Bob CollinsThree dairy farms a day go out of business in Wisconsin, the dairy state. Like any business story, it’s a tale of low prices for milk and high prices for feed and supplies. It’s simple math. But it’s hard not to feel for the people whose job is their life and always has been. The Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: Agriculture
These are tough times in the dairy business, particularly for small operations. But the fact a livelihood is destroyed so quickly by a month of snow reveals the precipice on which many farmers stand. Read more →
The soybeans of Arthur, N.D., northwest of Fargo, aren’t waiting for an end to a trade war that seems to have no end. They’re going to rot.
It was a good year for growing soybeans in these parts. Not so good for selling them. Read more →
‘I’m a saver,’ Alan Dragseth says. ‘I was building up an inventory of stuff but I never thought I’d start a museum.’ So he started a museum devoted to sugar beet farming. Read more →
There was nothing happening in the sugar beet section of Minnesota on Wednesday. The yards at the sugar beet factory in Crookston were empty, the machines were silent. There were no trucks. Along the fields from Ada into Crookston, harvesters, combines, and trailers sit idled. It’s been raining and snowing and the harvest is on hold.
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Lloyd Tiede couldn’t hold back, not when the Le Center farmer gave in to reality and had to tell his daughter he’s selling the farm.
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The way the economy of agriculture is now, a sure sign that you’re going to have a tough time in the dairy business is you have a name for all of your cows.
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President Trump’s tit-for-tat trade war with China has now reached the cartoon soybean stage. Read more →
Your daily dose of bittersweetness comes from KARE 11’s Boyd Huppert, who has covered the decision by farm families to cash out, thanks to low milk prices. Read more →
You have to love the resilience and creativity of farmers who figured out that people would pay a premium to to do yoga poses with goats.
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When the tax is up for debate every few years, supporters almost always invoke the family farm. Who would possibly be against the family farm and the poor widow who has to sell because she can’t pay a tax bill?
Who would have to sell the family farm? Almost nobody in the farm state of Iowa, the newspaper reports. Read more →
We suspect that Minnesota and other regional farmers are about to organize a ‘hay-lift’ to the farmers of North Dakota, because from the sound of things, they’re going to need it.
A look at this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor map reveals why. To the west of us, there’s a real problem underway.
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Wisconsin Public Radio reported that farmers in western Wisconsin have been visited by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and warned they’ll be back, suggesting the possibility of sweeping raids that farmers say could weaken the local economy.
Dairy workers around Durand, Wis., decided to leave after rumors swept the community that ICE was in town.
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Yesterday, the auctioneer showed up in Arkansaw, Wisc., — near Durand in Pepin County — and by lunch, 62 cows at Patnode Lane Holsteins were gone. Weston and Jenni Patnode were out of business after four generations on the land. Read more →
Maybe if workers at a hog processing plant were white, Mason City, Iowa would have embraced a plan that would have brought close to 2,000 jobs to the city, an official with the company proposing the plant is suggesting.
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