This is the second of a two-part feature about the intersection of agriculture, business and culture at a place called the Corn Palace in the southeast corner of South Dakota. It is a long way from a roadside attraction dedicated to corn in southeast South Dakota to the mucilage of a $47 billion corn industrial complex that makes maize barely …
Three years ago, Beth Hoffman left her career as a college professor and journalist in San Francisco for the life of farming. She and her husband, John Hogeland, headed to Iowa with $19,000 of savings and a vague and ambiguous plan to take over as the fifth generation on his family’s 530-acre farm. The simple life, however, turned out to be not …
I had the most interesting experience recently. I was asked by a friend to portray Mr. Jefferson at a seed conference. More than 100 gathered on the Great Plains to learn about the latest work in agricultural seed development. It’s a fascinating and even breathtaking enterprise — to manipulate what’s going on inside seeds to maximize production on America’s farms. …
An amendment co-authored by North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven to the huge tax cut bill passed by Congress late last year provides generous tax breaks to farmer-owned cooperatives and to farmers who sell grain to them. But it could create real problems for privately owned elevators. If it’s not fixed, somehow, there’s not a farmer anywhere who is going to …
I want to tell you a story today about a really remarkable woman, a true North Dakotan, a real character and my favorite relative: my Aunt Deloris. Deloris Boehmer is my last living aunt. She’s the only remaining member of my parents’ generation in our family. She’s 88, and lives in Edmore, N.D., about 40 miles northeast of Devils Lake. …
This hot July weather has me thinking about making hay on our Slope County ranch. This year’s drought has us all worried, and it is especially worrying for those rural folks who rely upon their hay crop to feed livestock. Haying, like so many of the farm/ranch chores, was a full-on family effort for us, with someone running the equipment …
A few farmers launched the 2015 grain harvest south of Grand Forks last week. The ritual on the land herald’s at least two things: the arrival of fall and the beginning of a new school year are creeping ever closer.