Farming and food production have become hot-button issues today and can be a very confusing subject for consumers to sort out. Farming practices and food production have been linked to a number of things that consumers are concerned about including climate change, harmful runoff, animal welfare, food safety, drought and flooding, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural chemicals, and many other concerns.

As the New Year arrives, we reflect on the past year where farmers and ranchers faced weather extremes, low commodity prices and a host of other challenges. We can’t predict with certainty what the New Year will bring, but we realize many of these challenges are likely to continue.

Time for change: The compelling case for regenerative agriculture Gabe Brown, Understanding Ag, LLC You cannot pick up a farm magazine, listen to a farm radio program, or talk to an agri-business spokesperson without hearing the words “regenerative agriculture.” But what is regenerative agriculture and why is it creating such interest?

We have all seen the articles and heard the claims: Cover crops have many great benefits. However, from land grant universities to rural cafes people are asking “Yeah, but do cover crops pay?” In other words, is there an immediate return on investment?

The other day I drove by a dairy farm. I am somewhat familiar with this farm. Like most dairies today, they are struggling. On top of multiple years of reduced milk prices and rising production costs, they are struggling with the weather this year. It’s been tough to get crops in and hay up.

The term “cover crop” is everywhere today. It’s in the farming magazines and the ag news, and is the hot topic at many agricultural conferences, workshops and field days.

Once in every few generations someone comes along who defies all conventions and turns things on their ear. To do this, it takes a truly unique person who does not care what their neighbors think or what the world thinks. Instead, they doggedly pursue what they believe to be right. Such a person passed away from this world just a few weeks ago. That person was Neil Dennis from Saskatchewan, Canada.

As a health care practitioner, I have had the privilege to work with many people over the past 15 years. Let me let you in a little secret I have discovered from years of talking to people about health: We are all worried about our food. Really, all of us: rich people, poor people, Libertarians, Democrats, Republicans, people who drive trucks for a living and eat at places called “Little America”, people who do yoga and only buy organic, people who are skinny, or obese, or anything in between. The concern that something is out of whack with the industrial food system turns otherwise opposing groups of people into quick agreement. We suddenly look surprisingly like a shelf full of Bobbleheads during an earthquake.