Farmer of the Future, part 4: Agriculture is a big business fueled by big businesses. And although farmers themselves still come in many sizes, the distinction between corporate ownership and family farmer is blurring.
Farmer of the Future, part 3: It seems every farming operation today professes to be "sustainable." We may not know if that’s true until decades from now, but farmers' choices today well may provide a game plan for tomorrow.
Farmer of the Future, part 2: With automation already popular on many farms, how far will technology go? Will the farmer of the future be a human farmer at all?
Farmer of the Future, part 1: While some of the rural Midwest is hollowing out, regions like Sioux County, Iowa, are actually growing, thanks largely to immigrant populations moving in to take jobs that employers otherwise cannot fill. Melding cultures is never easy, but in communities like Sioux County, Latinos are slowly making the Midwest their home.
Missouri soybeans are exported all over the world and markets are growing. That means local Missouri farmers are making connections to global partners.
Across the Corn Belt, the planting season is off to a roaring start. And with farmers expected to put in more acres of corn than they have since the Great Depression, this fall’s harvest could be one for the record books.
Last fall, officials predicted that farmland along the Missouri River in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas might be out of production for at least a year. The flood of 2011 piled up sand dunes, gouged out deep holes, and killed off many of the microbes that help crops grow. But now it’s spring, and farmers are back on the land, trying to fix what nature broke.
For many Midwesterners, wind is an occasional nuisance. For farmers, though, the wind's impact can be huge — drying out crops and eroding topsoil. Gusts big and small also complicate the application of chemicals, and that can be particularly costly. That's why researchers are throwing their unique brand of caution to the wind inside a new research facility in North Plate, Neb.
