Producer Features

“I am 34 years old and, as any young farmer does, I try very hard to be successful,” says Matt Opp from Eureka, South Dakota.

There is a lot going on in agriculture these days, even this very minute – immigration reform, antibiotic use in livestock battles, EPA regulations, GMO, gluten-free, fair trade and hamburger chains jumping on bandwagons.

In 1983, Clayton Geralds and his family started into the forage industry with 100 acres of alfalfa. This increased to 450 acres of alfalfa and 150 acres of alfalfa-grass mix four years ago.

Carlos Griffin ranches in the Piney Woods area of eastern Texas on land that has been in the family several generations. “This area grew a lot of cotton and corn in the early days.

When Chase Holschbach was a little boy, he’d follow his grandpa around the family farm checking on the different crops. His dad worked mostly in the barn, but it was the open fields that appealed to young Chase.

Five hundred acres a day – that’s the goal. With five John Deere rotary swathers, all running full throttle, it’s achievable at Alturas Ranches, LLC in Alturas, California.