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Local News

Build your legacy

DES MOINES — What separates professionally-managed farms from farms that struggle or fail? The successful farms begin with the end in mind and have a strategy for success. “How many times do you get to practice farm succession? Once,” said Dick Wittman, an Idaho rancher and farm management consultant who led a day-long workshop during Commstock Investments’ Family Farm Masterclass in Des Moines earlier this year. “To keep a legacy alive, you have to figure out a strategy to get there.” In farming, culture and tradition tend to be on a head-on collision with professional ...

Making outstanding contributions to Iowa ag

If you look the seasonal price charts for corn and soybeans, the month of July is typically a month where prices begin the retreat from the seasonal highs in May and June as weather premiums are ...

Columns

Life in the attic

You know how it goes. You have your kids, you use all the “stuff,” they outgrow everything, and over time the attic becomes a museum of what was once life in the present. All those things migrated to the attic in due seasons (just in case we needed them again), only to find those things ...

Hometown Cookin' Favorites

South of the border

Recently we traveled to San Antonio, Texas, for a couple of weeks. The weather was beautiful. We took trolley tour rides and learned about the rich history reflected in numerous historic buildings in the downtown San Antonio area. Our meals often were centered on Tex-Mex dishes. Of course Beef ...

Editorials

Ag technology advances through the ages

It is no exaggeration to say that much has changed since the first metal plow sliced into the thick, fertile Iowa soil. The annual cycle of planting and harvesting continues, but just about everything else about farming has changed. And it is technology that has caused much of that ...