Farm Forum

Every week, the Farm Forum aims to educate and inform those engaged in the agricultural sector. Our editorial content focuses on the interests of farmers, ranchers, and the businesses that support them in South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota. We strive to deliver a diverse range of stories and columns that spark conversations about agricultural issues. Alongside articles written by local American News reporters, we feature updates on community and statewide workshops and meetings, an Agricalendar to keep readers informed about upcoming events, and columns from Extension educators and state experts. We also welcome guest contributions of articles.

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Farm and Food File: Trade war costs will be more than taxpayer money

1 week ago | farmforum.net | Alan Guebert

The Trump Administration may grant U.S. agriculture special exemptions from parts of its ever-changing tariff regime but it can't exempt it from everyday economic reality. That mainstay of farming–with or without ever-changing White House trade policies–will keep the 2025 American ag economy on its heels, say the farm income specialists in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Tariffs will only make USDA's bleak income forecast worse.
Adventures in babysitting

1 week ago | farmforum.net | Jerry Nelson

Babysitting a four-year-old boy is not for the faint of heart nor for anyone who hasn’t spent at least six months training for a triathlon. Toddlers are perpetual motion machines. In addition to constantly being on the move – a toddler never walks when he or she can either skip or run – preschoolers seem to think that they should always be humming or singing or simply making some sort of noise. Just watching a toddler is exhausting; keeping up with one should be classified as an Olympic event.
Farm and Food File: You mess up the creek, you clean up the creek

2 weeks ago | farmforum.net | Alan Guebert

Family lore has it that sometime in the pre-refrigeration days of the late 19th century, my forefathers dug a small cave into a steep hillside on their adjacent farms to store several barrels of home-brewed beer. Like the family's suds, the cave was cool, dark, and prized. This being southern Illinois, however, a minor earthquake one day sent the roof of the underground rathskeller onto the barrels of beer and soon their hoppy contents were flowing into the nearby creek.
Minnesota farm incomes decline again in 2024

2 weeks ago | farmforum.net | Sarah Jackson

Minnesota farmers faced another challenging year in 2024, with net farm income continuing to decline. Falling crop prices, coupled with below-trendline crop yields, resulted in low incomes, especially for crop producers. As a result, many crop producers are bracing for an economic storm as they plan for the 2025 crop year.
A case of spring fever

3 weeks ago | farmforum.net | Jerry Nelson

No nice weather ever goes unpunished in our neck of the woods. We had a fabulously clement March, with nearly no snow and temperatures that were generally agreed to be “not too bad.” We didn’t receive any snow during our state high school basketball tournaments. These events are usually guaranteed to deliver at least one major blizzard. Few complained about our open winter. An exception might be the folks who operate snow removal businesses.
Brexit shows what's ahead for U.S. trade war

3 weeks ago | farmforum.net | Alan Guebert

In the seven weeks that global markets and U.S. farmers have been living in the uncertain trade world of the Trump Administration, prices for most American ag exports have headed south faster than a Canada goose in late October. In fact, futures prices for most key ag markets–soybeans, corn, cotton, wheat, and pork–are five to eight percent lower than when the president first spun his trade roulette wheel in February.
If it's Tuesday, it must be another day of something

1 month ago | farmforum.net | Alan Guebert

If it's Tuesday, the White House's long promised tariffs against Canada and Mexico are on again but if it's Thursday, they–well, many that its Big Biz backers don't want–are off again. No, wait. Thursdays are for selling government offices like the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) headquarters. Tuesdays are for Congress to return to Washington, D.C. after another four-day weekend "in the district" where most members didn't hold town halls to hear from their tariff-clobbered constituents.
Responsible beef herd expansion: Is it in your future?

1 month ago | farmforum.net | Chris Clark

CHARITON, Iowa – Is now a good time to expand your beef cow herd? Have you been thinking about how to optimize your production to capitalize on this record-high market? The new Iowa Beef Center program, “Responsible Expansion of Iowa’s Cow Herd” might help provide answers to those questions.
Extension Master Gardeners 2024 seed trial winners

1 month ago | farmforum.net | Sarah Jackson

Seed-buying season is in full swing for Minnesota gardeners, who are now beginning to start seeds indoors under lights or gathering seed packets to be planted outside this spring. The trouble is that there are thousands of varieties of veggie and flower seeds for sale now — with some seeds offered at more than $5 a packet — and it’s hard to know which ones will thrive in Minnesota.
Farm markets hate uncertainty-and tariffs

1 month ago | farmforum.net | Alan Guebert

One of the first marketing lessons offered to me, a wet-behind-the-ears ag editor, by a steely and successful ag futures trader was as simple and useful as a feed bucket. "Markets hate uncertainty," Paul W.