Now is a good time to own farmland in most parts of the U.S., according to the latest cropland values report released by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service on Aug. 5, 2015 – unless, of course, you want to farm in New Jersey, where cropland values hit a high of $13,500 average per acre.

Ranching has been under attack for decades by environmental groups, animal rights groups, vegetarians and wildlife groups. True to human nature, when under attack we dally that rope around the post and dig our heels in the dirt.

Wyoming hay is an easy sell to horse customers, dairy and beef producers alike. The high plains and mountain valleys of Wyoming are close to perfect for high-quality alfalfa and alfalfa-mixed grass production.

As I drove through Yellowstone National Park, I thought, “If those folks would just put down those fishing poles and drive up the road 300 yards, they’d see a bull elk in velvet as inspiring as anything they’ve ever seen.” But they didn’t. The campers kept tossing in their fishing lines, reeling in air, completely unaware of anything not directly in front of them.

Niels Bastian Kristensen, a former professor with the department of animal health and bioscience at Aarhus University, Denmark, and current researcher with SEGES (national extension office for the advisory system in Denmark), is the founder and a proponent of a concept called “compact TMR.”

If dairying is what you love, then you find a way to do it better every day. And that’s what Stewart Bruinsma does. In the 1970s, Bruinsma operated a grazing dairy with his family in the Netherlands. In the late 70s, he saw a shift in the European dairy market and didn’t like the direction it was heading.

I’ve sat through some pretty inane meetings – which someone captured perfectly in a Facebook post depicting a blue ribbon inscribed with, “I survived another meeting that should have been an email.” Nearly 34,000 people “liked” this post.