Yup, it happened again. A few weeks ago my wife was driving our lawn-mower tractor and pulling a cart piled high with weeds and tree branches …
“I got one,” my 7-year-old granddaughter announced a couple Sundays ago while fishing with her dad, her two cousins and me.
The suicide rate of the general population of the U.S. declined during both 2019 and 2020, according to preliminary analyses by the Centers fo…
Little did I know when I signed up for Mr. Lumpkin’s course in Folk Music and Literature at the University of Colorado 55 years ago that he wo…
Paul W. Johnson, the former head of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources after that, pas…
In June 1991, a panel of representatives of their fields presented insights about sustainable agriculture and sustainable mental health during…
Although some people prefer the same foods every day or must eat the same items daily because that’s all they have available to them, most of …
This holiday season stirs farmers to reflect on this year’s productivity and to consider if there are good reasons to be optimistic about the …
Last month, two military veterans wrote to me. The first asked me to write about the origins of Veterans Day; the second professed his appreci…
Most people are familiar with the prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I…
“Can I see your scratch?” my 4-year-old granddaughter asked when she visited me at a Des Moines hospital in January. I had undergone triple co…
The question, “How has science shaped agriculture?” generates as many differing opinions as there are methods of farming. Opinions range from …
This year is testing the endurance of nearly everyone in the U.S. and around much of the world. It’s still too early to tell how the co-occurr…
If the current prolonged downturn in the farm economy, now augmented by the COVID-19 pandemic, continues to be like the Great Depression of th…
Last weekend we burned our CRP land and an adjoining parcel of CRP ground owned by another person who had the good judgment to go to church instead.
As 2019 drew to a close and 2020 began, many agricultural producers were starting to make economic gains after five years of low market prices…
Why people farm — and why people engaged in agriculture have an unusually high rate of suicide — are incompletely answered questions.
The journey of a farm family dealing with alcohol addiction has been reported for seven years of Farm and Ranch Life columns. Many readers hav…
Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Jon Tester (D-MT) proposed legislation to Congress last month that is designed to train employees of the …
Agricultural producers in much of the U.S. are frustrated by factors that affect their economic well-being: too much or too little precipitati…
As the world’s population increases, people are living in ever more sprawling cities.
Findings from a “Morning Consult” nationwide poll about mental health issues deserves more attention than it received earlier this year.
Editor’s note: The following is a rerun Farm and Ranch Life column from June 2014.
Editor’s note: The following column is reprinted from January 2014.
Most agricultural producers view farming as a noble and essential occupation and a profoundly spiritual way of life. Having to cease farming b…
Beginning in September, I will decrease my weekly columns to monthly columns. This change is coming about so I can help implement regional Far…
Bison furnish highly nutritious meat that is naturally lower in fat than most animals consumed by Americans who enjoy eating meat. How this fo…