Graham Christensen sits in the machine shed at his family farm outside Oakland, NE. The farm his Great Grandfather, Christian Christensen, settled to from Denmark in 1867. “They escaped persecution,” he said. “I still have the paperwork that says, ‘It is bona fide my intention to become a citizen of the United States, and to renounce and abjure forever all allegiance and fidelity to all and any foreign Prince, Potentate, State and Sovereignty whatever, and particularly to the King of Denmark of whom I was a subject.’” Continue reading

Christian Science-Monitor on Why We Wrote This "The severe flooding that inundated Nebraska last month washed away fields, bridges, and roads. But the extreme weather is also starting to sway residents’ thinking about climate." FREMONT, NE -  The flood carried away edges of his fields, dumped up to 6 inches of useless sand on his fertile loam, and deposited, incongruously, the elastic band of a pair of Hanes underwear on a bush. But everywhere Chad Christianson looks, all he sees is green. Continue reading

At the recent Nebraska Farmers Union Convention Dr. Martha Shulski, our State Climatologist who co-authored the 4th National Climate Assessment, eerily foretold to a large group of farmers that we are moving into a new era of weather extremes. Dr. Shulski also noted it was likely that as farmers, we would need to consider a change in our farming practices due to extreme climatic events if we expected to maintain sustainable businesses. Only 3 months later the 2019 Bomb Cyclone hit the midwest, and a perfect storm of conditions led to a series of catastrophic flooding events that cost our farmers millions of dollars. Many of these costs took years of sweat investment and will never be recovered. Continue reading

Jim Knopik has been farming longer than anyone in the room. When it’s his turn to address our impromptu gathering, he glances around the dinner table, briefly making eye contact with a few of the twenty so or folks here—many of whom he’s inspired or mentored over the years—then launches right into it.  “I live west of Fullerton, Nebraska. I have since I was a year old. When I was a year old there were 49 residences within two miles of that place. Now there’s four. So I guess I see what the importance of community is because it’s been lost.” Continue reading

Graham Christensen grew up immersed in values of public service, integrity, education and all the responsibilities that come from work on a family farm. His family farm, established in 1867 under the Homestead Act, operates on about 800 acres in his hometown of Oakland, just north of Fremont. Christensen also grew up in the era of the 1980s farm crisis, where he learned the value of hard work. He came to understand that when a person runs up against difficult times, maintaining the ability to speak out for what you believe imparts great purpose and impact on individual’s own circumstances, as well as on the surrounding community. Continue reading