Hampton ag teacher Joel Miller stands next to one of the pens outside the school where the Hawk Herd is cared for by students. The herd presently has five cows ready to calve in the spring and two market calves that will be used for beef for the school’s lunch program.

York County cattleman Alan Janzen has been an active member of the York-Hamilton Cattlemen’s Association since the 1970s when he joined as a junior member. Today he owns and operates Circle 5 Beef at Henderson.

Quentin Connealy looks back at his crops from the seat of his tractor. Connealy, who has been farming full time for the past 15 years, said he has had to deal with increasingly extreme weather. (Photo courtesy of Quentin Connealy)

Out of the 22 covered commodities, Nebraska only has base acres under ten commodities. Sixty-five percent of Nebraska’s 15.89 million base acres are allocated to corn and 19 percent to soybeans.

This photo taken by Nebraska Extension Educator Jenny Brhel depicts the shriveled, lightweight corn kernels with minimal fill resulting from a rare combination of stressors during the growing season that created some of the toughest grain-fill conditions for corn in decades.

Outgoing Hamilton County Corn Growers President Mike Bergen is seen here with Dylan Rosier of Missouri Corn at a recent ethanol industry meeting in Missouri.

Grand Island native Casey Hoins has been hired as the Nebraska Soil Health Coalition’s first paid staff. As coordinator she will oversee the everyday operations of the organization and, as she puts it, “keep the train on the tracks.”

Partly cloudy or partly sunny? Indicators point to better farm income in 2025 than the previous year, but economists are still uncertain whether 2026 will continue that trend.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) has forecasted that total costs listed per acre will continue to increase in 2025 and 2026. These increases will put more financial pressure on agricultural producers, especially will current market conditions.

A farmer combines the last strip of corn in a field north of Aurora as the sun sets last Tuesday. The corn harvest appears to be nearly complete in Hamilton County.