“Efficient production from a healthy herd.” This slogan and business model of Seagull Bay and Andersen Dairy has established the operation not only in southern Idaho but on a global scale.

The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), a multifederal government agency partnership that coordinates drought monitoring, forecasting, planning and information at national, state and local levels across the U.S., defines an “agricultural drought” as a phenomenon in which weather conditions lead to adverse plant responses, leading to outcomes that range from reduced crop and forage yields to complete crop and forage failure. 

“What’s really cool about sheep is the way they’re a part of the human story,” says Dr. Hailey Wilmer, research rangeland management specialist at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station near Dubois.

“I always wanted to be a farmer,” says Brice Mosekian of BnB Farms in Cambridge. “I didn’t want to do it in California.”

Technology can be a farmer’s friend. For example, a device about the size of a pound or two of butter is buried in the field and is helping farmers improve crop quality, boost yields and reduce environmental impacts through data-driven insights from soil to storage.

Integrated pest management (IPM) was first implemented in modern-era agricultural operations during the 1970s, shortly after Silent Spring was written by Rachel Carson in the early 1960s.