Farming

Ag is one of the state's top industries. It accounts for more than $10-billion dollars in economic activity, but each season brings a new challenge for even the most experienced farmers and ranchers.This time of year is usually the wettest in South Dakota, but instead, a two-year drought persists.

Ana Ruiz says she caught the “cow bug” growing up on her family’s dairy farm near Watertown. Today she is pursuing her dream of becoming a veterinarian at South Dakota State University. In this In Their Own Words segment, she visits with SDPB’s Lura Roti about her calling to serve animals and their people.

At 81 Jim Woster is a longtime advocate for the people who make up South Dakota agriculture. He grew up on a Reliance crop and cattle farm and began working for the Sioux Falls Stockyards the morning after he graduated from South Dakota State University.

Planted as a 1-foot-tall seedling, on average a live Christmas tree will spend its first six or seven years on a farm before it is cut to be sold and decorated during the holiday season. To learn more about what goes into raising a Christmas tree, SDPB’s Lura Roti visits with the owners of Tannenbaum Tree Farm near Lennox.

Preparing a Resilient Future is a project aimed at helping more than 300 beginning farmers and ranchers across the Northern Great Plains explore raising organic field crops.

A little over a year and a half after the South Dakota Legislature legalized the crop, the state’s first industrial hemp harvest is complete. SDPB’s Lura Roti checks in with a farmer and others to learn about this harvest and what it means for the future of industrial hemp in South Dakota.

Some farming methods are better for the environment, but they don’t always come with a big or immediate financial reward.A quickly growing ag-technology…

A farm economist says the severe storm earlier this week was so big, it could affect the entire farm economy.The storm was a fast-moving, straight-line…

In The Moment … June 11, 2020 Show 836 Hour 2We're continuing our conversation about the meat supply chain on this evening's South Dakota Focus. The…

In The Moment has been covering the future of farming all October and today we bring you a special that takes key interviews from the month and brings…