• The Story of one Oregon Mega-dairy is the Story of America’s Ag Epidemic

    The Story of one Oregon Mega-dairy is the Story of America’s Ag Epidemic

    Above: Former Department of Environmental Quality Acting Administrator Eastern Region, Mitch Wolgamott, at Oregon Rural Action office in La Grande, Oregon. A common adage in agriculture holds that most people don’t really understand where their food comes from. Former Department of Environmental Quality Acting Administrator Eastern Region, Mitch Wolgamott, understands…

  • Rosebud Reservation Creates Economic Opportunity Through Food Sovereignty

    Rosebud Reservation Creates Economic Opportunity Through Food Sovereignty

    Rosebud Economic Development Corporation (REDCO) builds Homegrown Prosperity by connecting Sicangu Lakota Oyate communities to local, traditional food. Above: From left to right, the Sicangu Food Sovereignty Initiative Staff, Aaron Mandell, Mike Prate, Edwin Her Many Horses, Rachel Kent, Matt Wilson and Hollis Vanderlinden in front of a greenhouse at…

  • Booms and Busts: A century of trying to protect a family ranch

    Booms and Busts: A century of trying to protect a family ranch

    Above: LJ and Karen Turner at the Turnercrest Ranch. A homemade wooden sign hangs on a wooden post right off Highway 387, about an hour south of Gillette, Wyo. Beyond the sign is a long stretch of dusty road. A couple deer stand on alert in the tall prairie grasses,…

  • Bill and Kate Harwell: Sky Island Farm

    Bill and Kate Harwell: Sky Island Farm

    Above: Kate and Bill Harwell own and operate Sky Island Farm in Hoquiam, Washington. It’s 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, rain or shine. “Every single season,” Bill Harwell said, as he sorted heirloom tomatoes in the late September sun in Hoquiam, Washington. First generation farmers Kate and…

  • Annika Charter Williams: Food Hub

    Annika Charter Williams: Food Hub

    Above: Annika Charter-Williams holds her son, Willie, and daughter, Stevie at their ranch in Shepherd, Montana. Annika Charter Williams helps her 4-year-old daughter Stevie pull on a pair of pink and brown cowboy boots. It’s early morning in late-August. Annika’s father, Steve, rides up to his daughter and granddaughter on…

  • Steve Helling: Prairie Hillside Garden

    Above: Steve Helling at home in Brookings, South Dakota. “I want to tell my story because I think it’s important for other people considering starting out in smaller scale agriculture to see an example of what can happen down the road. Since we’ve been doing this and living this for…

  • Doug Lewis: Transitioning to Organic

    Doug Lewis: Transitioning to Organic

    Through education, patience and practice, farmer Doug Lewis has succeeded in keeping his family’s farm in business. Today Doug and his wife Mary run Agristar, an organic farm in North Powder, Oregon. Agristar was born out of the Farm Crisis of the 1980s and the Lewis’ have fought methodically and…

  • Nash Farms:Farming with Family

    Above: Tom Tschida at Nash Farms in Carbon County, Montana. Rusty, but functioning, antique tractors and a modern solar array frame Tom Tschida as he describes the unlikely way he became a rancher. “I’d been away working for a long time when [my parents] bought this place and started building…