With lower grain prices, higher interest rates and increased production costs, some farms are facing a challenging financial situation.

The president didn’t return much affection to rural voters in 2025. Farm inputs, health care and food costs continued to rise; yo-yo tariff policies sliced ag exports; and cuts to several federal farm and rural programs clipped rural communities.

One of the most under-reported stories of 2025 — the departure of more than 20,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture employees — finally surfaced just before the quietest, most unwatched news periods of any year, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Farmers say they are grateful to President Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins for providing resources that, for many, could make the difference between staying in business to plant another crop, or shuttering a family farm.

Clean water is essential for every farmer and rancher; we depend on it every day. That’s why we’re encouraged to see the new proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers.

The long days, unpredictable weather, volatile markets and rising input costs rarely factor into conversations at the grocery store or the checkout line.

The best action we could take in the coming year to better serve all Americans — farmers, ranchers and every food buyer — is to simply stop digging the deepening hole we’re already in.

It’s fair to say that 2025 has been a year of meaningful progress for agriculture, on top of some very big challenges. Farm Bureau helped farmers and ranchers across the country navigate the roller coaster ride.

The marketplace, from the cattle producer all the way to the consumer, is fundamentally broken, and the only time it functions properly is when it is confronted with a significant market shock.

Biofuels remain a cornerstone of U.S. agriculture, supporting crop prices, rural jobs and energy security.

Farmers can deduct the residual fertility value on newly purchased or inherited land. A soil analysis and records of past treatments are needed to claim the deduction.

There’s something magical about Christmas on the farm. The stars in the sky reflecting off of a snowy field, the quiet hum of a heater in the barn office and that sense of peace that comes from being surrounded by open space and loved ones.

This Christmas column, first published in 1994, remains the most-requested column ever written by Alan Guebert. Maybe that’s because its lesson is both timely and timeless or perhaps it’s just a warm tale well told.

If people invested even a fraction of the money they pour into massive animal “rights” organizations into helping children in this country, the impact could be nothing short of transformative.

To truly experience the Trump tariff rollercoaster, hop on the ear-popping ride American cattlemen, meatpackers and U.S. beef eaters have been on over the past few months.

A longtime Idaho rancher suggested this week’s segment. We’ll start with this quote from an unknown author: “Truth is, great things take time. So, either you wait or you settle for less.”

Each year during the holiday season, I sit down and make a list of things for which I am truly thankful. Some entries never change. These constants anchor my list, reminding me of the steady gifts that shape my life.

There was so much blarney and puffery flying around the Cabinet Room during the White House farmer and rancher gathering Dec. 8 that it became impossible to tell fact from fiction.

Farm families need lasting certainty, and we appreciate our partners in Washington for taking this important first step by delivering a $12 billion package. But the need is far greater.

On the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth, we marked seasons by the work more than by the month.

Financial stress is severe and persistent across farm country, according to a new Market Intel report from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Biofuels, like E15, are boosting farm businesses, improving the environment and reducing costs at the pump.

We must look internally — within the borders of the United States — not externally to foreign countries, to resolve our domestic beef production shortfall.

More than a decade after U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations banned whole milk from school menus, Congress is considering a comeback.

While farm equity slipped this year, it remains relatively stable due to large “contemporary,” or same-year, federal payments. Overall, however, farmers remain under threat in 2026.

The past few years have tested even the most seasoned farmers. Facing rising input costs, unpredictable market access and many other challenges, farmers and ranchers are working harder while margins grow thinner.

At Farm Bureau, we believe that strength is not measured in bushels or bales. It’s measured in our willingness to look out for one another.

Together, we can help farms of all sizes succeed to ensure America’s ability to be food independent long into the future.

As December draws near, one thing is certain in workplaces across every rural county: the season of feasting is in full swing.

The news that the last American penny has been minted feels a bit like watching an old barn finally sag to the ground.

Rural America and farm country has a long history of sending out these brave men and women and supporting them when they return home.

Did farm and ranch leaders forget the enormous impact SNAP spending has on rural America’s bottom line?

Beef imports into the United States market have exploded over the past two years — and no one in the industry wants to say anything about it.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program feeds more than 41 million people in America every month. That’s roughly one in eight people in this country.

“I hated being hungry,” said my mother, born into dirt and poverty on a tenant farm in east-central Nebraska in 1932.

Landowners and farmers should consider a flexible cash lease to accommodate changing prices and yields during the growing season, which allows farmers to minimize some risk and for landowners to capture higher profits.

Paradox seems to be the guiding principle of today’s food policies.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins cheerfully predicted that the Trump immigration policy would soon remake the U.S. farm workforce into “100% American.”

This month of October marks the 40th anniversary of Breast Cancer Awareness Month — four decades of pink ribbons, awareness campaigns, survivor stories and a growing sense of community around a disease that affects millions every year.

Draining excess water from farm fields in Illinois is vital to food and renewable fuel production. However, the lack of adequate farm drainage is a serious problem.

Registration is open for the 2026 American Farm Bureau Federation Convention in Anaheim, California.

From chapter visits to leadership training schools, the Illinois FFA major state officers have been “Sparking Interest” in FFA and the agriculture industry as a whole.

Today’s beef prices are not being determined by competitive market forces.

As politicians continue to bicker and blame during the government shutdown, fields across the Midwest are a flurry of harvest activity.

Reporting on something doesn’t mean endorsing it. It means recognizing that the issue exists, that it matters and that the audience deserves to understand all sides of it — even the ones that make us uncomfortable.

This federal shutdown could not come at a worse time for the farm economy.

Cuts to food assistance, scheduled to begin Nov. 1, will hit the nation’s poor hard and its rural poor the hardest.

It might not come up much at the grain elevator or after church potlucks, but it is something all of us who live out here where the pavement ends need to embrace: cybersecurity.

Now is the time to rebuild our U.S. cattle industry — and a new tariff rate quotas system can help us do it.

Fall field trips are in full swing for children and their teachers.