Ham Sweet Farm

06/07/2026

This is a national issue… several large animal vet offices we used when we started here (2013) have stopped making farm calls and/or no longer treat non-equines (i.e. anything but horses). We understand why… long hours, dangerous work, clients who call as a last resort & then argue over treatment & costs. It can be incredible demoralizing work. Plus the student loans…

Large animal veterinarians have warned that they face a severe shortage.

Now, Idaho lawmakers are looking at ways to get vets to return to the state after schooling.

According to Idaho Farm Bureau's Dexton Lake, "Utah State University has opened its vet program, but they're also working on opening their building, and as a result, their class size will double from 40 to 80 students. And so, we see this as an opportunity to be able to get into Utah's program because Idaho's a big state and not everyone wants to go clear to Washington state. There are folks who would prefer to go to Utah state, and so that'll be a conversation that we have next year."

More than 500 counties across the U.S. have a shortage of large animal veterinarians. USDA says that the problem spans 46 states, and is the highest level since 2010.

05/29/2026

As groundwater is lost, food prices could rise in the U.S.

05/11/2026

04/28/2026

Somewhere in rural Texas. 2025. Another family farm closes.

Not dramatically. Not with a foreclosure notice on the door or a sheriff's truck in the driveway. It closes the way most things die in agriculture — quietly, after years of math that never quite worked, with a final decision made at a kitchen table that nobody outside that family will ever know about.

In 2025, the United States lost 15,000 small farms. Texas lost 2,000 of them — more than any other state. That brought the total number of farms in the country to approximately 1.9 million, an 8 percent decline from 2 million in 2018. The decline is not slowing. It is accelerating. And the only category of farm operation that increased in 2025 was the large corporate operation earning over $1 million annually in sales.

The small farm is not competing. It is being absorbed.

Over 160,000 farms closed or consolidated between 2017 and 2024. In 2025, Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies — the federal bankruptcy structure designed specifically for family agricultural operations — jumped 46 percent over 2024. Wisconsin saw a 700 percent increase. Minnesota lost 1,300 farms in a single year and watched its Chapter 12 filings jump 300 percent. Arkansas led the nation in Chapter 12 filings, with 33 — more than double the previous year and the highest number that state has recorded in the 21st century. Georgia filed 27. Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Florida — all saw double-digit jumps.

These are not statistics. They are families.

To file Chapter 12, a farmer must earn the majority of their income from farming. As off-farm income has become necessary for more and more rural families just to maintain health insurance and keep the lights on, many operations no longer qualify for the one bankruptcy protection designed for them. They cannot reorganize. They can only liquidate or walk away.

The debt picture is severe. Total farm debt in the United States is projected to reach $624.7 billion in 2026 — a record. Interest expenses alone will reach $33 billion. That $33 billion number deserves to be held separately for a moment. It represents the cost of borrowing to survive — not to invest, not to expand, not to improve — just to get to the next planting season or the next calf crop. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reports that farmers are taking out larger operating loans and taking longer to repay them. Nearly 40 percent more new farm operating loans were opened in the fourth quarter of 2025 than in the same period of 2024.

The average operating loan in 2025 was 30 percent larger than in 2024. With an average maturity three months longer.

The people who track these numbers do not use the word crisis lightly. But what they describe is a crisis. A fourth consecutive year of expected declines in farm income. Commodity prices at levels last seen in the 2018-2019 era, while input costs — seed, fertilizer, fuel, medication — never came back down from their post-pandemic highs. A trade environment that has alternately slammed and reopened foreign markets with little warning. Weather events that continue to compound across regions that were already financially thin.

The Wyoming Farm Bureau president puts the larger picture plainly: "When you get rid of so many small farms, you're taking rural people out of rural America." The land mostly stays in agriculture — absorbed by larger operations that can squeeze efficiency from scale. But the family is gone. The community is thinner. The feedstore loses a customer. The school loses enrollment. The church loses a pew. The county fair loses a 4-H entry. The fabric of a rural town weakens by one more thread, and the thread count has been dropping for years.

What is not visible in any of these numbers is what it costs a man or woman to make the decision to stop. To look at land that their grandparents cleared, or their parents planted, or that they themselves built from a bare patch of ground into a working operation — and decide that the next generation will not inherit it. That the math has finally, irrevocably, run out. That the dream their family carried for four or five generations ends at this kitchen table, on this particular evening, in this particular year.

The land does not disappear. The legacy does.

Large operations increased. Everyone else shrank or closed. At $624.7 billion in total debt and climbing, who rescues the American family farm before there is nothing left to rescue? 👇

---Sources---
Cowboy State Daily — "USDA Reports 15,000 Small Farms Closed or Consolidated in 2025," February 25, 2026
American Farm Bureau Federation Market Intel — "Farm Bankruptcies Continued to Climb in 2025," February 9, 2026
Minnesota data: American Farm Bureau Federation / KSTP reporting, 2026
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City — farm lending conditions report, 2025–2026

04/25/2026

Hey fam, how we feeling about things these days? Bad? Real bad. Ok enjoy your weekend 😅

Palantir is continuing to diversify its business beyond cornerstone military and defense contracts.

04/19/2026

⚠️ Slow down for farmers please! As the ground dries out, they’ll be trying to make up for lost time and country roads will be busy with tractors, implements & semis hauling gravel trains. Be safe & let them get home safe. ⚠️

02/12/2026

We’ve been getting questions for 10+ years about why we don’t have LGDs (livestock guardian dogs) here. We don’t need one, first and foremost, we don’t know enough about them, and we ::definitely:: do not have a property that is LGD-ready.

Rant alert because the day started, once again, with a request to take a dog, consult on another (always happy to do that), and possibly assist a rescue...

It’s time again … like it wasn’t ever actually time anywhere along the way… to remind folks getting into homesteading, farming, ranching, farm steading, co-op land stewardship, agritourism with critters to pet, agritourism without critters….that you VERY likely do NOT need a livestock guardian dog…not a Pyrenees, not an Anatolian, not a Kangal, not a Karakachan, not a not-an-actual-LGD Colorado Mountain Dog. STOP ACQUIRING THESE DOGS ONLY TO TAP OUT WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH!

Now I know what you’re gonna say… “the (insert list of usual suspects in the way predators) are unaliving my (chickens or insert the livestock you keep or plan to acquire)” OR “I hear coyotes almost every night and I’m pretty sure there are several dozen. It’s very unsettling and I lost some chickens last week.”

It’s admirable that you want to keep your animals safe and protect them from the wildlife that’s just trying to survive…or from your neighbor’s perpetually at large dog(s) that are constantly crapping up your place and trying to unalive the (fill in the blank with type of animals you keep).

HOWEVER - the reality is that a livestock guardian dog is NOT an easy button solution to your predator management issues. It requires sound fencing and training/guidance to make up a puppy into a mature, working, dependable guardian. You cannot just throw said LGD puppy out with your stock, offer a “good luck, y’all,” and walk away expecting success. These dogs are DOGS, first and foremost, and go through alllll the same stages as any dog…puppyhood, adolescence, and finally mature adult. Just like a humanoid crotch spawn, these dogs require guidance and training (didn’t I just say that?) especially during adolescence.

Rescues continue to tread water while being SWAMPED with requests to take in “failed” LGD…usually Pyrenees, simply because they are the most common breed in North America. These dogs are not usually failures…most of the time they have been failed by humans who didn’t have a clue about what they were getting into. Either they didn’t do sufficient research or were given bad info by someone trying to sell puppies. Here are a few of the most common reasons rescue gets called upon to take these alleged failures….

Item 1: The dog won’t stay in the fencing...usually because it’s insufficient, they don’t respect it, and it’s self-rewarding to escape and go on walkabouts…guess who could’ve prevented/fixed that with better fencing?

Item 2: This dog harasses/maims/unalives poultry and stock…because they’ve maybe been tossed into the melee without structure/guidance/training…guess whose responsibility it was to provide the aforementioned?

Item 3: This dog just loves to wander; I can’t keep it home!…see Item 1.

Item 4: The dog is “food aggressive”…this is just plain & simple resource guarding and is so common in LGDs sometimes I think it should just be listed as a breed trait. Guess whose job it is to make sure the dog can eat without having to defend its food from nosy goats and marauding chickens…or keep the children away from the dog…or teach the dog from the time it’s a puppy that it doesn’t own everything?

Item 5: The dog is boisterous and jumps and bounces and knocks over my kids. Guess whose job it was to teach the puppy to keep all 4 on the floor when it was still small enough for you to most effectively and easily teach that?

Item 6: The dog barks all the time…it barks all night and my neighbors are calling the law on us! Guess who should’ve done their research ahead of time to understand that barking at predators/perceived threats as a warning to go away is the LGD’s first line of defense?

EVERY single week I am asked to take in or assist with 3-4 LGDs somewhere in the United States. Not just locally…shelters, humane societies, other rescues who are just trying to save these dogs from the needle when they inevitably end up in the shelter because people tap out and can’t find situations for them…New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, California, Ohio, Nebraska, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Virginia, Kentucky, and, of course, North Carolina…and that’s just the places represented by calls/emails/texts since last October. I am one individual doing LGD rescue…the 501c3 rescues are insanely overwhelmed. There is NOWHERE to put the adolescent LGD that you acquired and now want to tap out on. We are struggling to find suitable homes for the made dogs…and, no, you can’t just let the dog wander your ten acres that backs up to public land so it can protect your forty free range chickens and two pet goats.

There is a lot of misinformation out in the Wild West of the Interwebz as it relates to these dogs…lots of folks with a platform to spew their wrong advice; lots of yahoos peddling puppies from questionable parents with zero health clearances, poor hips, bad coats, and inconsistent temperaments. We recommend Learning About LGDs Facebook group for best practices advice and information. Join that group and LEARN what to expect from this lifelong commitment to a giant barking & shedding machine that has been bred for 1000s of years to do its job independent of direction (aka you’re not the boss of me, Brenda, I got this…).

And while you’re doing the deep dive and learning all you can about these dogs, employee one or all of the following to manage predators BEFORE considering the LGD:

Electric fencing, fladry, motion lights, solar powered predator eye lights, portable radio, predator urine, motion sensor sprinkler systems (only suitable for no freeze climates), and any other sketchy looking accoutrement that you can move around that makes your livestock area seem unstable and risky to predators. If you try all of that and still can’t deter the predators (domestic dogs won’t care about any of the above except the electric fencing- they are not risk averse), THEN consider an LGD and go about it the right way. The right way does NOT include Craigslist, Tractor Supply bulletin board, randoms in the WalMart parking lot, or backyard breeders generating revenue by producing puppies from parents with zero health clearances.

I’m sure all of this sounds really bossy pants, “why don’t you mind your own business, Joy,” and harsh but, seriously, y’all…It becomes my business when you ask me to take on your 9 month old Thor or Luna that is unruly and off the rails because of no guidance/training. Those of us doing rescue cannot continue to absorb all of the dogs that too many people seem to feel are just disposable farm equipment …and we’re sick of seeing them euthanized at alarming rates all across the country. Every breed specific rescue I know, Bluebonnet in Texas, Big Fluffy Dog in Tennessee continue to do what they can and yet the calls to take these dogs just keep coming
And let me also be clear… Backyard breeders & Unethical Puppy Producers (your AKC papers mean jack when you dump that litter of BWD puppies at the local shelter…we see you every time you do this!)…this problem rests squarely on y’all’s shoulders as much as it does the unequipped newbs. Randomly produced LGD shouldn’t be a revenue stream on your homestead, I do NOT care what the power point at the national conference said.

DO BETTER.

Picture for the tax…this is the infamous Hazel, our fabulous guard anything Pyr who came here 7 years ago at 7 months old after her owner determined that she wasn’t suitable for life in an apartment. That’s right, Hazel was a rescue. It took a year + to finish her to a dependable, working dog. Sadly – due to unethical breeding – Hazel struggle with mild hip dysplasia, a degenerative process that will eventually render her to unsound to do the job she loves.

02/09/2026

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01/17/2026

If you don’t follow us on insta, you might have missed this… if you’re braving the weather anyway tomorrow, come meet two of our house lambs and enjoy some delightful shopping at a.novel.concept & dearollieandco! 🥰

222 S Washington Square • Lansing, MI