15 Minutes With a Farmer

Mike Koehne is a first generation corn, soybean and specialty crop grower from Greensburg, Indiana. He shares the challenges of breaking into farming without a family legacy, the joys of bringing his son into the operation and the importance of representing agriculture on industry boards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Watney is a North Dakota farmer and 12-time president of the North Dakota Farmers Union. He joined me for a discussion about technology on the farm, his decision not to seek a 13th term, and the Washington, DC, restaurant franchise started by the North Dakota Farmers Union.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tim Deal is a Minnesota sugar beat grower who joined me for a conversation at Commodity Classic. Earlier this year, Tim testified before the Senate Committee on Agriculture on behalf of the American Sugar Beet Growers Association, educating farmers about the challenges facing fellow farmers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rudy Balala from Maui, Hawaii, became a seasonal worker on a pineapple plantation at age 14. Today, he is the general manager of Maui Gold Pineapple. Rudy explains the process of growing pineapple and discusses the differences and similarities to traditional row crop farming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guests today are Dana and Lauren Cavalea. They raise cattle and direct market beef from Freedom Farms in upstate New York, but they are newcomers to agriculture. Before moving to their farm, they lived in New York city where Lauren worked for ABC News and Dana was a coach for the New York Yankees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dan Nerud, of Dorchester, Nebraska, serves as a member of the Corn Board of the National Corn Growers Association, a farmer-led trade association with offices in St. Louis and Washington.   Nerud farms with his two sons on a dryland and irrigated farm consisting of corn, soybeans, alfalfa, grass hay and runs a cow-calf operation. Additionally, he also does construction work (dozer, excavator, scra...

Emma Coffman is a first-generation cattle rancher from Temple, Texas. She has worked in several roles in the cattle industry and is now a full-time advocate for agriculture. Emma was named the 2024 Advocate of the Year by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association for her creative use of storytelling across social media platforms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Amanda Freund, a Connecticut dairy farmer and entrepreneur. She recently appeared on the TV show shark tank, pitching her product, Cow Pots, biodegradable plant pots made from composted manure produced by the farm’s holstein herd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Carla Schultz wants consumers to know food produced by American farmers is safe, whether it’s GMO, organic, or anything in between. The Michigan farmer, direct marketer, and grain merchandiser builds trust with consumers at Detroit markets and beyond by having honest conversations about GMOs, animal care, and regenerative farming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoice...

Meet Logan Lyon: an eastern Iowa farmer, ag risk manager, and crop insurance agent who also serves as a district director for the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Tune to hear about grounded insights from the field, ag policy perspectives, and Logan's personal story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trey Braswell is a fourth generation feed and egg producer from Nashville, North Carolina. His family was a founding member of Egglands Best and they have been honored to supply eggs for the White House Easter egg roll multiple times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Asia Kalcevic is a fifth generation farmer from Eastern Colorado. Asia shares her experience as a young woman in agriculture and how her family's farm uses regenerative farming practices and the latest technology to care for their soil and reduce the cost of inputs. She also highlights the evolving role of social media in promoting sustainable agriculture and the farm's brand. Learn more about you...

Guest host Sophie Winkelpleck, a senior at Iowa State University serving an apprenticeship with us at Successful Farming, has a chat with Nate Eggena, who splits his time between Montana and running a hay business and farming with his family in Northeast Iowa. Nate has a passion for filming ag related content with the drone or GoPro and sharing on social media where he has more than 82,000 followe...

Dennis Bulani is a fourth generation Saskatchewan farmer and CEO of Rack Petroleum. He joined me in the Successful Farming booth at Commodity Classic to talk about farming, business and his new book, What a Farmer Wants You to Know About Food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Susan Watkins is the secretary and a six-year director for the United Soybean Board and grows soybeans, corn, and wheat on her family farm in Virginia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Danyelle Chinn is a cattle producer from Northeast Missouri. She is Also, a livestock economist working for the rural and Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center, where she interprets statistics and market reports into shareable stories that resonate with farmers and ranchers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lucas Hoge is a Nashville recording artist who grew up on a farm near Hubbell, Nebraska. He released his first album in 2002 and has a new autobiographical album coming this summer. A single from that album, Farmhand, was just released. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patrick Montgomery is a former U S army ranger turned rancher and entrepreneur. He's raising and direct marketing Wagyu beef through his ranch, Kansas city cattle company, and bringing producers together through his direct to consumer marketplace, Valor provisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tanner and Lakaya Tenley are winners of Iowa Farm Bureau Federation's Grow Your Future award. They plan to use their $10,000 prize to expand their direct-to-consumer beef, pork, and milk business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nathan Faleide grew up in a North Dakota farm family and followed in his dad's footsteps in the ag satellite imagery business. Today he's a thought leader in the ag tech sector. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scott Davin is a veteran member of the pit crew for world champion Indycar driver Alex Palou of Ganassi Racing. Off the track, Davin is a new farmer, putting down roots on his Indiana property and finding mentorship from neighbors and farmers on YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Todd Western III splits his time between Minnesota and the family farm in Iowa, and also actively volunteers with many non-profits, including serving on several boards of directors. Western is the co-founder of Iowa Farmers of Color, which just held its second annual conference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jason Haglund is a fifth generation Iowa farmer and founding member of rural policy partners, which helps rural communities with behavioral health policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Lisa Foust Prater talks to Quentin Connealy, a 5th generation corn and soybean grower from Tacama, Nebraska, right along the Missouri river. He is better known as the Wakeboarding Farmer after a video of him wakeboarding across a flooded field went viral in 2017. Now he uses that platform to share the story of agriculture on his family farm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

As an expert on family farm succession and conflict resolution, Elaine Froese has worked with farm families across North America for more than 30 years. In this episode of the 15 Minutes With a Farmer podcast, Elaine and host Lisa Foust Prater discuss communication goals for farm families in the new year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices