When Mark Koepp started farming in the 1980s, he joined 16,000 other pig farmers in Minnesota. Today, about a quarter are left.

Fewer people are staying on the family farm, and the farms are getting bigger. Technology and improved methods have made crop yields skyrocket.

But some things never change.

Farmers can always count on the weather to be unpredictable, and recently they’ve been able to count on volatile crop prices and uncertain legislation funding their work. READ MORE

As it appeared in print:

Published in the Minnesota Daily April 16, 2013