Growing Difficulties: Kansas farmers caught between good times and bad

Dan Daniels says there are few things he loves more than a challenge, and this year he’s getting just that. He stands to lose more than $100,000 on his farm near Topeka, Kansas. It’s a story that began a year ago, strangely, in one of the most profitable growing seasons farmers there had ever seen. Read more

After Tobacco: In Appalachia, Farmers Hope the Future is Organic Vegetables

This still looks like tobacco country. Tractors still slow traffic on the roads. An autumn celebration is still called the “Tobacco Festival.” And family farms still have the region’s trademark tall barns where the harvest’s giant green leaves once cured in the rafters until they were rusty brown and ready for market.

But despite decades of tradition, tobacco farming is on the wane in Appalachia. The elimination of government price supports and increased costs of production have prompted many tobacco growers to seek out new crops in order to get by. What some have found may change the face of agriculture in this remote region. Read more