”

Steiger said it wasn’t pretty, but he is grateful for how this time of his life changed him.

“When you come to the end of yourself, you look for something bigger and better. That’s worked out really good for me,” he said. “Being a rancher is cool to me, but it’s not who I am. I’m Lamar. I try my best and I fail. We have great successes and then we have some things that just don’t work out. But it’s not all my responsibility.”

There’s something so humbling about another person vulnerably sharing their story. We can learn so much from each other. All it takes is a willingness to share your story. Left unshared, our stories may only change us. But by sharing, we can help each other find our way through the very real burdens of life.

A Truth Worth Holding Onto

It’s easy to confuse your identity with what you do because it becomes such a big part of our lives. As another Shike kid closes one chapter and gets ready to start the next, I find myself confusing who I am with my role as a mom. I’m not sure what life looks like without Saturday wrestling tournaments and late nights posting photos of our wrestlers.

As I sat there at Top Producer Summit, I kept hearing my son’s voice in my head saying, “Wrestling is something I do, it’s not who I am.”

He’s only 17 and has a lot of life to live, but I’m grateful he recognizes this truth. I know there will be times when he will be tempted to measure his worth by his performance. But I believe when we get honest and share these stories, we can help one another avoid the mistake of confusing what we do with who we are.

Why Did Chicago Public Schools Ban Pork?

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 23:43:52 GMT

UPDATE: Josh Maschhoff, current past president of the Illinois Pork Producers Association, is traveling to Chicago on Feb. 26 to address the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education. He will be calling for a formal review of the district’s pork prohibition impacting 630 schools that currently cannot serve pork at breakfast or lunch.

Of the 350,000 free meals served daily at Chicago Public Schools (CPS) through the Community Eligibility Provision, none include pork. Despite being a staple in Chicago households, an “illusive” vote during a virtual COVID-era board meeting quietly removed this nutrient-dense protein from the menu.

So why did CPS ban pork? That’s a mystery the Illinois Pork Producers Association (IPPA) is trying to solve.

“We found out in February 2025, really by accident, there is an all-pork ban at all the Chicago Public Schools in our state,” says Jennifer Tirey, IPPA executive director.

IPPA sent Illinois public school food service directors a new resource from the National Pork Board designed to help public schools prepare nutritious, tasty pork dishes for large audiences of people.

“We received a response back from the food service director at CPS,” Tirey says. “It said, ‘Well, thank you for this resource. However, we have a ban on pork and we can’t serve pork – not for breakfast, not for lunch. None of our meals can ever have pork in it.’”

According to the CPS School Wellness Policy , all menu items must be “pork-free.”

A Cultural Disconnect

That means 325,305 students across 634 schools are not allowed to have pork as an offering despite efforts to accommodate other religious, ethnic and personal beliefs of Chicago students.

A high demographic of CPS is Hispanic and African American – approximately 85% or 265,124 students. According to 2024-2025 data, 47.3% are Latino/Hispanic, 34.2% are Black/African American and 11.3% are White. Pork consumption is high among these groups in Chicago, according to data compiled by Numerator, with 79.6% of Hispanic households and 75.8% of African American households regularly consuming fresh pork.

“Those families probably don’t even realize that something they hold so culturally close to them is no longer accessible to their kids,” Tirey notes. “It’s not fair that their children cannot access this valuable protein.”

A Missed Opportunity

CPS participates in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and receives USDA Foods, which are provided to school districts at reduced or no cost to help meet federal nutrition requirements. Section 32 and Pork Eligibility Pork products are included in the USDA Section 32 purchasing program, which allows USDA to procure surplus and domestically produced agricultural commodities

“The district is unable to accept or serve USDA-provided pork, and CPS forgoes access to a nutrient-dense, high-quality protein available through federal procurement,” Tirey says. “On a weekly basis, CPS misses out on approximately $5.51 million in federal reimbursements because roughly 39% of students skip lunch and 56% skip breakfast.”

One of the major reasons kids skip meals is because they don’t like what is being served, Tirey points out. At a time when inflation is causing everyone to pull back on spending, can CPS afford not to take advantage of these opportunities to provide a high-quality protein to students?

“CPS’ long-term debt is over $9 billion as of June 30, 2025,” Tirey says. “CPS’s short-term debt is $450 million on top of that.”

Allowing pork within CPS meal planning could improve program flexibility and align with federal procurement systems already designed to help districts manage costs, she adds.

“For example, most people think of sausage as pork sausage,” Tirey says. “By swapping out a pork sausage patty for a beef sausage patty at breakfast alone, it would save CPS $1.2 million over 180 days.”

Nutrient-Dense Protein

CPS dietitians indicated to IPPA through emails they were unaware of the original reasoning behind the pork ban. Although religious accommodation was suggested as a possible basis, there is no evidence in the record this was ever a consideration. CPS routinely offers multiple entrée options.

“We met with CPS nutrition leadership to share that pork is a high-quality, nutrient-dense protein that is culturally relevant to CPS students while being affordable and operationally feasible,” Tirey says. “Despite initial openness to discussion, CPS later declined to pursue any consideration of pork menu offerings due to the existing CPS policy.”

The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, issued in January by USDA and Health and Human Services, emphasize the importance of adequate daily protein intake and encouraging consumption of nutrient-dense protein foods as part of healthy dietary patterns.

“Updated guidance reflects growing consensus that higher protein intake supports child growth, muscle development, satiety and overall health,” she says. “The guidelines recognize a range of animal and plant protein sources, including red meat — as appropriate components of a balanced diet when prepared and served in nutrient-dense forms.”

Pork qualifies as a nutrient-dense protein because it provides essential nutrients such as high-quality complete protein, iron, zinc and Vitamin B, including B12. It also provides choline, which is important for brain development in school-aged children.

According to a research article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , high relative energy requirements for children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 years signify micronutrient density needs are below mean global nutrient density needs across all life stages for folate, zinc, and vitamins A and B12, though calcium density needs remain high to support skeletal growth. Entering puberty, adolescent girls ages 10 to 19 also show increased iron density needs (11% higher than the global mean).

Chicago Families Deserve a Choice

“Families should get to decide what works for their kids,” Tirey says. “We are asking for a policy review focused on choice and inclusion. Menus should reflect many cultures and preferences. Pork is a nutrient-dense protein option that is affordable and adds to a well-balanced meal that works within a school’s budget.”

IPPA is requesting the following action from the CPS Board:

Initiate a formal review of the Local School Wellness Policy provision prohibiting pork.
Direct staff to identify the original rationale and supporting documentation for the ban.
Consider input from nutrition experts, food service partners and community stakeholders.
Evaluate whether pilot programs or limited menu testing are appropriate.

What do parents want from school meals? According to Tirey, a mother of two, it starts with enough protein to keep kids full and focused and nutrients that support energy and learning. As a parent, she desires affordable options that don’t sacrifice quality. Most importantly, she wants meals kids will actually eat.

“Pork provides high-quality protein that helps kids stay full longer,” Tirey says. “Pork provides iron and B12 support brain development and energy, in addition to thiamin that is essential for growth and metabolism. In a time when school food budgets are stretched, pork provides an affordable option that doesn’t sacrifice nutrition.”

Senator Celina Villanueva (D-Chicago), a former CPS student, is sponsoring SR 625 calling for CPS to review the ban along with Rep. Sonya Harper (D-Chicago), House Ag Chairwoman, who is sponsoring HR 625 . Both have districts that represent CPS.

The legislators say a policy review is warranted for five reasons: alignment with current nutrition science; cultural inclusion and equity; student choice and accommodation; fiscal responsibility and transparency; and governance.

(Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash)

Inconclusive FOIA Requests

Since February 2025, IPPA has submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to CPS to find out why this policy was implemented. CPS declined to comment to Farm Journal’s PORK’s request for a response.

“The vote was made during a virtual board meeting, and the update to the wellness policy was voted on consent calendar,” Tirey explains. “There was no verbal discussion during that board meeting about that particular change. To be quite honest, a lot of the comments were about COVID and how to get students back to school. But in the middle of all that, this ban was implemented.”

The facts don’t add up. Even CPS board members haven’t been able to explain why there is a ban on pork, she says. Both FOIA requests filed with CPS came back with inconclusive findings.

“The last thing we want to do is approach an issue without having all the facts,” Tirey says. “What we are really hoping to find out is how we got to this point. At this juncture, we are working with the Illinois Attorney General’s office to help narrow our focus even further, because the second FOIA response said that the responses were too many for them to share because of the number of keywords.”

On Feb. 4, Tirey sent an email to every CPS Board of Education member regarding CPS’s policy that prohibits all pork products in school meals. Although IPPA was not selected through the lottery system to speak at the January board meeting, Tirey wanted to make sure the board was “aware of our position and concerns.” IPPA’s position statement can be found here on the CPS website.

IPPA will register again for the Feb. 26 meeting, of which five are in the lottery.

“We haven’t solved the issue yet,” Tirey says. “But I’m a pretty driven individual and I’m going to keep working until we get pork back on the menu in Chicago Public Schools.”

Trump, Zeldin Announce 'Largest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History'

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 21:45:12 GMT

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history” alongside President Trump in the White House today.

EPA is eliminating both the 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond. The action also eliminates all off-cycle credits, including for the start-stop feature.

President Trump’s Day 1 Executive Order 14154 “Unleashing American Energy” tasked EPA with submitting recommendations on the legality and continuing applicability of this finding in the first 30 days of this term. On March 12, 2025, Zeldin announced that the agency was kicking off a formal reconsideration of the finding and resulting regulations. Zeldin formally announced the agency’s proposal to reconsider these actions on July 29, 2025.

“EPA’s historic move restores consumer choice, makes more affordable vehicles available for American families, and decreases the cost of living on all products by lowering the cost of trucks,” EPA said in a release .

Former President Barack Obama commented on X that because of the endangerment finding: “we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.”

Today, the Trump administration repealed the endangerment finding: the ruling that served as the basis for limits on tailpipe emissions and power plant rules. Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can…
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 12, 2026

Saving Taxpayer Dollars
The administration says the final rule will save American taxpayers over $1.3 trillion in regulations, by removing the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify and comply with federal GHG emission standards for motor vehicles, and repeals associated compliance programs, credit provisions, and reporting obligations that exist solely to support the vehicle GHG regulatory regime.

“Lee is also working on cleaning up the horrible situation with regard to farm equipment,” President Trump said. “You could use John Deere as an example and other companies where tractors are unbelievably expensive and don’t work as well because of all of the environmental nonsense that was put on them. But the people are going to be a beneficiary because the equipment is going to be a lot less expensive and most importantly it’s going to work much better.”

This major deregulatory process included ‘substantial public input and robust analysis’ of the law following the Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and West Virginia v. EPA. The agency held an extended 52-day public comment period, which included four days of virtual public hearings where more than 600 individuals testified. EPA received about 572,000 public comments on the proposed rule and made substantial updates to the final rule in response to comments.

“The Endangerment Finding has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars in hidden costs for Americans,” Zeldin said in a release. “Referred to by some as the ‘Holy Grail’ of the ‘climate change religion,’ the Endangerment Finding is now eliminated. The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law, returning commonsense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans and advancing the American Dream.”

Affordable vehicle ownership is essential to the American Dream and a primary driver of economic mobility out of poverty in the U.S., the Agency explained. This action will result in average cost savings of over $2,400 per vehicle.

“As EPA Administrator, I am proud to deliver the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history on behalf of American taxpayers and consumers,” Zeldin said. “As an added bonus, the off-cycle credit for the almost universally despised start-stop feature on vehicles has been removed.”

What Does This Mean for the Future?
Climate scientists say the overturning of the endangerment finding undermines decades of scientific progress and damages the credibility of U.S. institutions tasked with protecting the environment, the Associated Press reports. Scientists point out that rising global temperatures — the hottest years on record have all occurred since 2009 — cause more extreme weather that endangers people and causes billions of dollars in damage from more frequent and severe heat waves, wildfires, droughts and catastrophic flooding from more-intense storms.

The EPA action repeals all GHG emissions standards for cars and trucks, but experts believe it could trigger a broader undoing of climate regulations for stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, AP reports.

David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told AP that this could prevent future administrations from proposing rules to address global warming because they would have to restart the scientific and legal process to establish a new endangerment finding, which could take years and face legal challenges.

A 2014 Repeat? Why This Meteorologist Sees 'Bumper Crop Potential' for 2026

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 17:37:03 GMT

The weather outlook for 2026 is one of “cautious optimism.” While there is less immediate concern compared to the start of 2025, Matt Reardon, senior atmospheric scientist for Nutrien Ag Solutions, says the “spring predictability horizon” remains a factor where conditions could still shift.

El Niño and La Niña are the two opposing phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. This cycle describes the fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

“That gives us some sense of where things might tilt weather-wise, particularly in winter,” Reardon says. “In summer, there are some correlations, too.”

For many U.S. farmers, El Niño is often welcomed because it can bring increased precipitation to major growing regions, though it can also cause flooding in some areas. Meanwhile, La Niña is frequently associated with increased drought risk in the Southern Plains and Mid-South, which can lead to yield-robbing conditions if the pattern persists into the summer.

“We tend to root for El Niño, particularly in North America, as it tends to be beneficial for our growing regions with a little more precipitation,” Reardon says. “But those correlations are very far from a home run. We’re talking just a slight lean in that direction.”

He says the forecast predicts fading out of La Niña pretty quickly in spring and heading toward an El Niño, potentially by summer.

What Can Farmers Expect This Spring?

“What I’m looking at as we head toward both spring planting then summertime heat and real drought risk in June and July is that one sea surface temperature is closer to home in the Northeast Pacific,” he says. “We found, especially this decade, that as those sea surface temperatures go, our season tends to go.”

Last year, with all the drought concerns going into 2025 growing season, water temperatures in the Northeast Pacific stayed warm – actually record warm.

“We had a great growing season for the most part with plenty of moisture, if not too much, in some areas,” Reardon says. “In 2023, those water temperatures stayed a little bit cooler, and we had more drought risk.”

Reardon admits he’s learned that “cautious optimism about where things are headed” is often helpful when determining weather expectations.

As he looks toward 2026, he sees a similar start to 2014, which was a huge bumper crop year.

“But things can change,” Reardon adds. “There’s that spring predictability horizon we’ve got to leap over here.”

Is Drought Likely in 2026?

One of his concerns is that the latest USDA Drought Monitor shows some overwinter drought, which he says isn’t uncommon.

“We’ve seen a lot of that this decade. Spring rains can quickly make up for a lot of that,” Reardon says.

On Feb. 9, the Southern Plains saw a lot of grass fires. He says some of those were prescribed burns, but winds will be picking up again over the next 10 days.

“We are keeping an eye on the Southern Plains,” Reardon says. “They are getting some rain over the next seven days, but that’s an area that’s so prone to drought, especially in spring. If we see it build there and then try to leach over to Little Rock or Nashville, that can start to become a concern.”

In big yield-robbing drought years, it often flares in the Mid-South or even the Southeast over into the southern plains, first in April or May, and then tends to spread north.

“That’s a common behavior of some of these big concerning years of the past like 2006 or 2012, so we are keeping an eye on that right now,” he says. “But the good news is, in the next 10 days, we are going to get some moisture into the ground.”

Preserving the Future: How Tennessee is Protecting Farmland While Driving Development

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:58:52 GMT

How is Tennessee, one of the fastest-growing states in the country, balancing economic development while still protecting farmland? Gov. Bill Lee says it’s one of the state’s greatest challenges, but he believes there is a way to do both.

Last year, Lee signed the Tennessee Farmland Preservation Act into law, tasking the Tennessee Department of Agriculture with developing a grant program to incentivize farmland owners to voluntarily enroll their land in a permanent conservation easement.

“We lose 9 acres an hour to development,” Lee said at the 2026 Top Producer Summit . “We recognize that agriculture is our No. 1 driver of our economy, so we have to preserve farmland. This act will incentivize farm property, and agriculture property in particular, to be put in land trusts so it can never be developed. This effort has been widely accepted by farmers and is beginning to take effect.”

Where is the Push for Economic Development in Tennessee?

Although economic development is taking place in many different forms, the state of Tennessee is seeing a big push for data centers. For some farmers, this could be the revenue generator they’ve been waiting on, but for others, it’s a contentious issue.

“If we are going to have a data center, it has to work for all of us,” Lee says. “Most important is that the impact on the grid for power is one that our state can effectively manage.”

He believes the data centers and the companies behind them should be partners with the state and with regulatory bodies.

“They should come in and say, ‘If we’re going to come here, this is what we will deliver to the state,’” Lee says. “Besides just the investment in dollars and what they will take from the grid, how will they deliver to the state?”

AI, a major data center and supercomputing facility in Memphis, is an example of a good partnership, he says.

“They are producing their own power and contributing to the grid. It’s a great partnership and model for things that we should be looking for in the future,” Lee adds.

How is Tennessee Helping Farmers?

Tennessee crop farmers are feeling pain right now like their peers across the country.

“It’s a tough environment for crop farmers,” Lee says. “We’ve seen the staggering losses some of our producers have experienced. But they’re very resilient people. They know that a few years ago, crop prices were good. Right now, they’re really bad. A lot of patience is required in farming, and they know that.”

Stability and predictability are nearly impossible to have in agriculture, he says. But he’s working to help provide stability and predictability from a federal standpoint through ag policy efforts.

“I think that’s what farmers look for more than anything,” Lee says. “They don’t want a rescue or an immediate solution to the problem they have. I think farmers want some indication of what stability looks like and what predictability looks like and what they can expect in the future.”

From a livestock standpoint, Tennessee has been investing heavily in the development of more local processing options.

“We do believe that locally sourced products are helpful to our own ag community,” he says. “To the degree that we can facilitate that in this state, we ought to do it. We’ve broadly expanded our ability to process beef in this state. We’re not nearly where we need to be, but we’re headed in the right direction.”

Creating a Pipeline for Agriculture

Lee is passionate about thinking about the future and creating pathways for skilled trades, especially in the agriculture industry. His experience running a company in the skilled trades business — plumbers, pipefitters, electricians and welders — has helped him see the need firsthand.

“One of the most important things we can do is recognize that kids’ giftings are really different,” Lee says.

Lee’s passion to better meet the demand for skilled labor came to fruition through the Governor’s Investment in Vocational Education (GIVE) Act.

“It created, initially, a $1-million program in high schools for vocational, technical and agricultural education programs,” he says. “It led to $500 million in middle school career and technical education programs, and ultimately $1 billion in our colleges of technology that deliver ag education, technical education and vocational education. We have removed the waitlist for our colleges of technology. We’re delivering 10,000 more workers a year who are skilled tradesmen.”

He believes it’s one of the reasons Tennessee has so many global companies making the decision to come to the state.

“We have a lot of activity here economically because the state with the workers is going to win every time,” Lee says. “We started seven years ago by creating a workforce that was much more diverse than what it had been previously, and that includes agricultural education.”

As a cattle producer and proud Tennessean, Lee says he’s most proud of how he’s helped support the state’s future in agriculture by investing in youth and the technologies that will be the future.

“It will be fun for me to look back years from now and say, ‘I’m really glad we did that. Ag was No. 1 in Tennessee when I was there, and ag is still No. 1 in Tennessee now that I’ve been gone,’” he says. “That’s what I hope for.”

It’s Meeting Season: How to Conquer the Crowded Room

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 19:27:10 GMT

You walk into a crowded room of people you don’t know. Everyone is laughing and talking in their groups. It would be much easier to walk right back out, but you are there to represent a group with the mission of meeting people and making connections. So, you take your next step forward. But now what?

For some people, this is what nightmares are made of. For Jennifer Tirey, executive director of the Illinois Pork Producers Association , this is what she lives to do.

“Jennifer is excellent at building relationships with people,” says Josh Maschhoff, president of the Illinois Pork Producers Association. “She can walk into a room where she might not know anybody and quickly make introductions and connections with those people. And most importantly, she can remember their name, and she can do it with a lot of people.”

Maschhoff admits he often finds himself in a room with a lot of people, and he can’t remember their names.

“Whether it’s fellow producers or members of the legislature, the closer I can put myself to Jennifer Tirey, the better off I will be,” he says. “I know I’ve got a resource that can help pull me along when I’m struggling because she can remember all of those people.”

He says her ability to remember the details about someone’s personal life and truly make a connection with them makes her unique.

Authentic Relationship Building Takes Work

How do you develop a superpower like this? Tirey admits it does take work.

“You just can’t go into a room and know a lot of people’s names without putting a lot of work into it,” she says. “I go back to the very first meeting that I had with Pork Producers. I’d only been on the job for less than a week, and they had already scheduled a regional meeting in Bloomington. I spent the entire car ride — because someone else was driving — memorizing the names of the individuals that were going to be there because I wanted the producers to know that I care and want to know them.”

If you want to truly connect with people and build a relationship, you have to be willing to work at it. Before every event, Tirey devotes time to reading over the list of who will be there and looks up photos to try to memorize faces.

“I’m always learning and trying to sharpen that skill,” she says. “I think that’s a valuable asset to have within agriculture. At the end of the day, agriculture is a really small community, and you cross paths a lot. You need each other to be successful.”

How to Connect and Be Remembered in Any Room

Now, back to the crowded room. Before you enter, adopt a mindset that you are there to learn and support others, not just “work the room.” Here are a few tips to help you connect with the crowd.

1. Scan The Room.
When you enter the room, use soft eye contact as you scan the room. Don’t stare, but instead do a “sweeping gaze.” According to the Science of People , a sweeping gaze is a slow, methodical look around the room. Start the gaze the moment you enter a room by looking to your left then slowly sweeping across the room until you find your opening or where you want to go. Then, make longer eye contact there.

“It’s easier to make connections when you give yourself the outward look that you want to meet people,” Tirey says.

2. Project Confidence.
Remember to smile and stand tall to project confidence as you head toward where you want to go. If you don’t feel confident, don’t worry because you aren’t alone, says Marilyn Sherman, a well-known motivational speaker .

“Even when you don’t feel confident, act confident. It will change your entire mindset,” Sherman says.

3. Make Direct Eye Contact And Have a Firm Handshake.
Tirey says the best advice she has to offer when connecting with people is to start with direct eye contact. Let the person you are talking to know they have your full attention.

“In addition to eye contact, a really firm handshake to a person that you’ve never met gives a good impression,” she adds. “It also keeps you top of mind with them.”

4. Listen.
“Really taking a moment to listen to who they are and what they have to say is key,” Tirey says. “I think doing this gives me a chance to internally set myself and get prepared for meeting somebody new. It allows you to learn about the person you’re trying to get to know without any ulterior motive.”

She believes taking a pause and letting people share what they want to share first is a great way to understand where they are coming from, too.

5. Offer Value.
Tirey says she strives to be a straight shooter and appreciates that when meeting others.

“Life moves fast, and I would much rather cut to the chase.” Tirey says. “I love making connections and catching up with people, but there are things that must be done, too. I appreciate directness and constructive criticism because that makes me a better person.”

If you have a relevant idea or suggestion, be ready to share it succinctly.

“One thing that works like magic is creating a memorable moment,” according to Wave Connect . “Think about ways you can add value right in the moment. Maybe you overhear someone mention a challenge they are facing, and you can recommend a solution or introduce them to someone you know. That kind of value sticks.”

As Maya Angelou said: “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. People will never forget how you made them feel.”

Learn more about Tirey in the latest episode of The PORK Podcast.

How Agriculture’s Next Generation of Innovators Can Build Financial Acumen Now

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 15:13:43 GMT

Beginning farmers and the next generation in agriculture face significant hurdles, including the high cost of capital and limited access to land. Technology is allowing the older generation to stay in business longer, too, creating a difficult environment to bring people into farming.

As senior vice president of business development at Farm Credit Services of America, Jason Edleman is focused on helping young producers and beginning farmers develop stronger financial skills so they can make better and more informed business decisions on the farm.

“One of the ways we are doing this is by setting up our lending officers to also serve as coaches for about four years with a group of about 50 to 60 customers,” Edleman explains. “From balance sheet training to cash flow lessons to understanding your family’s living expenses, their goal is to help customers through one-on-one coaching and classroom-style lessons to hone basic skill sets that will help them be financially responsible.”

He says it’s surprising how many people would guess they live for about $35,000 a year when in reality it’s likely closer to $120,000 a year.

“As lenders, we think about these things all the time,” Edleman says. “But for a beginning farmer or young producer, those skills take time to develop.”

Empowering Risk-Takers with Financial Understanding

He is excited about the next generation in agriculture as they bring a lot of different skill sets to the industry that are new and exciting. They’re also very creative in how they’re going to market, too.

“Their adaption to technology and how they learn and grasp information is so much different,” Edleman says. “I use the example of how my son (who is not a farmer) learns. He watches a 3-minute YouTube video, and then he goes and does it. His generation is not afraid to tackle stuff, but they just need some access points to learn.”

Farm Credit Services of America (FCS America) wants to help fill those learning gaps, he adds. FCS America is doing that through its Starting Gate program designed to empower and develop the future of agriculture by providing young and beginning farmers with personalized coaching in agricultural finance. Participants work with FCS America professionals to build skills in budgeting, financial planning and risk management, creating a strong foundation for their business goals.

(Farm Credit Services of America)

For more than 20 years, they have been hosting the Side X Side Conference for producers 35 years of age or under or farmers who have been farming less than 10 years. It features educational sessions, inspirational speakers and networking opportunities all geared to help producers better understand the financial side of the business.

“We recognize the challenges our producers are having and believe this program and hands-on coaching can have a generational impact,” Edleman says. “Years ago, we realized from a financial acumen standpoint, a majority of producers can’t put their balance sheets together on their own and don’t have a good understanding of how a cash flow can help them in their operation’s decisions.”

He admits farmers may be good at the “napkin math,” and usually have all the numbers in their head. However, this doesn’t always translate when they tell their story to a lender and may not fully encapsulate all of their expenses.

“The more successful farmers understand financials – cost production, cash flows, balance sheet trends and what it means to their income statement – the better decisions they can make about the risks they can take,” he adds.

One of the best parts of the events is the networking that takes place.

“The boards in the back of the room are a great tool to build relationships,” he explains. “We challenge producers to put things on the board they are looking for. Maybe it’s a connection point on how to sell something, or maybe they need hay. Ultimately, they end up sharing ideas and sharing numbers.”

Several peer-to-peer groups have formed because of these conferences and now regularly meet to share ideas, best practices and build relationships, Edleman says.

Navigating Income Diversification and Side Hustles

Whether the new generation wants to add a second business or not, most have to find a way to dive into other sources of income such as contract finishing, hunting, spraying or trucking businesses.

“We’re seeing about 44% of young or beginning farmers have a side job whereas a traditional farmer probably is only closer to 36%,” he notes.

As lenders, Edleman says their goal is to help producers. Close communication and a greater financial acumen help producers better prepare for the unknowns in farming.

“I think this young group really shines because they’re not afraid to try new things,” he adds. “From drone technology to how they use AI to make decisions, they’re grasping things more quickly. I think that’s been a good thing as it creates other sources of income that these operations can leverage as well.”

Early Engagement and Succession Planning

For the “coaches” at Farm Credit Services of America, the extra one-on-one time allows them to really get to know their clients and bring up hard topics of conversation like succession planning.

“Personally, I don’t think any of us want to work on estate planning and think about the inevitable,” he says. “We’re trying to engage conversation around the fact that life doesn’t always shake out like we think. The more we can prepare people to think about these tough topics earlier, the better. We can’t change the direction of what that looks like, but we can continue to influence communication.”

Although coaching young and beginning producers one-on-one is where Starting Gate financial officers spend more of their time, Edleman says many are also branching out to teach classes and present on financial topics at technical schools and land grant universities.

“We’re spending more time engaging future farmers earlier,” he says.

At one technical school in South Dakota, lenders do mock interviews with students. They aren’t interviews to practice landing a job, however. They are interviews to practice seeing your lender for the first time.

“Where are young producers at when mom and dad go to see the lender? They’re at home doing chores,” Edleman says. “Their professors and our coaches help them apply for their first loan or learn what to ask during an interview. It’s a simple thing, but it’s a huge thing when you think about where they’re at in their journey.”

Saying Goodbye to Dad: A Farmer’s Journey with Grief

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:37:04 GMT

Grief is hard. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a way of life, or even a dream, the pain of losing something we care about is an inevitable part of being human. However, that doesn’t make grief any easier to walk through.

On May 23, 2024, Nathan Isler lost his father, Bill, to a stroke. The man who was greater than life to him, was no longer by his side every day on their family pork and grain operation. The loss that everyone who loved him felt was undeniable.

“I don’t know how people deal with grief without faith. If you think death is just the end, it’s a hard thing to deal with,” Isler says. “For me, the toughest part is the loss of those moments where I wish he was there to talk to about things.”

In Isler’s mind, grief is more of a feeling than a definition. In the simplest of terms, he says it’s disappointment in life not going the way you want it to – not getting the answers you hoped for or not having the person you want to be there.

But grief, as painful as it feels, is also a process that can open the door to growth and resilience.

“It is impossible to live without experiencing pain at some point in our lives,” says Jorge Estrada, Global Coaching Alliance Latin America lead. “Life and pain go hand in hand. They’re part of the great dichotomies: black and white, day and night, life and death, love and pain.”

Pain isn’t an interruption to life, it’s a thread woven through it, Estrada adds. At the same time, grief isn’t a sign of weakness or failure. It’s evidence of our capacity to love deeply and to heal, even after profound loss.

Understanding Grief

“Grief hurts,” agrees Gina Forte, an expert in thanatology which is the study of death, loss and the processes that follow. “When we love someone or something, we become attached to it. The more we love, the more it hurts to lose.”

But that hurt has a purpose. Grief is an adaptive emotional process, a way to make sense of loss and find balance again, she adds. Knowing it’s a process helps people move forward.

“Perseverance is a necessity in life,” Isler says. “Life goes on. You can’t stop. You can’t lose your potential or your life. Putting my head down and getting work done – being productive – has helped me during this time.”

He says there is something healing about setting goals and pushing forward.

“Getting in your own head too much allows the grief to multiply,” Isler adds. “For me, being able to have wins and accomplish goals promotes healing.”

Forte says that’s the function of grief – to restore and heal.

“When we don’t allow ourselves to process it, grief can become unhealthy or even pathological,” she says.

From Shock to Acceptance

When loss hits, no one is ready to understand or accept it fully. The stages of grief all play a key role in the process. Forte outlined the seven stages of grief:

Grief isn’t a straight line, she says. Sometimes people circle back to the same stage again, but the visits grow shorter over time.

One day, one of Isler’s dad’s friends showed him a video of his dad swinging on a rope at a retreat not long before he passed away.

“I don’t know what, but something triggered inside me – to see that youthfulness and joy he always had,” Isler says. “It’s hard to predict what will trigger different parts of the grief process. I have found that the return to different stages gets quicker as you move on.”

On the Other Side of Loss

The resilience that emerges on the other side of loss makes us stronger people, Estrada says. In short, it’s not just surviving hardship, it’s being transformed by it.

Estrada defines resilience as the ability to navigate change, understand grief, learn, let go, and create a new reality—one that carries a better version of ourselves into the next stage of life.

“Everything you do in life changes who you are a little bit,” Isler says. “I’ve learned more about who my dad was to so many. I’ve learned not everyone has a role model like him. I hope I can live up to the example he set for my kids.”

Studies show one of the strongest predictors of resilience is having loving and supportive relationships that offer trust, encouragement and security through the grief process.

For Isler, living next door to his mom, who has been living with dementia for several years, has put him in a unique situation. Sharing stories about his dad with his mom has been especially healing.

“My mom has always been someone I could talk to easily,” Isler says. “I’ve used her as a map to put it all out there because she isn’t grieving the way the rest of us are. She knows dad isn’t around, but it doesn’t all connect for her like it does for us. When I talk about dad with her, it does nothing but bring joy to her.”

Get Off the Island

Everyone deals with grief at some point, Isler says. Maybe it’s grief from the loss of a loved one, but for farmers, grief could stem from a terrible financial situation on the farm or the loss of a business you’ve built your life around.

“For all the people who think they are alone, it’s just not the case,” he says. “We all deal with grief, and we all deal with it differently. A lot of times we put ourselves on an island – especially in our industry.”

Farmers – especially men – are some of the worst about talking about their feelings, Isler says.

“We are tough guys. We get the work done and go on,” he says. “But it helps to talk about it. Let people show up for you or go find someone to talk to if they don’t know what you are going through.”

When Isler’s sister told him that what helped her in the grief process was being around him, he was taken aback a little.

“She said I reminded her of dad and was a lot like him, that being around me made it easier not having dad around anymore,” he says. “To me, that’s the best compliment I’ve ever received.”

Adam Sanders Brings Hog-Wild Energy on Stage in CBS Series “The Road”

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 14:09:39 GMT

What does pig farming have to do with the new CBS series featuring Keith Urban and Blake Shelton? More than you might think.

The Road is an exciting new show that features 12 emerging artists who are competing for a $250,000 prize package and recording opportunities. Each participant also earns the opportunity to open for Urban during his national tour.

Six artists remain, and one of the featured artists is Adam Sanders, a Nashville singer and songwriter originally from Florida. He’s also a good friend of Missouri pig farmer Jesse Heimer. Not only has he performed at Heimer’s farm multiple times, but the pair has also written two songs together, including “Do What We Do.”

The tour bus rolls into Tulsa for a concert at the iconic Cain’s Ballroom. In place of Blake Shelton, award-winning country artist Dustin Lynch sits in with Keith Urban. For the first time, the seven musicians are divided up to perform two group covers before performing their originals, on THE ROAD, Sunday, Nov. 23 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT). Pictured: Adam Sanders. Photo: ©2025 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Highest quality screengrab.

(CBS/CBS )

“I think what folks see on the screen is someone who’s had just enough experience on stage in front of a crowd, and the feelings of all of it, to know that he really wants it,” Heimer says. “This isn’t Adam’s first time to town – he opened for Carrie Underwood at a sold-out Iowa State Fair. He understands the stage, the audience, and the emotions people have as they listen to an entertainer.”

It’s been an incredible experience to watch Sanders shine on The Road, Heimer adds.

“He really took this opportunity to heart – to be on screen in front of millions to tell his story and put his talent on display,” Heimer says. “Adam is a high energy guy all the time and that’s what you see on stage. But he’s also one of the most genuine, down-to-earth friends I’ve ever had. The Adam you see on screen is the Adam you’ll see on the street.”

That’s Why We Do What We Do

Heimer first met Sanders in 2019. They were introduced by a mutual friend after Heimer created a series of videos to highlight the benefits of showing livestock. His goal was to help people outside of agriculture see that showing livestock was about more than just the animal and the ribbon. Their mutual friend encouraged Heimer to produce a music video which eventually led him to meet Sanders, a talented songwriter.

Adam Sanders (l) and Jesse Heimer (r) on the farm in Taylor, Mo.

(Legacy Livestock Images/Heidi Anderson)

“I had to learn more about his industry, so I could have enough knowledge about his side of the fence,” Sanders says. “I think we spent months really talking about the idea of this. One day, it really just registered with me and it clicked. I remember writing down in my phone: ‘that’s why we do what we do.’”

Sanders called on his friend Brice Long, a fellow songwriter to help write “Do What We Do.”

“I wanted the song to be broad enough that it could appeal across facets of agriculture,” Heimer says. “I knew if we made it just about the show ring, we were only going to attract those that already believe the same things as me.”

The project started as an anthem for stock show kids and although that goal never changed, the video went down a different path than Heimer first expected. He wanted to create a music video that everybody in agriculture could see themselves in. Regardless of what your role in agriculture is, Heimer believes this song speaks to the feelings of many about why they do what they do.

“I couldn’t be prouder of how the song turned out, and how it all came together,” Sanders says. “It was just a natural fit. It took some time to make it happen, but God had a plan in all of this and how it shaped out.”

Sanders adds that the stats show the song resonates with people. Through organic promotion only, the song has now been streamed nearly 600,000 times and appears on 39 playlists. It’s received 873,000 views on TikTok, too. Beyond traditional streams, the song has been very popular with TikTok users who are increasingly using it in their content.

But You’d Get It If You Did It

Three years after Sanders released this song, Heimer had an “epiphany” at the 2024 Missouri State Fair.

“I realized I was watching my kids doing, saying and loving all of the same things I did at the state fair when I was a kid,” Heimer says. “It felt like déjà vu. I talked to Adam during the fair and told him we should write a song about it – to piggyback off ‘Do What We Do.’”

Not long after, the song ‘ Get It If You Did It ’ was born.

“From the outside looking in, it’s hard to understand why we raise pigs, why we go to shows, why we commit so many resources for our kids to find success in the show ring,” Heimer

But you’d get it if you did it
I bet you wouldn’t knock it
If you dug your boots down in it
You’d know why we can’t stop it
You can’t replace the dreams we chase
Naw ain’t no way we can quit it
Might not love it like we love it
Or live it like we live it
But you’d get it if you did it.

- Get It If You Did It

points out. “This song is a continuation of the original story. The writing is broad enough, though, that it fits anyone’s hobby or passion from hunting to sports to rodeo. I hope it gets a spot on The Road.”

The chorus is easy for people in agriculture to relate to, Heimer says.

“The show pig community has been incredibly supportive of me as an artist for several years, going back to the introduction of ‘Do What We Do’ – and even before,” Sanders says. “It seems like no matter where I’m playing, people from this industry are in the crowd.”

Live from Oklahoma Ranch

Show pig industry leader Blake Kennedy, owner of Kennedy Ventures, was fortunate to be in the audience during the taping of The Road in Oklahoma City.

“It was a really cool experience to be selected as a cast member,” Kennedy says. “When we got there, they checked us in and took our phones and belongings. Because no one had the distraction of a phone, everyone was very present and engaged.”

The atmosphere inside Oklahoma Ranch was very exciting, he adds. Sanders performed his original, “Burning Roses” and Jo Dee Messina’s hit song “Heads Carolina, Tails California.”

Although the contestants only get a few minutes of time in the TV show, Kennedy says their live performances were about 10 minutes and allowed the audience the opportunity to get to know each performer a little more.

“It was awesome to see someone like Adam be successful in his world who also enjoys seeing us achieve success in our world, too,” Kennedy says.

Tune in Sunday

Don’t miss the next episode performed at The Hall in Little Rock, Ark., airing on CBS on Nov. 30 at 8 p.m. CT. https://www.cbs.com/shows/the-road/

Read the ‘Do What We Do’ story here:
Nashville Singer and Pig Farmer Release Anthem for Ag

One Farmer's Idea to Avoid Yellowstone Drama When Transferring the Family Farm

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 18:47:32 GMT

At 8 cents a pound, pigs weren’t worth much when Todd Wiley formed Interstate Swine LLC with his dad in 1998. Nobody wanted weaned pigs. Facilities quickly became available as people left the pork industry. With a sincere desire to make a living raising pigs on his family’s farm, Wiley stepped out in faith. Nearly 30 years later, this multi-generational farming endeavor in eastern Iowa has survived some of the toughest times and some of the best times.

Maybe that’s why Wiley has taken a unique approach to bringing the third generation back to the farm.

“There’s no doubt that family is important to Todd,” says Pat McGonegle, CEO of the Iowa Pork Producers Association. “He puts family first, and the farm is a part of that discussion. He manages his family members that are part of that farm in a real professional way, but also with an eye towards the legacy that he and Denise want to leave on their farm.”

Would This Be Good For My Kids?

Growing up, Wiley’s parents talked about succession planning often with their three sons. The concept of planning for the generational transfer of the family farm came naturally to Wiley.

“When we started Interstate Swine, we needed to hire employees,” he says. “One of the things I was conscientious about was making sure the employment opportunity within our business would be conducive to our children filling those roles.”

From the beginning, Wiley instituted health insurance plans, matching IRA funds, paid time off, paid vacation, and other benefits that employees would typically look for when securing a job.

“I constantly asked myself if this would this be good for my kids someday?” he says.

Wiley and his wife, Denise, have four kids: Drew, a Kansas State University animal science graduate and former K-State Football defensive tackle; Isaac, an Iowa State University agribusiness graduate now employed with Ever.Ag; Emma, owner of Auntie Em’s - Event Florist and attended Des Moines Area Community College; and Joshua, a junior at Iowa State University in animal science.

In 2017-2018, the Wileys doubled their sow farm to create more opportunities for the children to have a place on the family farm.

“It was a fairly tedious process – not only from a business standpoint, but about what the next generation was going to do,” he says. “They were all too young back then, and there was no way I could ask them for any sort of commitment to our business. But I did ask a lot of professionals. I remember asking our accountant specifically, ‘In your experience, what is the likelihood of a farm family having the next generation be involved, providing you have a viable business?’”

The accountant’s response was, “It’s pretty high.”

“Denise and I knew we needed to have some economies of scale,” Wiley explains. “There’s not much point in succession planning, if there’s nothing to succeed to or succeed with. We were mindful of that when we moved forward. Now, we have room for additional people, not only for labor, but also in management where we can utilize their skills.”

No Yellowstone Drama Here

As a family, it is easy to recognize each other’s strengths as well as quirks, he points out. But he wanted a better way to evaluate his children’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as interests, on the farm.

“I remember when a successful family in eastern Iowa, with a number of businesses, built a feed mill and elevator,” Wiley shares. “The father of this family passed away unexpectedly. Come to find out, nobody in the family had any interest in this feed mill and elevator, so they end up selling it.”

This hit Wiley hard. What would his kids say about where their farm was investing capital? That sparked the construction of a succession planning instrument for the Wiley family.

(Lori Hays)

“The first page of the instrument (an Excel document) started two years ago with a list of 35 jobs that need to be done on our farm,” Wiley says. “Most of them are pig related, but we do crop farm some. It was pretty much everything I was doing in a spreadsheet.”

Each of their children (and one daughter in-law at the time) was asked to rate those 35 jobs from one to five under this scenario: It’s 2033 and Todd and Denise are serving in an advisory role only. You choose to be an active employee of the family businesses. Please answer by circling the corresponding number that best describes your interest in the listed activity.

“It was interesting to see who had interest in what, but it also told us pretty clearly where we needed to go in the future if we wanted our children involved in our business,” Wiley says. “Initially, I think they saw it as a fun activity, just another of Dad’s crazy ideas. But I learned a lot.”

This past summer, the family completed the exercise again.

“I needed to see if the kids were drifting in their interest,” he says. “In one case, there was significant movement in what one of our kids wanted to do. It surprised me to be truthful about it. In the other three cases, they held true to what they thought two years previous. But bear in mind, our youngest was a freshman in college two years ago and a lot can change in college.”

Wiley emphasizes that nobody is required to come back and be involved in the operation. He says there are a million ways to make a living out there and he wants his kids to pursue their dreams. In the version his family filled out in the summer of 2025, he added a second page with 45 statements.

“If you’re going to work with people in a business and a family in any organization, even if you’re not related, you need to have some idea of where they’re coming from,” Wiley says. “On the second page of statements, they were asked to rank their level of agreement with the statement.”

For example, one of the statements was: No matter what I may think of a family member’s job performance, I’ll always have their back publicly.

“If you’ve ever watched Yellowstone, that show creeped me out,” Wiley says. “When I saw the family dynamic portrayed, it made me uncomfortable. We can have our disagreements. But, as a family, you better have each other’s backs out in the community, especially in the business we’re in.”

Getting Out and Getting In

This instrument has been helpful for the Wileys in many ways as they prepare to transfer more of the farm to their children.

“It sheds light on areas where their belief system parallels ours,” he says. “We have a definite place of emphasis now. Our children have a pig feeding business called Fourth Gen Hogs LLC, where they’re each 20% owners, Denise is a 10% owner, and I’m a 10% owner. It has been a great exercise in giving them the responsibility of ownership.”

He says the timing mirrors the situation he was in when Interstate Swine was formed.

“They got in about a year ago when it was pretty doom and gloom. We went to the bank with this idea, and they’re like, ‘You want to do what?’”

He believes this business venture will be the vehicle for he and his wife to exit pig ownership as their children get into ownership.

“Uncle Sam would have his way with us if we sold out all at once,” Wiley says. “But if we can gradually exit individual barns or individual parts of our production flow and have them enter into it, that’s a fairly nice segue for us to get out and them to get in.”

Wiley shares more about his mini adventure raising rabbits, opportunities for talented young people back on the farm and the message he hopes pork producers hear right now and more on The PORK Podcast. You can watch it here on YouTube or listen anywhere podcasts are found.

Watch more episodes here.

Oikonomia on the Farm: Succession Planning is About More Than Wealth

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 14:57:20 GMT

Succession planning is often treated as a legal or financial exercise — a “simple” matter of wills, taxes and transfer dates. Yet for family-owned farms and agribusinesses, it’s something deeper: the deliberate handoff of a way of life.

The ancient Greeks had a word for this kind of management, oikonomia, from which we get the term economy. Understanding what they meant by it can reorient how families think about preparing the next generation.

In classical thought, oikonomia referred to the management of the oikos, the household or estate, but it was never only about efficiency or profit. The oikonomos, or household steward, was responsible for using resources wisely so the entire household could live well and endure long into the future.

Ancient philosophers viewed resources as abundant, not scarce, so economic action was judged not by the accumulation of wealth but by whether it enabled and served a praiseworthy end. Specifically, the flourishing of the family, the land and the community.

Perspective for the Present

That older vision aligns closely with what succession planning should be for agriculture. The task is not just to pass on land and assets, but to ensure the continuity of stewardship, the ethical responsibility to care for what has been entrusted.

From an oikonomia perspective, the senior generation’s goal is to prepare successors capable of managing abundance with restraint, gratitude and wisdom. This calls attention to the education of character. The next generation must learn more than production and finance; they must learn judgment, the ability to distinguish needs from wants and to act for the common good. Mentorship, gradual transfer of responsibility, and open discussion of values all form part of this ethical training.

Perhaps most importantly, oikonomia reminds us that a farm is both a business and a household. Financial plans that ignore family dynamics or the moral vision of the enterprise risk undermining the very legacy they seek to protect.

Succession planning works best when it integrates three elements at once: the technical (who owns and manages what), the relational (how the family communicates and cooperates) and the moral (why the farm exists and whom it serves).

In that light, passing the farm to the next generation becomes not just a transaction but an act of stewardship — a modern form of oikonomia. The question is no longer only how do we divide the assets but how do we preserve the household, the land and the purpose they represent for future generations?

Don't Break, Build: A Farmer's Playbook for Taking Control of Your Mind

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:01:41 GMT

It was already shaping up to be one of those days.

An unexpected bill is due, and the money just isn’t there. The kids are fighting again. Understandably, your wife is over it, and now it’s your fault. One of your employees just called to say the new group of wean pigs is sick. It’s all a part of a life, but sometimes it just stacks up to be too much.

“In a world of unpredictability with so many factors at play on any given day, it’s easy to be mentally or emotionally hijacked by elements out of our control,” says Athena Diesch-Chham with Restorative Path Counseling and Wellbeing. “Stress and anxiety thrive in this environment. However, the long-term effects of that are real.”

Farming stress will never go away, so how can you get more grit or become more resilient to that stress?

One expert says it starts by paying attention to the present.

“Don’t think about what happened yesterday or worry about what is happening tomorrow,” says Cheri Burcham, with University of Illinois Extension. “Focus on what you are doing and feeling in the very moment.”

Diesch-Chham likes to think of it as “being where your feet are.”

“So often brains are hijacked by stress and launch us mentally to a different space either in the past or in the future,” Diesch-Chham adds. “Mindfulness is just asking for our whole selves to be here in this moment, wherever our feet are planted.”

Pay Attention

This concept of truly being “in the moment” not only reduces stress, but research shows it can also lower blood pressure, increase immunity and reduce anxiety and depression, Burcham says.

When you intentionally notice where you are, you can recognize potential challenges sooner, says Abigail Cudney with Michigan State University Extension . Instead of habitually reacting to stress with intense anger, emotional shutdown, negative thinking or overthinking, this intentional awareness helps rewire the brain through a process called neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to grow and adapt to new experiences.

Consider the attention you pay when walking through the barn. You use all your senses to make assessments and determine what’s going on all around you.

“Whether it’s walking the barn or enjoying the fall scenery, naming something you are currently experiencing for each of the five senses is another way to practice mindfulness,” Diesch-Chham says. “This doesn’t have to be complicated – the whole goal is to bring mind and body to the same place.”

5 Senses Technique

Just Breathe

The fight or flight response animals have when stress strikes is the same thing that happens in people. As a review, the vagus nerve, which runs from the base of the brain and branches out to the organs, serves as a conduit of chemicals/hormones that are activated automatically/reflexively by the sympathetic nervous system. This is an involuntary and adaptive process that increases respiration and blood flow to prepare the body for quick and protective action, such as fighting or fleeing. Once the perceived threat has passed or been managed successfully, the stress response also passes and respiration, blood pressure, and heart rate return to a normal steady state, according to the Yale School of Medicine .

Through deep breathing, the vagus nerve can be stimulated intentionally to help restore, mitigate and even prevent these physical and psychological reactions. Slow, even breaths that originate deep within the abdomen stimulate the vagus nerve in a way that signals safety and cues the body and mind to relax, restore, and release chronic and unhealthy patterns.

“Deep breathing can be practiced anywhere and in so many ways – so it is very accessible and easy for farmers to practice,” Burcham explains. “Practice in the field or even while operating machinery.”

Let Go of What You Can’t Control

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of “being where your feet are” is realizing you can’t control it all.

“Working towards recognizing what truly is within our individual control and then choosing to focus our energy on managing what we can control to improve our overall mental health and stress, helps us remain resilient through the pieces that are outside of our control,” Diesch-Chham says.

Adversity happens. Markets will crash. Animals will get sick. Disease will strike. Families will argue. But you can recover faster from those stresses by staying grounded in the moment, aligning your thoughts and emotions with reality.

Resources to Help Build Resilience:
North Central Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Center

Mindfulness: University of Illinois Extension

Building Resilience with Mindfulness

From Crisis to Calling: How Maddie Hokanson Found Strength in the Pork Industry

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 20:01:53 GMT

In June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Maddie Hokanson headed out for a routine doctor’s appointment. At 34 weeks pregnant, she admittedly wasn’t feeling great, but as a first-time mom, what’s normal?

She was sent to labor and delivery as a precautionary measure. Not long after, she was in a helicopter being airlifted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. She and her husband, Eric, welcomed their first child, Brent, by c-section later that day.

“Brent was born with hydrops,” Hokanson explains. “He was born at 10.5 lb. He had so much fluid around his organs and it was putting pressure on his brain, liver, kidneys and lungs. He almost didn’t make it.”

After a couple rough months in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the Hokansons learned a lot fast.

“I remember a friend sending me this reminder: If not, he is still good,” she says. “Sometimes things don’t go how we want, and even if that’s the case, I believe God works all things for his good.”

Because of the pandemic, nobody was able to meet Brent until he came home from the hospital. Hokanson remembers being surrounded by so many people who wanted to help and offer support. She says it was a surreal experience.

“I remember my naivety thinking that we made it home – we had made it through the hard part and now he was going to flourish,” she adds. “That definitely was not the case for the first couple of years.”

Diagnosis after diagnosis, the Hokansons struggled to take it all in: epilepsy, visual impairment, heart condition, liver failure, autism and cerebral palsy.

“The mantra, ‘this too shall pass,’ kept playing in my head, but when? When will it pass?” Hokanson says.

Perhaps it never will pass, she explains, but what they have been able to do is find joy in all that their family has instead of the comparison of what they don’t.

A Lifeline

For Hokanson, a seventh-generation farmer with Schafer Farms, the farm has served as a lifeline during these early years of adjusting to parenting a child with serious health challenges.

“The farm was my reminder that whether it’s a good day or bad day, I’m still Maddie Hokanson. I still have a purpose in the world beyond being a mother,” Hokanson says. “Coming into the farm office, talking to my parents, grandparents or employees really held me up. I needed work in order to be able to continue handling myself as a mother.”

Schafer Farms was established in 1886. Today they raise pigs, cattle, crops and operate a transportation and trucking business as well. They have two sow farms where they raise genetics for Topigs Norsvin. Getting to work with her husband, her parents, Brandon and Monica, her grandparents, Pat and Lowell, and her brother, Max, and his wife, Hollie, has been a lifelong dream for Hokanson.

“I loved being involved in the farm from a young age,” she says. “From about second grade on, it was expected that we spend our weekends with dad on the farm, breeding and farrowing sows. Although I wasn’t like some farm kids who learned how to drive a tractor when they were 8, I sure knew how to breed a sow and collected a boar by that age.”

Living Out Her ‘Why’

As she became more involved in 4-H and FFA, she started doing livestock judging and participating in communication contests. She began to see the agriculture industry was much bigger than her own farm.

“In ninth grade, we took a careers class in high school that was required as part of graduation,” Hokanson says. “I explored ag communications and learned about promoting our product. That’s when I realized I was fascinated by talking to consumers about what we do on our farms.”

She connected with a Minnesota Pork Board program, Oink Outings. Through that program, she learned how to connect with consumers and advocate for the pork industry. This eventually led her to pursue a degree in ag communications at South Dakota State University, where was she named the commencement speaker in 2019.

“I spoke about a book by Simon Sinek, ‘Start with Why,’” Hokanson says. “It’s all about finding your why in life. I tried to focus on the fact that when you think about your ‘why’ and your ‘why’ resonates with every part of your life, then it doesn’t matter so much what you are doing if you are pursuing your ‘why.’”

She says her “why” since college continues to be to ensure a successful, thriving future for the generations she will never meet.

Eric, Scott, Brent and Maddie Hokanson

(LAURA KNOPIK )

“Whether I’m home with our boys, instilling values of faith, family and farming; at the farm office working on finances as the CFO; helping in the barn; or lobbying on behalf of the pork industry in D.C., my ‘why’ is the same,” Hokanson says. “All of those things help me fulfill my ‘why.’”

Hokanson’s son Brent is now 5, and Scott is 2. She hopes they will have the opportunity to be the eighth generation of farmers in her family. That’s why she devotes so much of her life to focusing on her ‘why’.

“Sometimes, what is best for the industry doesn’t have a short-term financial or other gain for your own individual farm,” she explains. “But it does benefit the industry in the long run – whether it’s with health, markets, traceability – being willing to do things that seem mundane or complex even when you don’t see any short-term gain individually is important. At the end of the day, a rising tide lifts all boats, and it is our responsibility to ensure that the rising tide comes in.”

Hokanson shares more about farm transition, parenthood and connecting with consumers on The PORK Podcast. You can watch it here on YouTube or listen anywhere podcasts are found.

Watch more episodes here.

Plan for Now, Adjust Later: Create Your Estate Plan Before It's Too Late

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:05:37 GMT

Nobody wants to think about death, but it’s something Polly Dobbs, an estate planning and wealth transfer attorney with Dobbs Legal Group LLC, thinks about every day.

“When I was a new lawyer, I was so nervous to say dead or death,” Dobbs recalls. “I was in a meeting with a partner and his client once when I stumbled over something and said, ‘in the unfortunate event you should pass away.’ After that meeting, the partner yanked me out in the hallway and said, ‘Stop stuttering. Just say when you die. It’s not if, it’s when.’”

She’s been dealing in death ever since, but she says that perspective allows her to serve her clients better.

“What if you got hit by a bus tomorrow?” Dobbs asks. “You should have a plan in place that fits today’s circumstances. If your grandson is playing with John Deere toys in the sandbox, let’s not create a succession plan that hinges on that grandson coming back to farm. Let’s have a plan in place that fits right now, in case you die tomorrow. If you don’t die and you get to see how those grandkids turn out and which direction their lives take, you can adjust that plan.”

People often think they can figure out their estate plan later – when they are older, richer, sicker, free from debt and the list goes on.

“Too often, people don’t have a plan, and they end up dying before they’ve got it just how they want it,” Dobbs says. “Have something that fits for today and dust it off as needed.”

What Should Drive Decisions?

When it comes to estate planning, Dobbs says there is no cookie-cutter-approach.

“You can’t copy what your neighbor did,” she says. “It has to be customized for your family, your facts, your assets, your goals, your family members and your farm.”

She often challenges farmers with tough questions like should your off-farm kids get bought out?

“Should they get bought out of equipment, improvements, grain bins, shops, shed and all of the silver things that we build on top of gravel lots to use in production agriculture?” she asks. “Do you feel like your off-farm heirs are entitled to a share of these operating assets? If so, fine. If not, that’s OK, too.”

Part of what Dobbs does is give permission to people to treat their children differently and to define their children’s inheritance.

“It’s not necessarily one quick check after an auction after your funeral,” she points out. “It is absolutely fine to treat your children differently. I preach over and over again that fair does not mean equal. There is no law that says the columns for your children must tally to the penny and be exactly equal with the assets they receive at your death. You’re aiming for a fair balance, and you define what is fair.”

Ultimately, she says, it comes down to peace of mind when you lay your head on the pillow. Do you have a fair plan in place?

Talk Now, Don’t Wait

Communicating the estate plan during your lifetime is very important, but it’s often the step that farmers fail to complete. She says transparency helps avoid entitlement.

“When someone thinks they’re going to get a certain amount of the value of your assets, they’re already calculating it and counting on it,” she says. “After your death, if the plan is different, that’s when the entitlement rears its head.”

She emphasizes the details must be defined by the farmer.

“A lot of my clients would rather put their head down and have the plan unveiled after death,” Dobbs says. “I understand that’s challenging. But it’s far better to have transparency and throw everything out on the conference room table so you can shine a light on it and talk about it.”

In addition to getting all the family in the room, Dobbs believes there should be more than one adviser at the table at a time.

“This is how you get the best plan, and you will always have a better plan if your advisers speak to each other,” she adds. “There is this falsehood out there that you need to stop your lawyer from talking to your accountant because that means they’re both charging you at the same time. I promise it will always be cheaper in the end, and a better plan, if your advisers talk to each other.”

Touchy Subjects

One of the sensitive subjects many farmers are dealing with today is the issue of sweat equity and treating it like deferred compensation, she says.

“When we have a successor coming in, depending on how long that successor has been working side by side with the senior generation, they’ve earned something,” Dobbs says. “We’re not talking about giving them a handout. If we give them a discounted price, or we give them assets off the top as a part of the succession plan or part of the estate plan, that’s not a handout.”

Deferred compensation says that if a young person had gone to work in a factory right out of school, they would be earning and investing in a 401K or perhaps stock compensation. They probably would have health insurance and HSA accounts that most family farms just don’t have, she explains.

“When the senior generation is putting together their succession and estate plan, consider the benefits the successor gave up by not working off farm,” she says. “Having some sort of benefit, discounts, family-friendly terms in the succession plan and in the estate plan should be considered deferred compensation.”

Read More:
Tax Acts and Estate Plans: What You Need to Know About the Changes for 2026

Tax Acts and Estate Plans: What You Need to Know About the Changes for 2026

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 14:00:40 GMT

Taxes don’t destroy family farms – people do, says Polly Dobbs, an estate planning and wealth transfer specialist.

“It’s not Uncle Sam – it’s your third wife and your kids from your first two wives, it’s your kids in the city versus your kids on the farm, and it’s ultimately your failure to plan for all that because you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings,” she explains. “It’s very lazy to say that taxes ruin the farm. That’s rarely the case.”

All the details matter, says Dobbs with Dobbs Legal Group LLC. She doesn’t believe in sugarcoating the hard truth. That’s why she’s devoted her career to helping farm families navigate estate planning and wealth transfer.

A “Permanent” Estate Tax

On July 4, President Donald Trump signed into effect the One Big Beautiful Bill, which has a significant effect on federal taxes, credits and deductions.

When it comes to gift and estate taxes, Dobbs points out a big change under the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) section.

“The new exemption as of Jan. 1, 2026, will be $15 million per person, or $30 million for a married couple,” she said at the Keystone Cooperatives Co-op Classic in Valparaiso, Ind. “It is one exemption. You either use it during your lifetime to make gifts, or you have it available at death to shield inheritances. You don’t get two.”

This is an increase from $13,990,000 per person in 2025, and a welcome relief from the anticipated “drop off the cliff to around $7 million per person that was looming,” Dobbs adds.

Unlike the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from 2017, she says the exemption is considered permanent in that it doesn’t have a “self-destruct, sunset date.” However, she warns farmers not to get too excited about the “permanent tax act” because any future Congress and President can change any law on the books.

The new exemption will be indexed to inflation, she adds, and with adjustments made Jan. 1 every year beginning in 2027. IRS recently announced the tax year 2026 annual inflation adjustments for more than 60 tax provisions, including the income tax rate schedules and other tax changes. The annual gift tax exclusion will remain $19,000 in 2026, unchanged from 2025, which is the amount each donor can give to each recipient, without tapping into his or her big exemption.

“During the fourth quarter of every year, we’ll get inflation numbers, and we will know what the new exemption is going to be the following January,” Dobbs says. “It is nice to know there’s no ticking clock on this tax act. We can stop worrying about this dreaded sunset that was to happen at the end of 2025. The fact they got ahead of this and did it in July of 2025 is a gift.”

Dobbs has been working in gift and estate tax laws for 25 years and says there has never once been a permanent tax act.

“This is important information,” she says. “But that’s the caboose. It is not the engine that should be driving the decision making about the farm’s succession and estate planning. Family goals come first.”

Tragic Turn: Trailer of Show Pigs Bursts Into Flames on I-80

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 18:23:41 GMT

With the windows rolled down and the sun on his face, Chad Rieck admits he was having a pretty good day driving down Interstate 80. He was pulling a trailer with four gilts, and one of those gilts was bringing home the title of Third Overall Purebred Breeding Gilt from the Aksarben Stock Show.

For Chad and his wife, Amy, spending precious time with their 17-year-old daughter Hollynn at a stock show is something they don’t take for granted. Their busy daughter, now a senior, was juggling the show weekend with homecoming, volleyball and dance team. Because of this, she drove separately to the show with her mom to squeeze in more of her school activities.

Separated by a couple minutes on the interstate, they were chatting on the phone keeping each other awake on the drive from Grand Island, Neb., back to their farm in Creston, Iowa. Suddenly, the traffic slowed down and their day took a tragic turn.

A car burning alongside I-80 held up traffic for miles.

(NDOT)

Igniting the Fire

“I remember my wife saying, ‘Traffic is starting to get bad,’” Rieck recalls. “I told her there was an accident up ahead and we’d get through it eventually.”

When he came upon the scene, he discovered a car burning alongside the road. By this time, he had rolled up his windows and slowly drove by the car. No emergency vehicles were on the scene, so Chad estimates the fire had probably started within three to five minutes of when he passed it.

“The front of the car was fully engulfed in flames,” Rieck describes. “The driver’s portion to the back of the car was starting to get hot – hot, hot flames. My fear of driving by was, ‘What if there’s a gas tank there, and that gas tank blows? That’s going to be bad.’”

When he drove by, something burst.

“It wasn’t the gas tank that blew, but something, whether it was a fuel line, a tire or whatever, blew a ‘poof’ of flames,” he says.

About a mile after he passed the car on fire – maybe one or two minutes at most – Rieck noticed smoke rolling out of the trailer. At first, he thought maybe some smoke from the fire got in through the open trailer windows. Then, he wondered if he blew a tire.

“I’m looking in the mirrors checking for that and continually rolling,” he says. “I see a semi behind me begin to flash his lights at me. That’s when I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve got problems.’”

Fortunately, he was coming upon an exit ramp. He jumped off the interstate and threw the truck in park as soon as he could.

“My wife’s still on the phone with me at this point,” he says. “I jump out of the truck and see the trucker running up with a couple of fire extinguishers. Because of him, I was able to get the back doors opened on the trailer. We got most of the flames down but didn’t have enough to get the fire completely out.”

When he opened the door, he saw that their banner-winning Poland China gilt was already dead, but the three other pigs were hanging on to life.

“The Poland gilt was on the back of the trailer and had somehow broken out of her pen trying to get away,” he says.

The burning trailer was caught on camera by the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT).

(NDOT)

Roadside Rescue

The fire picked up again as he tried to figure out how to get the pigs off the trailer.

“When I parked the trailer at the show, we left some tack in the trailer. So, I locked the ramp and the driver side walk-through door,” he explains. “I ran to get the key that I thought was in the truck, but there was no key there. Now, I’m just frantic.”

With no way to get to the three pigs still on the trailer, he grabbed for the big cart they hauled tack with that was standing upright in the back pen.

“Not a smart deal,” Rieck recalls. “I grabbed it with my hand, and now I’ve got some nice blisters. But even if I could have moved that cart, it wouldn’t have mattered. I had to get the pigs out the side ramp.”

The trucker ran back with a crowbar and Rieck broke the latches off the ramp door to get the ramp down. Flames greeted him. He was running out of options. He ran around to the other side’s ramp, broke that latch off and ended up getting two pigs out.

“The third pig was scared and wouldn’t come out, so I had to reach in through one of the sides to push her out,” he says. “I ended up with some burns on my arm from that, but I finally got her out.”

At this point, the trailer is still on fire. The trucker told Rieck to unhook his truck and pull it away from the trailer now that the pigs were out.

“I would have never thought of doing that,” he adds. “We had a gas can and small generator in the tack room of the trailer, so I went to work to get that out of there before we had an even bigger problem. Fortunately, the tack room was in decent shape, likely because there was a door between it and the main part of the trailer.”

Once the fire truck arrived, they focused on the trailer first. Megan Hobbs says she was able to gather buckets from the tack room to start filling to get to water all three pigs who were alive at the time. Unfortunately, they lost the Duroc, so they had to turn their focus to the remaining two.

(Megan Hobbs)

Meanwhile, people began showing up and helping with the pigs that were now scattered.

“I had one pig walking down the exit ramp,” Rieck says. “Meanwhile, one gilt was hunkered down under a tree in the ditch and the third was dying alongside the exit ramp. I’m in shock at this point – walking around and asking myself why.”

Stock show people he had never met before like Joe and Megan Hobbs of Newton, Kan., turned around and came back to help.

“As soon as we arrived at the scene, there was another young lady who worked for Legacy Livestock Imaging that had also stopped to help,” explains Megan Hobbs. “We immediately just jumped into action getting any and all water available to help cool the pigs down. At the beginning all we had was cooler water and water bottles. In those situations you don’t ask for permission, you just go with what your gut tells you to do.”

(Chad Rieck)

A Little Bit Ironic

When the York Fire Department showed up, they quickly went to work extinguishing the fire in the trailer. Hobbs says she kept running water back and forth from the firetruck to the people caring for the gilts alongside the road.

“God put us in the right place at the right time,” Hobbs says. “We trusted our gut turning around to go help as we just knew it was probably one of our own from the livestock industry that needed help.”

The firefighters on the scene also reached out to a firefighter in a nearby department, David May, who had show pigs.

“I received a call from dispatch when I was about 5 miles from my farm heading home with pigs from the show,” May says. “They said there was a vehicle fire involving a trailer with larger pigs and asked if I could help wrangle and haul the surviving pigs. Of course, I didn’t hesitate and was already on the move.”

May devised a plan to get his pigs off his trailer quickly and navigate through the piled-up interstate traffic.

“I had my 16-year-old daughter Braxtyn with me, so we began talking through things on the drive there,” May says. “I even joked with her, ‘It’s probably someone who kicked our butt today.’ But that didn’t cause either of us to hesitate to help however possible.”

When May got to the scene, he immediately recognized the pickup. It had been parked directly beside his truck during loadout about 45 minutes ago.

“I recognized the people and confirmed I didn’t know them,” May says. “I parked and walked up to assess and gather information. Within a minute, another Iowa trailer showed up to get the live hogs. We discussed what to do with the now two deceased pigs. I offered to put them on my trailer and dispose.”

After all the pigs were on trailers and the firefighters had inspected Rieck’s trailer to confirm it was safe to haul home, Rieck went over to talk to Braxtyn and thank her for coming to help.

Hollynn Rieck’s Champion Poland and Third Overall Purebred Breeding Gilt at Aksarben.

(Legacy Livestock Imaging)

“For some reason, I wanted to try to cheer this kid up who had just seen this devastation,” Rieck says. “I tried to distract her by asking if she showed a pig that day, and she said, ‘Yes, I was third place with my Poland gilt.’”

It was definitely a little ironic, both dads admit. Their kids had been competing against each other just a few hours earlier. They loaded their pigs up beside each other and took off about the same time. As they got back into their trucks and trailers for the second time that day, they both spent some time reflecting on their drive home.

A Case of Bad Luck

Hollynn drove her dad back in the truck and trailer because he was still in shock. All Rieck could think about was what he could have done differently.

“I saw a number of trailers roll right on by as we stood there with the trailer smoldering,” Rieck says. “I know the next time I see a car fire, I’m going to feel like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights. I’m going to be like, ‘Don’t drive through it.’ Maybe I could have gotten in the ditch more, but that’s not safe either.”

It was the kind of incident that you could never predict, May says. Typically, a trailer fire starts with a bad wheel bearing, then the wheel gets hot or locks up. Eventually, the tire catches on fire and results in heavy black smoke that’s easily visible.

(Chad Rieck)

“Most livestock trailer fires start on the outside of the trailer,” May says. “But this fire started inside the trailer. This was a completely freak accident.”

The odds of something hot coming off the car at the precise moment Rieck drove by while also entering the trailer is one in trillions, he adds.

“It’s a bad-luck lottery. It could never have been predicted,” May says. “But, just like so many instances in life, you just have to react and adapt as plans change.”

Still, Rieck says he learned some valuable lessons going through this experience. He will make sure his next trailer has fire extinguishers. He won’t travel with his doors locked on his trailer. He’s also going to invest in some wireless cameras to put into his trailer.

Stock Show Support

When they returned home, a veterinarian confirmed the gilts who survived the trailer fire needed to be euthanized, as their injuries were too severe. Rieck says it was hard on Hollynn to walk through an empty pig barn the next day. Although it’s not an uncommon thing, as every show season comes to an end, this was not the ending she expected. She had high hopes of taking the Poland gilt to the American Royal in a few weeks.

Hollynn won Champion Poland China Gilt and Third Overall Purebred Breeding Gilt at Aksarben.

(Amy Rieck)

For Rieck, the hardest part was calling the breeders who leased them the gilts and telling them what happened.

“The personal financial portion of this isn’t much compared to having to contact those breeders and let them know about the fire,” Rieck says. “We work with Hunter Langholff to get some of our pigs. I can only imagine what the conversation was like with me screaming and yelling about the pigs right after it happened. I’ll never forget Hunter calmly saying, ‘Do not worry about that. These breeders will only care that you, Hollynn and Amy are fine. Pigs can be replaced.’”

With a few tears in his eyes, Rieck says he never wants to take his stock show friends for granted.

“Stock show people are pretty special,” he adds. “Because guess what? We all wanted to win that day. We raise our kids in the show ring and in the show barn for a reason. It’s so we can be around these people. My daughter is going to be a much stronger person because of the experiences that she’s had winning and losing in the show ring and yes, even going through this trailer fire.”

Hollynn says she’s already learned a lot from the fire.

“I am so thankful for all of the people who stopped to help us during our emergency,” she says. “This is living proof that the stock show industry is the best thing to be a part of. The amount of love, thoughts and prayers I have received from people has been astronomical. At the end of the day, I am just grateful my family is ok and that I will forever be a part of such an amazing industry.”

As May reflects on what happened, he says he’s not surprised by the overwhelming support people provided to the Rieck family.

“It’s what we do for each other in all aspects of agriculture, not just livestock,” May says. “I’m glad I was able to assist as needed here and glad my daughter was able to see value in helping others even when it’s not always pretty fairy dust and rainbows.”

Winter: The Secret to Slowing the Spread of Screwworm

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 11:04:21 GMT

Winter or colder temperatures — it’s not something you typically hear livestock producers anticipating or praying for. But this year, as the threat of New World screwworm continues to inch closer to the U.S.-Mexico border, winter can’t come soon enough.

“Certainly, winter will be our friend,” says Chris Womack, a veterinarian and rancher from San Angelo, Texas. “Historically the flies were pushed south with frost.”

USDA Agricultural Research Service entomologist Kim Lohmeyer agrees we need winter to come fast. Lohmeyer serves as the laboratory director of the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, where she and her colleagues use modeling to know when and where NWS may show up in the U.S. They are partnering with Lee Cohnstaedt and his team at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kan., to study the life stages of NWS and its susceptibility to temperature and weather.

“With the climate changes and weather patterns we have now, if this fly gets here, it can go a lot further north, a lot further east and a lot further west,” Lohmeyer says. “It’s something to keep an eye on.“

The Winter Win

So, what exactly does “winter” mean? Lohmeyer says NWS are fairly cold sensitive, so several days of sustained cold temperatures in around 30°F would be enough to suppress NWS.

The NWS’s ability to survive is restricted to locations where low temperatures are regularly above freezing. Ideal adult fly activity occurs at 77°F to 86°F and relative humidity of 30% to 70%.

“This fly really loves 81.5°F,” explains meteorologist Matt Makens. “The research shows that’s when they’re friskiest.”

Although the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) remains a primary control mechanism, Makens says studies have made it clear that eradication success, outbreak intensity and re-emergence potential are closely tied to weather and climate.

“From seasonal wind patterns to monsoonal moisture, numerous environmental conditions shape the life cycle, spread and population dynamics of this parasite,” Makens explains. “Understanding these weather-related drivers is critical not only for control, but also in considering how long-term temperature trends have altered the geographic boundaries of screwworm viability since the major outbreaks of the 1950s and early 1960s.”

During a recent Cattlemen’s Call podcast Makens said weather is one of the main forces of spreading NWS.

“If we could control the weather, we could control the fly,” he stresses.

(Maps: Makens Weather)

Research indicates larval and pupal development cannot proceed below approximately 58°F and halts above 110°F. The optimal temperature for adult survival and reproduction lies around 81.5°F, a range common in tropical and subtropical climates like Mexico and Central America. NWS do not survive in regions with cold winters, though they may spread into these areas during the warmer months.

Impact of temperature on NWS:

Reduced activity: Adult screwworm fly activity is limited when temperatures are below 59°F.
Larval vulnerability: Pupae are vulnerable to soil temperatures below 46°F. Sustained maximums hotter than 95°F can also be limiting — extreme heat reduces adult fly activity and increases mortality in larvae exposed to hot surface soils.
Life cycle: While the entire life cycle can be completed in warm conditions, it takes longer in cooler, more temperate environments.

“One of the secrets to historically, the northern limit of screwworm, was basically a matter of how cold the winter got. That sort of limited how far it got,” says Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist. “In years when it was warmer, it would go farther. It would overwinter farther north, but in general, that’s going to set the upper limit, or at least it does if it’s not under control in any other way. That will limit its northward, northern movement, for sure.”

1972 NWS data (A) Monthly maps of observed cases of myiasis in Texas during the 1972 outbreak. Highest abundance occurred in August, and the length of all other density colour bars were scaled to it (bars in right hand margin of each map). The maximum density is at the top of each colour bar with the highest midseason incidence occurring in south central Texas. (B) Histogram summarizing the monthly total statewide data. (C) Map of total cases of myiasis during 1972.

(Medical and Veterinary Entomology)

Fly Season

David Anderson, Texas A&M professor and Extension specialist, says, historically, the fly season is April to October.

“If we get a really cold winter, that helps us,” Anderson adds. “It buys us some more time. But things are warmer now than it used to be. Fly season may not be that April to October anymore.”

NWS’s typical life cycle lasts about 21 days in warm weather and slightly longer in cooler climates. According to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, NWS fly life cycle is highly sensitive to temperature:

In warm (more than 80ᴼF daytime highs) and tropical conditions, the full life cycle may be complete in two to three weeks.
In more temperate conditions, the life cycle may take three to four weeks.
In cooler conditions, the life cycle may take up to two to three months.

It is important to understand that the flies do not die at these lower activity temperatures, but prolonged exposure to these temperatures can reduce populations or active infestations.

Texas rancher Wayne Cockrell says NWS’s entry into the U.S. is inevitable but suggests winter and colder weather might temporarily delay the spread until next April or May. Cockrell serves as the Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association director and chair of the cattle health and well-being policy committee.

“We should be within 60 days hopefully when cold weather helps in two-thirds of the state,” Cockrell explains.

Rainfall and Monsoon Factors

Makens says while temperature defines where screwworms can survive, rainfall and moisture influence when and how intensely they can thrive. Outbreaks often follow moderate to heavy rainfall by improving conditions for larval survival.

He explains tools like the Palmer Crop Moisture Index (CMI) have shown promise in predicting screwworm risk, with higher-than-normal CMI values sometimes preceding population spikes.

When rainfall coincides with favorable temperatures, screwworm activity tends to increase. In contrast, hot and dry conditions tend to suppress survival and reproduction.

“One of the most striking climate connections is the role of seasonal monsoon winds in transporting screwworms over long distances,” Makens explains. “In multiple outbreak years, adult flies were documented migrating northward into Texas and the desert Southwest via the North American Monsoon (NAM) — a seasonal pattern that delivers moisture to northwestern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest from June through September. During the summer, prevailing winds shift from west to a more humid, southerly flow, creating favorable conditions for fly migration from central and southern Mexico into their northern states and, at times, into the southern U.S. The NAM this year had an early start and gave significant rainfall to parts of Arizona and New Mexico. The NAM typically calms by early fall.”

In the 1960s, these wind-assisted movements allowed the temporary re-establishment of breeding populations even after local eradication. In some years, migration spanned hundreds of miles, connecting source populations in northern Mexico to re-infestations in Arizona and New Mexico.

“This atmospheric ‘conveyor belt’ remains a critical concern in surveillance strategies for livestock-producing regions of the Southwest,” Makens says. “The 2025 monsoon was undoubtedly a factor in the most recent northward migration of NWS.”

If NWS should cross the border, it will be key for producers to coordinate management practices with weather patterns expected for their region.

“Ultimately, weather patterns act as both a barrier and bridge for screwworm activity,” Makens summarizes. “Knowing how and when the balance tips is essential to preventing the return of one of the industry’s most damaging parasites.”

Here’s to hoping Old Man Winter decides to arrive quickly and help buy livestock producers and government leaders more time to prepare to battle NWS.

Your Next Read: The Battle at the Border

U.S.-Mexico Border Battle Continues As the Threat of New World Screwworm Intensifies

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 21:29:05 GMT

With New World screwworm (NWS) confirmed just 70 miles from the U.S. border , producers, government officials and industry leaders are taking action. Finding NWS along one of the most heavily trafficked commercial thoroughfares in the world from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, to Laredo, Texas, is a red flag for the industry. Emphasizing the importance of maintaining strong safeguards, it’s time to plan for not “if but when” NWS crosses the border.

On Monday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins confirmed protecting the U.S. from NWS is non-negotiable and a top priority for President Trump.

UPDATE ON SCREWWORM THREAT:

Protecting the United States from New World Screwworm is non-negotiable and a top priority for @POTUS.@USDA landed boots on the ground this morning in Nuevo Leon, physically inspecting traps and dispersing sterile flies after the detection of the…
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) September 23, 2025

“The southern border remains closed to livestock trade, and we are aggressively expanding trapping and surveillance,” she wrote. “At the same time, we’re expediting operations at our sterile fly dispersal facility at Moore Air Base in Texas .”

On Tuesday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins reported 80,000 sterile flies were released on “spot” and nearly 200 surge staff had been deployed to Mexico.

Thank you, @IngrahamAngle, for paying attention to this important issue. Due to multiple failures from our southern neighbors and failure to act in the last Admin, the devastating parasite New World Screwworm is knocking on our southern borders door. We’re not waiting, we’re… pic.twitter.com/ZO5Vx5oes8
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) September 24, 2025

Mexico’s Response To New World Screwworm

According to Reuters, Mexican’s agriculture ministry said there is no risk of adult screwworm fly emergence due to the early detection of the infected bovine, which was confirmed on Sept. 21. The infected animal was in a shipment of 100 animals originating from the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, according to the statement.

Fly traps in northern Mexico have not detected a single screwworm fly.

U.S.-Mexico Border Remains Closed to Cattle Trade

The Mexican border closure remains a topic of debate. The September Ag Economists’ Monthly Monitor found 80% of ag economists surveyed oppose reopening the border to Mexican cattle due to screwworm risks.

(Farm Journal)

The border closure has created significant division within the cattle industry with producers, feeders and industry leaders on both sides of the fence.

“We have some cattle people that are glad it’s closed. We’ve got others who are hit pretty hard and are not happy about it,” explains David Anderson, Texas A&M professor and extension specialist — livestock and food product marketing.

NWS is a threat the industry can not ignore, says the ag economist with more than 30 years under his belt.

“I think this is the most serious problem the industry has faced since I’ve been a livestock economist,” he stresses.

From his perspective, keeping the border open with heightened monitoring and surveillance could have potentially been more effective than implementing a total closure.

“If we go back and look at data from the early ‘70s, when we had a big screwworm outbreak in the U.S. and Mexico, the border was open,” he says. “I probably would have leaned to not closing the border to begin with. I understand why you would want to do that, but I don’t know that it’s ended up reducing the likelihood that we’re going to get screwworms, and yet we’re paying a price for that.”

According to Anderson the economic consequences to the border being closed are:

Significant loss of approximately 26,000 imported cattle weekly
Estimated 18% reduction in cattle placements in Southern plains
Contributed to tighter beef supplies and higher consumer prices
Substantial economic hit to cattle feeders and ranchers

At this point, he’s quick to admit keeping the border closed is the best option.

When it comes to reopening the border, Derrell Peel, Extension livestock marketing specialist with Oklahoma State University, suggests the decision is not straightforward.

“Given everything I’ve experienced, it’s probably prudent to leave the border closed,” he says.

He adds any reopening should be “under very, very controlled, limited circumstances.”

Peel emphasizes the need for a collaborative approach with Mexico.

“We’re kind of in it together, and so whether it’s here or there, we’ve got to work together,” he summarizes. “We’re going to need to control it in both places. Otherwise, it’s not going to benefit either one of us.”

He also points out not everybody in Mexico is sorry the border is closed. For example, cattle buyers in Mexico can source cattle cheaper because the border is closed.

“Keeping the border closed does affect the movement of cattle south of the border ... it builds a backstop for cattle movement north,” he adds.

Peel notes cattle from Central America to Panama have increasingly made their way to the Mexican market, which validates NWS movement in Mexico and why recent confirmation has occurred.

“The longer this goes on, the more the Mexican industry will adjust,” he says. “It might permanently change the way the [U.S. and Mexico] work together.”

Texas Rancher Weighs In On Impact of New World Screwworm

Texas rancher Wayne Cockrell says the parasite’s entry into the U.S. is inevitable, suggesting that winter and colder weather might temporarily delay the spread until next April or May. Cockrell, who serves as the Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association director and chair of the cattle health and well-being policy committee, recently joined AgriTalk to talk about NWS.

“We would much rather stop this on Mexico’s southern border than our Southern border,” Cockrell says.

Mexican feeder cattle traditionally represented 30% of Texas feedyard inventory, he adds, but with current restrictions, feedlots are adapting.

“I think a lot of those feedyards have moved to the dairy-cross side,” he adds. “They have had to change the way they do business.”

Noting the broader economic implications of the border closure, 1.2 million fewer cattle for Texas represents “about two weeks” of impact nationwide, according to Cockrell.

“Winter and sterile flies is what we need now,” Cockrell summarizes.

Your Next Read: The Smell You’ll Never Forget: A Calf Infested with New World Screwworm

Does Your Farm Team Need to Refocus or Reset?

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 19:05:24 GMT

Building a high-functioning team isn’t just a nice thing to do, experts say there is a strong business case to do it. Companies that cultivate strong, collaborative teams consistently outperform their competitors, driving innovation, engagement and results, according to the FranklinCovey Blog .

Studies have shown that high-performing teams are significantly more productive and creative than ineffective teams, making more-informed decisions and saving more time while producing better results. High-functioning teams also see higher employee engagement and job satisfaction, reducing turnover by 50%.

Joel DeRouchey, professor swine nutrition and state Extension leader at Kansas State University, says building a high-functioning ‘team’ is one of the most important things you can do to achieve success, whether it’s your team at work, a volunteer committee, or even your family. Though the size and dynamics of each of those teams varies greatly, what makes them high functioning doesn’t.

Shared Purpose
As an educator, DeRouchey has had the opportunity to be a part of many teams and see a lot of teams in action. From his perspective, teams must constantly evaluate if they need to refocus, recharge or reset. That starts with asking yourself some questions, he says.

“Are you engaged? Are you with people who truly believe in the purpose of the team?” DeRouchey asks.

He says high-functioning teams share the same goals.

“Whether you’re building a team of employees in the barn or in the boardroom, you have to start with the same goals of self-improvement,” DeRouchey adds. “This requires being open-minded, being a good listener and speaking up when needed.”

The most important trait high-functioning teams possess is horizontal accountability, he says.

“I’m accountable to my team members,” DeRouchey explains. “We all have some individual responsibilities that we have to be champions for, but we must realize how our role impacts the other team members.”

He says horizontal accountability builds trust, understanding and self-awareness that helps each individual improve while propelling the whole team forward.

“To me, that accountability to others is key,” DeRouchey says. “Teams that are always trying to one up each other get destroyed really fast.”

When is it Time to Move on?
One of the hardest parts of being a part of a team is recognizing when it’s time for the team to be done.

“All teams don’t have to stay in the same function and fashion for decades and decades,” DeRouchey says. “They need to evolve to those who can work together, have a common mission and trust each other.”

Teams that don’t work well together aren’t productive or fun. He says this is often due to selfishness among one or more members of the team.

“Sometimes people are concerned if others are getting credit, or if they feel the limelight is being taken away from them,” DeRouchey says.

Other times, the challenges arise when someone is doing a disproportionate amount of work because somebody else isn’t pulling their weight.

“There’s never an exact equal percentage of time spent on every little thing between members of a team,” he points out. “There’s never a equal percentage of who gets the credit.”

But he argues high-functioning teams don’t care who gets the credit. They just want to get it done right. When teams become unfunctional, or people lose interest, it’s important to be able to make hard decisions for the good of the bigger team, DeRouchey says.

“I don’t know what the right word is, but you’ve got to be happy on your team, and if you’re not, then you need to reflect on whether or not you should be part of this team,” he says.

It’s also good to look around to see if there is somebody on the team who’s causing unhappiness or if something the team is doing is causing it. If so, it may be time to hit the reset button.

“We can get into the blame game pretty fast on a team,” DeRouchey says. “That’s human nature. We need to instead look in the mirror and take a step back and say, ‘All right, if something’s not going right, what is it? Is it me? Is it the situation?’ Then, go figure out how to best go forward.”

DeRouchey shares more on The PORK Podcast. You can watch it here on YouTube or listen anywhere podcasts are found.

Watch more episodes here.

Wisconsin Ag Regulators Propose Massive Livestock Fee Increases

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 19:24:36 GMT

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) is proposing changes to rules, ATCP 10 and 12 , regulating animal disease and movement and animal markets, dealers and truckers.

According to the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation (WFBF) , these changes include massive fee increases that will be a substantial financial burden to markets, dealers and truckers that will unavoidably be passed down to farmers.

The license fee for what the DATCP calls “Animal Market Class A” would change from $420 to $7,430. A late fee for those markets would also increase by nearly 1,700% by shifting from the current price of $84 to $1,486. The registration fee paid by about 1,000 truckers transporting livestock in the state would increase 517%, from the current price of $60 to $370.

(Wisconsin Farm Bureau)

WFBF Government Relations Director Jason Mugnaini says it is important to clarify that Wisconsin’s program had historically received state funding support through DATCP, but this proposal shifts that onto industry fees.

The WFBF also reports the inspections and public health activity costs of these programs have previously been partially funded by state funding in Wisconsin, as they are in neighboring states. DATCP’s proposal shifts the full cost of these programs onto industry fees.

DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski explains the fees have not been adjusted since 2009 and the increases are needed to maintain critical animal health and transportation services.

“This program is currently in deficit because these have not been adjusted for so long,” Romanski explains. “Costs have increased during that time.”

He is transparent about the financial realities driving these increases. While the percentage increase might seem large, it reflects 17 years of accumulated cost pressures. He summarizes the goal is not to burden the industry, but to ensure the continued provision of critical animal health and movement services.

According to Sam GO, DATCP communications director, the DATCP Division of Animal Health receives federal funding through cooperative agreements for specific goals and objectives, such as animal disease surveillance and animal traceability. The cooperative agreements are separate from the programs in the proposed fee rules and do not fund the programs in the proposed fee rules.

She explains as federal funding for the cooperative agreements has decreased, those activities that are partially federally funded (such as animal disease surveillance and animal traceability) need to have a larger portion of their costs covered by the state animal health general program revenue. That means there is less state GPR remaining to cover the deficit in program revenue for the ATCP 10 and ATCP 12 programs.

The ATCP 10 fees support the following animal health programs: Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI) Forms, Intermediate Handling Facilities, Disease Certifications (Brucellosis, Tuberculosis, Pseudorabies), Equine Infectious Anemia Retests, Equine Quarantine Stations, Feed Lots, Medical Separation, National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP), Farm-Raised Deer, and Fish Farms.

The Process

Romanski explains the administrative rule process is collaborative and takes about two and a half years. He says the process is designed to be collaborative with multiple opportunities for public input and engagement. He encourages stakeholders to not just critique the increases, but to offer constructive feedback and potential alternative solutions.

The current stage is specifically about public comment and engagement. He says the department wants to hear from industry members, producers and other stakeholders. They are actively seeking input that can help shape the final rule package.

The public can participate and provide feedback that can be considered by the department’s staff through several channels:

Attending public hearings
Submitting written comments by Oct. 15

The remaining hearings will be hosted virtually and at the Prairie Oaks State Office Building, Room 106, 2811 Agriculture Dr., Madison, WI 53708. For more information, dial-in instructions and to register for online access click on the ATCP 10 or 12.

ATCP 10:
• Monday, Sept. 15 – 1 p.m.
• Wednesday, Sept. 17 – 9 a.m.

ATCP 12 :
• Tuesday, Sept. 16 – 1 p.m.
• Wednesday, Sept. 17 – 1 p.m.

Individuals can submit written comments by Oct. 15 to: Angela.fisher1@wisconsin.gov or Angela Fisher, DATCP, P.O. Box 8911, Madison, WI 53708

Romanski explains after the public comment period, DATCP staff will review all submissions, consider suggested changes, and then present any revisions to their policy-making board. This ensures multiple layers of review and public involvement.

Neighboring State Comparisons

According to the proposal document , programs in adjacent states (Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois) are similar to Wisconsin, as all are based on federal standards. Neighboring states primarily fund these types of programs through general program revenue; therefore, they have lower fees than Wisconsin’s current fees. While Wisconsin’s program fees are collected from a small number of licensees, these critical programs have impacts and benefits across animal health, animal industries and public health.

In Iowa, a livestock market permit is $50 per year. The livestock dealer and livestock market agent permits are $10 per year. A bull breeder license is $20 every two years. A livestock dealer or order buyer permit is $50 per year. A feeder pig dealer agent permit is $6 every two years. A pig dealer’s agent permit is $3 per year.

In Michigan, an action Class I is $400 per year. A buying station (Class II) is $250 per year. The remaining fees are waived for veterans: A dealer (Class III) is $50 per year. An agent broker (Class III) is $50 per year. A collection point (Class III) is $50 per year. A trucker (Class IV) is $25 per year.

In Minnesota, a livestock market agency and public stockyard is $300 per year. A livestock dealer is $100 per year. A livestock dealer agent is $50 per year.

In Illinois, a livestock auction market license is $200 per year. The livestock dealer license is $25 for a new license, $10 for the annual renewal, as well as $10 for each location in addition to the first location, and $5 for each employee. A feeder swine dealer license is $25, the renewal is $10, and there is a fee of $5 for each employee. There is no fee for a slaughter livestock buyer’s license, just a requirement to submit an annual report.

Industry Feedback

Both the Wisconsin Cattlemen’s Association (WCA) and WFBF have come out opposed to the fee increases.

Tressa Lacy, WCA president from Rio, Wis., voiced her concern at the first hearing on Sept. 11.

“The Wisconsin Cattlemen’s Association is in opposition to the proposed fee increases inspections and registrations related to a variety of activities by Wisconsin animal dealers, truckers and markets in ATCP 10 and 12,” she says. “I raise beef cattle with my husband and our 8-month-old in Columbia County. We both work off the farm in agriculture to financially afford our beef and hay farm operation, and I know the cost of these fees will be passed directly on to producers like us.

“The result of such significant increases will be fewer livestock marketing options, the potential for reduced disease traceability and fewer opportunities to sell livestock in the state of Wisconsin. Fewer options inevitably mean lower prices and thinner margins in an industry that is already being pushed on thin profit lines.”

She explains the inspections and animal health protections funded by these programs serve a broad public purpose — protecting animal health and consumer confidence in the meat raised in Wisconsin.

“It is fundamentally unfair to shift the entire cost onto the users as this is certainly a public food safety conversation,” Lacy adds. “I share the industry concern that these initial proposals are just the start of all programs in Wisconsin shifting to being user funded. Other states fund these programs with state support as the benefits are shared by everyone. DATCP should restore and continue the approach for these outlined programs.”

She concluded her comments saying: “WCA respectfully ask that DATCP reconsider these unreasonable fee increases and maintain a funding structure with state support that is fair, practical and supportive of both public health and Wisconsin agriculture.”

Mitch Giebel a WFBF member from Lyndon Station, Wis., also shared his thoughts on the proposed fee increases.

“I’m very concerned about the massive increases of fees being proposed,” he says. “As a young farmer, every dollar really does matter on our operation. We work hard to raise our livestock, and we already face high input costs, tight margins and unpredictability when it comes to marketing. Adding thousands of dollars in new fees, especially increases as massive as what is proposed doesn’t seem realistic. It’ll undoubtedly make it harder and tighter for the sale barns and livestock markets to survive, and unavoidably, it is probably going to be passed to us as the producers and farmers.”

He also explains programs such as animal health, disease control and traceability benefit everybody in the state, not just farmers.

“Healthy animals and safe food are the best interest for our state; other states recognize that and utilize state funding to maintain these programs and cover these costs,” he says. “Wisconsin needs to restore and maintain its state funding that has historically existed for these programs, rather than shifting a substantial burden on a small number of farmers and marketers. I am asking you to please reject these fee increases as they are written. They are too steep, too fast and out of line with our neighboring states.”

WFBF is calling on producers to share their concerns: “These unprecedented fee increases cannot move forward without your voice being heard. Share how these proposals would impact your farm, your business and Wisconsin agriculture.”

Is the U.S. Corn and Soybean Crop Getting Smaller?

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 15:16:51 GMT

From disease to drought, this 2025 crop has been thrown a curve ball late in the season. It’s also pushing the crop to maturity quicker. And with USDA projecting currently projecting a record yield and crop, many analysts say the U.S. crop is likely going backwards in terms of yield, but that doesn’t necessarily mean USDA will cut yield projections next month.

USDA’s August crop production report showed a record-high 2025/26 U.S. corn yield projection of 188.8 bu. per acre and a record-high soybean yield estimate at 53.6 bushels per acre.

But as AgWeb reported earlier this week , southern rust could take a big bite out of the U.S. corn crop this year. The disease is causing turmoil for farmers who have a large crop in the making. In some cases, a Hail Mary fungicide application at R4 up to early dent (R5) might make sense this season, say agronomists. But in severe cases, the disease can wipe out 45% of the yield potential in a field, according to the Crop Protection Network (CPN) .

A map of counties where Southern Rust has been confirmed or reported in 2025.

(CPN )

Add to that fresh concerns about drought, as the latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows drought is now covering 33% of the country. When it comes to agriculture, 5% of the corn crop is now considered in drought, 11% of the soybean crop and 30% of the cotton crop.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey authored the Monitor this week, saying the drought picture has drastically changed over the past month.

“We’re seeing rapid expansion flash drought across the mid-south, lower Midwest into the Northeast,” Rippey says. “All of this drought has come on in just the last few weeks. At the end of July, we were virtually drought free in the Midwest, so to see these yellows and tans starting to light up, that is reflective of the overall dryness. Of course, it’s a different story in the West where we’ve got drought really deeply entrenched. But from the big picture here, a lot of focus on those developing drought areas from the mid-South into the northeast.”

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows how the dry August is impacting the drought picture across the country.

(U.S. Drought Monitor )

Rippey says as the taps turned off for some areas, some portions of the Eastern Corn Belt are seeing their driest August on record. He says that dryness is extending westward into parts of the southern and eastern Corn Belt.

“Agriculturally, all eyes are on the Northern Mississippi Delta into the Ohio Valley and the southern Corn Belt. A lot of those areas are receiving less than half of the normal rainfall during the month of August. A few areas have less than 25% of normal,” Rippey says. “And with those taps turning off, that is depleting topsoil moisture. We’re going to have to wait and see with crop production in September to see how the crops have handled this late dryness.”

The map showing the percent of normal precipitation proves areas of the Corn Belt, West and Northeast have turned off dry to end the summer.

(Brad Rippey, USDA)

Rippey says, on a positive note, temperatures have remained mild. So, even though the moisture has been sparse or absent, at least temperatures didn’t amplify the situation. But a dry August is still a concern.

Impact on Yield
Peter Meyer, who helped lead Pro Farmer Crop Tour in the east last week, says with the amount of dryness that’s entered the picture —and the fact that disease has exploded in many Midwest fields over the past week — he thinks the crop is getting smaller, not bigger. But that’s something that likely won’t show up until USDA factors in test weight, which will be the October report.

“I think the crop has gone backward since [Pro Farmer] Crop Tour,” Meyer says. “When I start to look at some of these numbers for the month of August, it was extremely dry in many, many areas. We’re talking the top 10 or 15 dry years out of the last 150, 160 years. So, that’s why the crop ran out of gas. It had a lot of moisture. The heat was there. It pushed a crop further and faster. I think we have an issue.”

Meyer says based on those factors, he’s dropped his yield estimate from the 183 bu. per acre he personally projected during Crop Tour last week.

“But I’m still not below 180 [bu. per acre]. I think we’re going to have an early harvest, and I think we’re going to have an earlier harvest in beans, too. That’s represents a problem here as far as the market is concerned.”

“It definitely feels like it’s going backward,” said Jim McCormick with AgMarket.net on U.S. Farm Report. “When we talk to our clients, which we have some all across the country, they are really concerned about it. Probably a little bit more in the east and the west where we’ve seen some of the driest conditions in 130 years in parts of Ohio. Is it a disaster? No, but it’s definitely taking the top end off the crop.”

Dan Basse, who’s AgResource Company’s president and founder, agrees the U.S. corn and soybean crops could be losing yield, but he warns that it may not be a dramatic cut.

“I think its going backward, but maybe not to the degree that the farmer would like,” Basse said on U.S. Farm Report. “We dropped our yield estimate from 189.2 to 187.1 [bu. per acre]. So, we’re down a skosh from USDA, but this is still a big crop. And some of the early deal data we’re getting out of Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas is above what expectations were. When you think about this crop, southern rust is a bad disease if you get it into blister or early milk stage. But when it happens at dent, you’re looking at yield losses of zero to 4%. So, let’s hope that farmers applied one application of fungicide and that kept them until the crop got in the dent. I’m hoping that’s going to limit yield losses going forward.”

USDA’s next yield revision could come Sept. 12. That’s when the agency is slated to release its latest crop production report. But if you look at USDA’s methodology in September, which is to factor in ear counts and pod counts, Basse thinks USDA could potentially raise its yield estimate next month.

“I think, in general, they tend to grow a little bit bigger,” McCormick says of USDA’s historical pattern of yield estimates from August to September. “I mean, look at last year’s analog year. The crop was big in August, it got bigger in September, then again in October before they started revising it down. It would not be a surprise that they will go bigger, but there’s gonna be a lot of pushback, like Dan said, from the disease pressure. There’s going to be a wide range on the estimate for the September WASDE when it’s all said.”

Basse adds: “I wouldn’t be surprised if USDA raises yield next month. Even on the Pro Farmer Crop Tour, it showed us record ear counts and record pod counts. Those are the two most important ingredients for the September report. Now, in October, we’ll have more to know about pod weights and ear weights. But for September, I’m kind of expecting USDA is going to be a few bushels, if you will, from the August estimate. It’s the October report that will determine how big is big.”