For 150 years, silos have been a fixture of the Corn Belt, but efforts to preserve them have been haphazard.
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Serviceberries, or juneberries, are a native fruit beloved by wildlife. But now they’re moving from backyards to farms, and some hope they’ll soon be on your plate.
The post Serviceberries are a sweet native fruit — and these Midwesterners want you to try them appeared first on WPR.
Silos — tower-like structures on farms that hold fermented feed for livestock — have dotted the Midwestern landscape for 150 years. But they’re threatened by development and old age. One “silo hunter” in northern Illinois has been tracking down silos her grandfather built before they disappear.
Marianne May drove around the backroads of McHenry County on a recent afternoon, scanning for those tall, round structures with a shallow point at the top that’s characteristic of her grandfather’s silos. Some of them have a little diamond shape on the very top — his signature.
She’s a self-proclaimed silo hunter, and she comes back to her hometown throughout the year to find ever more silos that her grandfather, Frank May, built on some of the oldest farms in the Midwest.
“I grew up in Richmond, and I always knew where a lot of my grandpa’s silos were,” she said. “I just sort of had them in my head. I never really thought that I would do anything about it. They just were always there, part of the landscape.”
Silos probably fade into the background for most people who live in the Corn Belt. Though they often serve as landmarks, people’s connection to them has tended to be utilitarian. Occasionally, silos have been saved by being converted into housing or public space, but many others have been destroyed.
But their legacy is rooted in Illinois. Historians believe the first one in the Midwest was built in Spring Grove, a village in McHenry County. Bill Kemp, historian with the McLean County Museum of History, said silos transformed agriculture in the Midwest.
“Silos and all of these magnificent, very utilitarian buildings,” Kemp said, “really speak to this rich, dynamic, very diverse agriculture that was practiced up until World War II — or the decade after World War II — when industrialization and commercialization and singular, two-crop farming came into play.”
Farmers used to have to rely on dried hay to feed their animals over the winter, but it was bulky and it didn’t last long. But silos are airtight containers that farmers could pack tightly with corn, allow it to ferment and then store it for years. They used to be made of wood, but when people like Frank May started using concrete in the early 1900s, farmers could grow their livestock herds even larger.
Kemp said initially, farmers were skeptical of this new invention.
“Once you would have a farmer in a particular township or in a rural neighborhood construct a silo and find how useful it was,” he said, “that would be quickly adapted by his or her neighbors.”
It’s an essential structure.
“We tend to forget about the built environment of the Corn Belt,” he said. “And all these wonderful stories — the buildings and the structures in the countryside that people drive past all the time but never really think about — what do they say about the past?”
Marianne May said silo hunting can be a thankless task. She’s been doing this for six years and has identified almost 200 of her grandfather’s silos. She said there may be at least that many more.
“Almost every place I go, there’s something,” she said. “There’s some connection, whether it’s somebody in my family or extended family, or maybe they worked with Frank. There’s something fun to be discovered.”
So much of the work is investigation and guesswork. But she can speculate what it was like for her grandparents to grow up as neighbors, just like she wonders why the silos are clustered in groups, or why he used one shape over another.
She found a silo at Frank May’s childhood home, as well as a matching silo at the farmhouse across the street. That’s where Marianne’s grandmother grew up.
“I think it’s important that these silos are identified,” she said. “The locations where they are and where they were, because each time I come home, there are some gone that get pushed over for development or just fall over.”
It’s a reminder that May’s project is never-ending and that it’s a gift to learn more about the family history of the area’s farming community — and the mark farming made on the Midwestern landscape.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
Silos are disappearing from the landscape. One woman wants to hunt them down before they do. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Scott Rosenberg and Heather Toman did not expect to own a vegetable farm in Wisconsin. Toman was born in New Mexico, and Rosenberg spent the first two decades of his career in the insurance industry.
Now, as the owners of Full Circle Community Farm in Seymour, they’re considered some of the best organic farmers in the Midwest, and they’re helping expand a community dedicated to sustainable farming.
Rosenberg quit his high-paying job to get an associate’s degree in sustainable farming at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. There he met Valerie Dantoin, who encouraged him to rent a quarter acre of her land to grow vegetables.
“A midlife crisis is really what it kind of came down to, but instead of buying a sports car, I took a gigantic pay decrease,” Rosenberg joked.
After getting her master’s degree in biology at Northern Michigan University, Toman met Rosenberg and established Full Circle Community Farm in 2017, along with Andrew Adamski.
“It’s a continuous learning curve,” Toman said. “It never is really going to end – us learning and improving. We figure out new things every year.
The vegetable farm started on the family land of Rick Adamski and Dantoin, who own an organic pork and beef farm that Full Circle Community Farm partners with. Marbleseed named the group of five its Organic Farmers of the Year for 2024 for their sustainable practices.
Rosenberg and Toman now farm between 12 and 15 acres at peak season. Their Community Supported Agriculture program serves 250 people during the summer, delivering boxes of fresh produce to customers in Green Bay, De Pere and Appleton.
“Another way to look at it is in 2017-2018, for our cold storage, we were utilizing a donated refrigerator, and now we have a 20-foot by 30-foot walk-in cooler,” Rosenberg said. “So things have slowly changed over the years.”
They help run the SLO Farmers Co-op, a group of seven independent family farms in northeast Wisconsin that cooperate to provide food to local schools and restaurants. All of the farms are committed to organic and sustainable practices.
“Corn, soy farmers, you know, at the end of the day, they’re farmers like I am, so I have respect for them and what they do, and they can farm how they want,” Rosenberg said. “It’s important to me that I’m recognizing the migratory birds that are coming through the area, and the deer that sometimes eat my vegetables, just having buffer zones by the creek of trees, and planting additional trees in there that are native to the area.”
Rosenberg gave a public tour of the farm on Sunday, June 7, as part of the Summer Farm Crawl hosted by the Lake to Bay chapter of the Wisconsin Farmers Union. Rosenberg showed their greenhouses and some of his equipment, like an Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor that he modified to be an electric vehicle using a golf cart motor.
“Even though I’m not an engine guy, I figured if I just started taking bolts off the engine, it would eventually fall off, and it did … I can get about six hours of operation off that battery, which is more than I need in a single day,” Rosenberg said.
Full Circle Community Farm also provides a “worker share” option for its CSA, in which members work a shift each week in exchange for a large box of produce. These workers have grown into some of their most valued employees.
“People just find us, and they have been a huge, huge blessing,” Rosenberg said. “We’ve had some worker shares that have been with us for four or five years now, and they just love their little four-hour slice of coming out here once a week and getting their hands dirty and doing something different.”
The farm also takes on interns through NWTC, training people of many experience levels.
“We’ll bring people on with zero skills and patiently work with them,” Rosenberg said. “I just get a kick out of working with people and teaching them things, and just seeing the wonder on their faces that sometimes I don’t always feel, so I feel like that’s pretty unique.”
Amber Borealis started as a worker share about eight years ago. She moved onto the property during the COVID-19 pandemic and is now working full time as the farm’s pack shed manager. She’s impressed by how much they’ve been able to expand the farm over the years, including building the pack shed and three high tunnel greenhouses.
“When I started, they had one field,” Borealis said. “So just getting to see how much they can grow and how much community support they’ve had and how much they’ve supported the community in return has been really awesome.”
Transitioning to farm life wasn’t always easy – Borealis was born in Virginia and trained as a glassblower in college — but Rosenberg and Toman were always game for her to try new things.
“This past year I learned how to drive a tractor, which is not something I ever thought I’d do in my life … It’s terrifying the first time,” Borealis said. “It is a very large piece of equipment. It’s very loud. You feel very exposed, even if you’re in a cab, because it’s all glass. But it’s really fun, and this is the first year that the plants we’re harvesting are things I planted driving the tractor.”
Borealis said she’s found an important sense of community living on the farm, especially since her family lives far away on the East and West coasts.
“It’s nice having the little shelter and little group of friends who feel like family here,” Borealis said. “If I’m having a bad day, I can absolutely lean on Scott or Heather. And then if I’m having a really good day, they will absolutely support me and be like, ‘Yes, you did it!’”
This story is part of Meet a Neighbor, an ongoing feature series focused on the people who make a difference in northeastern Wisconsin. Know someone we should spotlight? Nominate them here.
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Seymour farmers build organic farming community in northeast Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
All of Greg Thoren’s cows are technically identified by the number on their ear tag. But when he drives around his pastures checking in on his animals, they go by another name: Sweetie.
“Hey, sweetie,” he reassured one cow — her ear labeled 604. “Hi, honey. You’re okay.”
In the spring, one of Thoren’s daily tasks is tooling around looking for calves that were born overnight. This cow had a newborn.
“You’re okay. You had that baby this morning.”
He stepped out of the truck, caught hold of the calf and in a few moments had looked it over, tagged its ear and popped back into the truck. He made a couple of notes in a battered pocket notebook and continued on through the fields.
Thoren comes out to greet his cows most days, bringing a pile of hay in the bed of his old pickup truck as a snack. If he stops for long enough, the herd descends on his truck, eating straight from the bed.
He’s a regenerative farmer, which means that as much as he cares for his animals, he cares about his soil more. He used to work the land as intensely as any other conventional farmer, but he quit “cold turkey” years ago.
Now, he’s cover-cropping, rotational-grazing, no-tilling and trying out any other conservation method he wants to experiment with. And it’s showing interesting results: He’s saving a lot of money, his cows are healthier, and his profits are growing. Plus, researchers have shown that these and similar conservation methods reduce soil erosion and water pollution and help to store more carbon in the soil compared to conventional methods.
He also shares what he’s learned with a group called the Jo Daviess County Soil and Water Health Coalition. The work they do is at the heart of the “farmer-led movement,” a grassroots initiative to put farmers at the center of agricultural innovation, rather than top-down academics or government officials. The movement is well underway in northwest Illinois, and similar examples can be found throughout the U.S. and across the globe.
The coalition believes that one of the most effective ways to make farms more resilient — and more profitable — is to invite people into farmer-led conversations about soil health and water quality. Many farmers in the coalition are trying their own conservation methods and sharing the outcomes at field days and regular meetups.
This shared knowledge is meant to create a community of farmers who are shifting their mindset. They show up to learn from one another and experiment with conservation themselves. The coalition estimates their outreach, education and events have reached hundreds of people.
Corn Belt farmers are in the midst of multiple crises. Conventional farming practices are contributing to pollution, erosion and financial misfortune. Farm debt and bankruptcies are rising, and so are prices for inputs like fertilizer, pesticides and fuel. Meanwhile, the prices farmers get for crops like corn, soybeans and wheat are on a downturn. The Midwest lost more than 30,000 farms between 2017 and 2024.
The farmer-led movement offers an answer to these crises.
“Change is what needs to happen,” said Beth Baranski, the organizing secretary for the Jo Daviess County Soil and Water Health Coalition. “The farmer-led movement allows people to share the risk and minimize the risk. … The key is the farmers on their farms, in their fields, figuring out the practices that will work for them to achieve these goals.”
Many farmers in the movement are still using conventional practices. It’s not necessarily the goal of the coalition to convince everyone to take on 100% regenerative practices. The group recognizes every farmer comes to it from a different place and has different priorities for their land and operations. Even if they wanted to try regenerative farming practices, razor-thin margins make it financially risky to make the switch.
Instead, the goal is for farmers to show their neighbors what’s possible and learn from each other.
And while there are plenty of government programs and grants and incentives that could help in theory, Baranski said many farmers are skeptical about how well they actually work. She said that, generally, they’re more likely to trust another farmer.
“Somebody coming from the corporate world or from an institution … and saying, ‘This is what you need to do,’ is not as effective as a neighboring farmer who has tried one practice and found it beneficial,” she said.
The coalition offers connection and tested solutions to some of agriculture’s biggest problems. But it’s a slow-growing movement, and much of the industry is set up to work in opposition to the coalition’s goals, said Jonathan Coppess, an associate professor of agricultural policy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“When things are tight and margins are tough, what we’ve seen historically is farmers tend to push it, right? You push the land, you try to put more land in production,” he said.
Coppess said policy coming from the government should support innovation like regenerative agriculture so farmers don’t have to choose between protecting soil and water and making a profit. But he said policies act like a barrier instead.
“If you’re running tight — or even sometimes negative — margins on a crop, you’re going to try to get more of that crop so you can have a little bit more room to market it. And you’re going to try to do everything you can to put bushels in the bin.”
He said that pressure makes it that much harder for farmers to move away from conventional practices and try conservation.
“In theory, farmers could just decide to put less nitrogen on (their fields),” he said. “The risk of doing that is pretty significant. And so our policies may be making it worse … but we’re also not addressing those issues. And so to me, it’s almost like paradoxes within paradoxes wrapped in ironies.”
He said conservation-minded farmers can be put at a competitive disadvantage to other farmers and across the supply chain.
“Farmers doing conservation practices are some of our most innovative,” he said. “They’re thinking well ahead. … Maybe it takes three or four or five years for this practice to really begin to pay off, and that’s a really critical but difficult investment.”
The farmer-led movement does have some federal backing. The coalition got seed money from an organization called the Fishers & Farmers Partnership, which uses Congress-appropriated money to support similar projects in the Midwest. They also support projects that actually install conservation practices. So far, they’ve funded 70 projects, and with matching funds from other sources to support these projects, they’ve generated more than $9 million for initiatives that put farmers at the center of the conversation.
Amy Smith is one of the directors of the partnership. She said it is important to fund work that starts with the farmer.
“We’re focusing on the farmer because we’re focusing on people,” she said. “We are sitting with that farmer at the table, and we’re pulling in other people that they can connect with, and then they’re doing the same on the back end. They’re connecting with neighbors; they’re connecting with local county members.”
The partnership has awarded grants for more than 15 years, and so far, they’ve helped to enhance 113 habitats and conserve almost 40,000 acres of land. Since 2021, their work has engaged more than 175,000 people in outreach or education events like the ones Jo Daviess County Soil and Water Health Coalition hosts.
“Creating this mind shift in one farmer can lead to the mind shift of 20,” Smith said. “And that’s where we see watershed-scale change, landscape-scale change.”
As Thoren turned his truck onto the dirt road toward home, he said even though farming this way isn’t exactly easy, but when it’s stripped down to the basics, it’s pretty simple.
“You’ve got to think about the farm. It’s not about the people. It’s about the farm. It’s about the land. It’s about the soil. That’s why I tell these young people, ‘Come in with me.’ I said, ‘It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about the soil.’”
That kind of understanding doesn’t come easy under the current industry that incentivizes conventional farming, he said. But when farmers’ minds start to shift, so can the whole system.
“It just all comes together,” Thoren said. “It’s not the system. It’s the mindset of the person to get the system activated, but you got to have the mindset of the person first. That’s my true belief.”
He’s hosting a field day later this summer, and other farmers connected to the group are hosting their own field days, as well. It’s a testament to the success of the coalition; they get to be in a supporting role to farmers who are leading the way forward.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouriin partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
How one program is working to bring Corn Belt farmers together for conservation agriculture is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Strong winds whipped around Doug Bartek, a fifth-generation farmer, as he headed into a grain bin to shovel soybeans onto a conveyor chute. The 60-year-old was anxious at the onset of the spring planting season, rattling off the long list of issues affecting his family’s livelihood at their 2,000-acre farm near Wahoo, Nebraska.
The high cost of fuel, equipment and fertilizer — compounded by the Iran war — and also tariffs, perceived “price gouging” by suppliers, and low soybean prices driven by a global supply glut. All of it weighs on Bartek, who is chairman of the Nebraska Soybean Association.
“Our biggest struggles are our inputs, be it fertilizer, seed, chemical, parts,” Bartek said. “There has been so much drastic markup in all of these. And I just kind of feel like the farmer’s kind of painted in the corner.”
Bartek’s concerns are shared by many Midwest soybean producers. Costs, such as equipment, have crept up over time while soybean prices have stayed low. Tariffs levied by the Trump administration last year and the resulting monthslong trade war with China only made things worse, they say. Then the Iran war bottled up shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, restricting global fertilizer supplies and sending fertilizer prices sky high. A ceasefire deal announced April 7 raised hope that bottlenecks in the strait would abate, but the future of the agreement was uncertain.
“A lot of producers are pretty nervous going into this year,” said Justin Sherlock, a soybean farmer and president of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association. “It looks like we’re going to have another year of negative returns.”
Soybeans, which are used for livestock feed, food and biofuels, are among the top U.S. agricultural exports. That hasn’t always been the case. Before the 1960s soybeans weren’t a major crop in the U.S, according to Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. It wasn’t until the 1990s that soybean production accelerated due to international demand — primarily from China — and soybeans and corn are now dominant in U.S. agriculture.
But U.S. soybean farmers, who typically also grow corn, have been facing financial issues for years even before the onset of the Iran war. Soybean prices have been persistently low in recent years. The global market has been awash in soybeans, driven in part by Brazil, which surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest soybean producer years ago.
“If we look at global soybean production over the past several years, it continues to set record after record, after record,” Hart said. “There’s been just large supplies globally, and that has led to depressed prices.”
Meanwhile, Midwest soybean farmers’ costs have risen. Overall farm production expenses, including seed and pesticide, have increased over time, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Operating costs for soybean production have stayed elevated since 2020 and are projected to increase again in 2026, according to the agency.
The cost of land also is a major issue for farmers, experts say. Midwest crop land values have increased. And most regional farmers rent some of their land, according to Joana Colussi, research assistant professor in the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University.
Bartek, who rents three-quarters of his land, said landowners are increasing rents, causing further financial strain.
“There’s a lot of what I call absentee landowners that have absolutely no idea what goes on on the farm,” he said. “All they know is their taxes went up and you get to make up the difference, some way, somehow.”
“They’re very concerned about negative margins driven by low prices and high cost,” said Paul Mitchell, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, of farmers. “There’s just a liquidity cash crunch for a lot of them and they’re just trying to figure out how to deal with everything.”
The number of farms in the U.S. has shrunk over time, and consolidation in farming is a long-term trend, though farmers’ financial pressures wrought by high input costs and low commodity prices have contributed, Hart said. Larger farms tend to be more competitive and depend on large, expensive machinery.
“The financial reserves need(ed) on a farm are much greater than they used to be,” Hart said. “We’re a bit more sensitive to the financial conditions these days because so much capital is being utilized within the farm business.”
Market forces aren’t the only issue weighing on farmers. Sweeping tariffs levied by President Donald Trump in April 2025 exacerbated a trade war with China, the top buyer of U.S. soybeans. China responded with retaliatory tariffs and effectively boycotted U.S. soybeans, cutting off a major export market for Midwest farmers and driving the price of soybeans even lower.
“When that was announced and soybean prices basically collapsed, if you could afford to hold on to your beans and wait for better times, you were OK,” said Mike Cerny, a soybean and winter wheat corn farmer in Sharon, Wisconsin. “If you had a mortgage due or payments due or cash flow needs and you had to sell at that point, you were taking it pretty rough.”
The U.S. and China eventually reached a deal in late 2025. Beijing committed to buying 12 million metric tons of soybeans by January and at least 25 million metric tons annually for the next three years. China has since met its initial soybean purchase goal, and the Trump administration also rolled out a $12 billion temporary aid package in December to boost farmers affected by the trade war.
But the damage is already done, experts and farmers say. While China’s renewed purchases and the federal payments are helping, it’s not enough to recover farmers’ losses. Even after federal assistance, farmers still lost almost $75 per harvested acre of soybeans in the 2025 crop, according to the American Soybean Association. And the trade war further pushed China toward competing soybean exporters, such as Brazil — accelerating a trend of declining U.S. soybean exports to China.
“When China decided to stop purchasing, we couldn’t find enough other markets to replace those sales,” Hart said. “We’re still feeling the impacts today. When you look at where soybean exports are today versus where we would normally expect them to be, we’re still running anywhere from 15% to 20% behind normal.”
Joseph Glauber, former chief economist at the Department of Agriculture between 2008 and 2014, said global competitors to U.S. soybean farmers gained from the trade war.
“When China has put on tariffs against the U.S. they’ve tended to buy them from Brazil or Argentina, largely Brazil,” Glauber added. “We’re not nearly as dominant in the world as we used to be in terms of the global export market for soybeans.”
After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, a severe slowdown in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz sent the price of oil soaring. The shipping disruption also largely stopped the export of nitrogen fertilizers manufactured in the Persian Gulf and limited access to key fertilizer ingredients. The price of urea, the most widely traded nitrogen fertilizer, skyrocketed.
Soybeans don’t require nitrogen fertilizer, but it’s vital for corn, and most soybean farmers also grow corn. About half the global supply of urea comes from the Middle East, and Qatar and Saudi Arabia are two of the top sources of U.S. fertilizer imports, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The U.S. and Iran last week agreed to a two-week ceasefire that included reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but traffic remained slowed amid disagreements over Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and the price of urea remains elevated.
Many Midwest farmers bought their fertilizer well in advance of the spring planting season. But some farmers who didn’t buy early face elevated prices. Dave Walton, a corn, soybean and hay farmer in Iowa and vice president of the American Soybean Association, said in March that some of his neighbors didn’t have cash on hand last fall to buy fertilizer and were struggling to budget for fertilizer due to high prices.
The war also caused gasoline and diesel prices to surge, causing further headaches for farmers. Oil prices dropped following the ceasefire announcement, but the war and the closure of the strait will have lasting impacts on farmers, said Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, an investment research company. Facilities in the Middle East that are critical for exporting chemicals, oil and other commodities were damaged or destroyed during the war, and it will take time for supply chains to recover, he said.
“Facilities have been hit, like liquid natural gas plants,” Goldstein added. “You are also looking at a big supply crunch in commodity chemicals, which are the inputs for crop chemicals.”
“We burn a lot of diesel fuel,” said Chris Gould, a corn and soybean farmer in Maple Park, Illinois. “It’s hard to say if I’m gonna come out ahead or behind on this whole deal. But I suspect I’m gonna come out behind.”
Farmers’ financial problems are showing up in some measures. Farm bankruptcies, while still relatively low, continued to climb in 2025, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. In a survey of 400 farmers conducted by researchers at the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture in late March, almost half said their farm operation is financially worse off than it was a year ago.
Goldstein, the Morningstar analyst, said farmers’ high costs and low revenues contributed to the spike in bankruptcies between 2024 and 2025. If costs rise faster than crop prices going forward, he added, that “would strain farmers again and likely lead to more bankruptcies.”
After 43 years of farming, Bartek said the smell of fresh dirt still gets him excited for spring planting. But he’s also heard of farmer suicides, bankruptcies and “retirement sales” where farmers are forced to auction off their operations due to financial problems. Bartek compares farmers to gamblers who put “millions of dollars in the dirt” hoping for returns.
At times, Bartek doubts his own decision to go into farming. He’s also worried about his son, who purchased a farm a few years ago.
Bartek wonders: “Did I do the right thing helping him get into farming?”
This story is a collaboration between Lee Enterprises and The Associated Press.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Already under financial pressure, Midwest soybean farmers are squeezed further by tariffs, Iran war is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Soil carbon and carbon farming deal with organic carbon that is present or stored in soil. It occurs when animals and plants that...
The post Generating Carbon Offsets in Carbon Farming appeared first on Cleantech Group.
Farm Foundation is honored to announce a generous gift from Riley Boschma in support of the Farm Family Wellness Alliance, a national initiative dedicated to providing mental health resources to farmers and their families. This meaningful contribution honors the memory of Riley’s husband, Jimmy Boschma, a respected farmer whose life was tragically impacted by the challenges of mental health.
Riley has been rooted in agriculture for generations, embodying the resilience and dedication that define the farming community. Yet, like so many in the industry, they have experienced firsthand the immense pressures that come with farming. In 2024, their beloved Jimmy lost his struggle to maintain mental health, leaving behind a grieving wife and five young children determined to turn their loss into hope for others. In response to their personal loss, Riley has committed to supporting mental health awareness and access to resources for farm families nationwide.
“Our family understands the struggles that so many in agriculture face, and we want Jimmy’s story to raise awareness and be a beacon of hope, encouraging others to seek help when they need it. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness—it does not define who you are, but rather shows your courage to keep going,” said Riley Boschma. “Through this gift, we hope to ensure that farm families have access to the mental health support they need and to reduce the stigma that prevents many from seeking help.”
The Farm Family Wellness Alliance, an initiative of Farm Foundation in partnership with most major agricultural organizations in the US, including 4H, American Farmer Bureau Federation, FFA, Farmers Union, and others, provides farm families with free, confidential access to mental health support through an online peer-to-peer community, professional resources, and crisis intervention services. Since its national launch in 2024, the program has expanded to serve farmers and agricultural communities across 47 states, offering a safe space for connection and healing through TogetherAll, an online mental health support community exclusively for American farm family members aged 16 and above.
“The generosity of Riley Boschma and her children will have a lasting impact on the lives of so many in agriculture,” said Shari Rogge-Fidler, CEO of Farm Foundation. “This gift not only honors Jimmy’s legacy but also strengthens our ability to reach more farm families with critical mental health resources. We are grateful for their commitment to creating meaningful change in the industry.”
Farmers are the backbone of our nation, yet they often carry an invisible burden. As economic pressures, unpredictable weather, and the weight of legacy continue to challenge those in agriculture, access to mental health support is more vital than ever. Riley’s contribution underscores the urgent need for expanded resources in rural communities and serves as a call to action for others to invest in the well-being of those who feed the nation. Learn more about the Boschma farm at www.boschmafarms.org
The post The Gift of Hope: Dedication to Mental Health in Rural Communities appeared first on Farm Foundation.
Farm Foundation recently hosted a thought-provoking panel discussion in partnership with the Farm Robotics Challenge, offering college students a unique opportunity to gain insight into real-world agricultural challenges and how technology can play a pivotal role in addressing them. The panel brought together voices from across the agricultural value chain—farmers, innovators, and industry leaders—to discuss the future of robotics in farming and provide direct feedback to the student teams as they embark on their robotics projects.
If you would like to watch the panel discussion, you can access the full recording here.
The panel featured an incredible lineup of experts and practitioners who shared their perspectives:
Klaas Martens: Klaas is a third-generation farmer in New York. He operates Martens Farm and Lakeview Organic Grain Mill with his wife Mary Howell Martens and their son Peter. On 1,600 acres, he produces numerous crops, including corn, soybeans, spelt, wheat, einkorn, emmer, triticale, buckwheat, oats, barley, rye, cabbage, dry beans, and hay. He’s been farming since the 1970s and shifted to organic farming in the 90s. Klaas is a Farm Foundation Round Table Fellow.
David Hill: Southern Hill Farms, owned and operated by the Hill family, has deep roots in agriculture. David and Lisa Hill, along with their sons Michael and Kyle and daughter-in-law Brooke, continue a farming legacy that began with Lisa’s grandfather in Virginia and extended to Central Florida in the mid-20th century. Starting with ornamental trees in Clermont, the Hills diversified in 2010 by planting blueberries, eventually welcoming the public in 2014 for u-pick events and community gatherings. Today, Southern Hill Farms is a beloved Central Florida destination, known for its Fall Festival, farm market, and family-friendly experiences. David is also a Farm Foundation Round Table Fellow.
Kevin Seidel: Kevin Seidl is a group product manager for the John Deere Operations Center
(JDOC) at John Deere. He leads a group of product managers responsible for key features within the JDOC, with a specific focus on live remote monitoring and equipment & agronomic analysis capabilities. As a software engineer, Kevin has built some of the foundational features of the JDOC program. Throughout his 15-plus years at John Deere, he has had various product management roles of increasing responsibility, where he has focused on the JDOC’s monitoring and analysis capabilities. Kevin earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bradley University and a master’s in business administration from the University of Iowa.
Moderator: Tim Brennan, VP of Programs and Strategic Impact at Farm Foundation, who guided the discussion and connected the insights to Farm Foundation’s broader mission.
1. Automation and the Labor Shortage
Farmers face ongoing labor shortages, making automation and robotics an urgent need rather than a luxury. Panelists emphasized that technology should not replace workers but rather enable farmers to address gaps in their workforce. Solutions like autonomous machinery and follow-me functionality were highlighted as transformative tools that could alleviate these challenges.
2. Harvesting Challenges and Opportunities
One of the most pressing issues discussed was the need for robotics to address harvesting challenges, particularly in specialty crops like strawberries. Unlike blueberries, which already have some mechanical solutions, strawberries require precision to pick ripe fruit without damage. Developing robotics capable of 24/7 harvesting could revolutionize the industry.
3. Smaller, Smarter Machines for Soil Health
Larger machinery has contributed to significant soil health concerns, including compaction and increased energy use. Panelists discussed the opportunity for robotics to lead the way toward smaller, lighter, and more collaborative machines. These innovations would not only protect soil but also reduce operational energy demands.
4. Practical, Farmer-Centered Solutions
A recurring theme throughout the discussion was the importance of creating practical, problem-solving technology. Farmers need innovations that work in diverse conditions, are reliable, and solve specific challenges like soil conditions or adverse weather.
Hosting this panel aligns directly with Farm Foundation’s mission: to build trust and understanding at the intersections of agriculture and society. By partnering with the Farm Robotics Challenge, Farm Foundation supports the next generation of innovators and provides a vital space for collaboration between farmers and technology developers.
This event highlighted the importance of bringing real-world agricultural perspectives to the forefront, ensuring that technology is grounded in practicality and addresses the evolving needs of those throughout the food and agriculture value chain.
As the student teams dive into their robotics projects, we look forward to seeing how their ideas take shape and how they tackle the challenges outlined during the panel. The Farm Robotics Challenge serves as a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in shaping the future of agriculture.
We’re proud to continue fostering connections between agriculture, technology, and society, and we can’t wait to see how these students contribute to a more innovative and sustainable agricultural future.
The post Bridging Innovation and Agriculture: Insights from the Farm Robotics Challenge Panel appeared first on Farm Foundation.
Farm Foundation’s Meet Your Farmer podcast featured Steve Kaufman in season 1, episode 3.
Steve is a fifth-generation farmer. He returned to his family’s Idaho farm full time in 2014 when his uncles and father were ready to retire. He and his two brothers farm 14,000 dryland crop acres, growing primarily winter wheat, spring wheat, peas, garbanzo beans, and canola. Prior to that, he worked at Northwest Farm Credit Services while also farming part time. Steve is an alum of Farm Foundation’s Young Farmer Accelerator Program.
In this episode, Steve talks about how gratifying it is to produce enough grain for 30 million loaves of bread on his farm, the hard work of trying to balance life with young kids and farm life, and what the process was like to switch over to no-till.
Music: “Country Roads” by Sergii Pavkin from Pixabay
Reach us at communication@farmfoundation.org.
The post Farm Foundation’s Meet Your Farmer Podcast with Steve Kaufman appeared first on Farm Foundation.
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