Farm Bureaus

Minnesota has figured out a way to help stressed farmers. Can it be replicated?

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When Pam Uhlenkamp separated from her husband earlier this year, she knew the person to call.

As a farm business management instructor, Uhlenkamp mentors farmers one-on-one. When she notices they’re stressed, she refers them to the man who’s been the go-to counselor for Minnesota farmers for decades. The morning after the separation, she called him, and, by the afternoon, she sat opposite Ted Matthews.

“Today sucks. Tomorrow is going to suck. The next three weeks are going to suck,” Uhlenkamp remembered Matthews telling her in their first session.

“He was very honest with me,” she said. “Sometimes in life you kind of need the two-by-four across the head that says, ‘Yep, this is awful and this is the reality.’”

Rural America

Residents Seek Answers About Health Risks Near Frac Sand Mines

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When Jim and Kathy Kachel moved into their home south of Bagley, Wisconsin, overlooking the Mississippi River in fall 2007, they couldn’t see the Pattison Sand Mine directly across the river in Clayton, Iowa. Since then, terraced layers of limestone carved into the northeast Iowa bluff have made way for more truck traffic as the mine, which occupies 750 acres — much of it underground — expands. Meanwhile, the Kachels have had to clean dust from their home.

Labor

How Minnesota’s Hmong American farmers got organized

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Like many in Minnesota’s Hmong-American community, Pakou Hang comes from a family of farmers. “Even when we very young, starting from elementary school, we were helping our parents out in the field,” she said. “So it’s been a big part of our lives and we have that background.”