America's Heartland

Two neighboring Nevada ranch families feel pressured to sell to housing developers. A farm sells to benefit local Delaware schoolchildren. The future of a Kansas family farm is in question when the beneficiaries wish to pursue careers elsewhere. A hobby can turn out to be the right crop in the right place at the right time! Rancher Luke Keeler knows all about sheep and sheep dogs—from Wyoming.

How do James Snyder and Carrie Daves manage 800 head of cattle on 600 acres? A father and son in Iowa harvest their corn crop! After a tragic accident resulted in her husband's death, Teena Borek was left with two sons to raise on her own. Borek is now an award-winning grower in Florida. Advanced thinking and experimentation of biofuels is happening in Michigan.

Las Vegas’s few farmers are feeding many people with such variety and abundance of crops. It’s the Las Vegas buffet story! Far in North Alaska, one man is using discarded salmon as a healthful treat for America’s dogs. A man is recycling scrap metal and building a tribute to the struggling farming community he calls home in North Dakota!

There’s a drive to succeed in Kansas at a critical harvest time! There’s less buzz in the air, the bees are disappearing, and some bee farmers are seeing this as a new business opportunity taking their bees on the road. Oranges are the critical crop in Florida! A Delaware farm is engaged in a unique experiment of solar energy to raise thousands of hens!

Winter wheat lies dormant in the ground through a northern winter and is harvested to perfection in the summer! A thriving crop stand has turned into a huge tourist attraction in Florida. Peanuts come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are grown in a broad range of soils and climates. Find out where the tastiest ones are!

Beagles are the first line of defense against foreign pests! Native Americans in New Mexico have created a major enterprise which have become hot sellers south of the border. CA citrus is the second largest behind Florida, but CA orchards freeze! Discover how CA growers weather these destructive cold spells. Modern farmers look forward to productive corn harvests without unnecessary fertilizer!

Dairymen in Michigan struggle to keep their animals fed and healthy while fighting off bitter cold. A pick-it-yourself farm in Alaska is one of the only greens you will find! Meet a fisherman who’s bringing in the catch and attracting interested visitors. Taste some fruit and spices unusual in farms in the heartland. A chef in Nevada is on the map for world-class chocolate!

Visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia—where this founding father performed countless edible experiments. Meet a man whose agricultural practices have credited him with saving more than a billion lives. Meet two Native American brothers who have built a prosperous seed business! Discover two elderly farmers who are determined to pass along their proud farming legacy to the next generation.

With rising costs and shrinking profits, American farmer’s face many challenges. Get a new perspective on one of the earliest fisheries. Colorado’s ranchers are trading their cattle for other animals. New Jersey locals are interested in their own locally-grown produce! The Braceros of Washington State are recognized for their key involvements in keeping farms and ranches alive during WWII.

Agricultural aviation is underway in Mississippi—the way the crop dusters see it. Michigan farmers grow under the glass as the greenhouse business keeps growing in their state. Learn how one California rancher has taken his name brand to success! Learn how guavas, pomegranates, and other tropical fruits are turned into wine in Florida. Milk a cow, churn butter, and taste honey in downtown Chicago!

Kemper family’s 2,000 acre farm in Indiana has been around for five generations. Global economy has gone haywire in Ohio, with soybeans growing not far from where cars are being built. Explore what once was called Elevator Alley—grain elevators brought back to life. West Virginia miners are moving out, and fisheries are moving in!

Visit small farms to really big farms from grass to glass! Ohio is one of the greatest wine-producing regions in the country—producing international award winning wines! Catfish is king in American aquaculture with nearly half of all fish farming in account. New Jersey farmers are fighting to protect their land! Tour through a cheesemaking process from fresh milk to packaging in Indiana!

North Dakota wheat growers harvest around 300-million bushels every year—that’s five hundred bushels per person! Learn about agriculture at the Springdale Farm. Every year, more than 4-thousand farmers and ranchers from across the U.S. gather in Utah for the American Farm Bureau Convention. Meet a couple who runs a popular watering hole in North Dakota!

Explore wheat harvesting in Montana. Meet people who lived during the Dust Bowl, lessons they learned, and how it changed farming in Oklahoma and neighboring states forever. Roy’s Tasty Blend started as a young man’s dream and is now an inspiration on American agriculture! The blues was born in the farm fields of the deep south and today its music is kept alive at the Blue Front Cafe!

Take a ride with Jeff Stewart, an investigator for Mississippi’s Agricultural Theft Bureau. Wheat is a problem crop for farmers in North Dakota, and a state legislator wants to switch to hemp as its cash crop. Jon Teser, a U.S. Senator starts his day on a tractor at 5am—nothing unusual for a heartland farmer. Farmers Against Hunger fights to preserve and promote farming in New Jersey!

The Hoover Dam is critical to the American Southwest as a water and electricity resource. Meet Jack Vessey, a fourth generation grower in California’s Imperial Valley! A quarter of a million acres of leafy greens in Arizona rely on the Colorado River. Learn about an ornamental grass that may be a source for creating ethanol. It’s a race to get their part of CA’s 11 million-ton tomato harvest!

On this special edition, we spend the day with a North Dakota farm family to discover the rewards and challenges of life in the Heartland. Meet Don and Sarah Nordby who along with their two sons and a daughter share the realities of rural life from dawn to dusk.

Farmers in need of a helping hand can call the Farm Rescue in North Dakota. Today, the sunflower business is as sophisticated as that of any crop with its unique look and seeds. Learn about a versatile plant called sorghum! Breed better cattle and go to Nebraska where ranchers are improving their stock.

From politics to business affairs to space flight, women have been taking center stage in America. Women are taking on greater roles in agriculture all around our country!

Visit an Oregon grower who harvests everything just before Christmas! California celebrates Christmas with a colorful holiday parade held by some two thousand people. Farmers raising poultry get busy shipping out birds during the holidays. San Diego County grows and ships millions of poinsettia plants. Oregon grows almost all of the lilies in the U.S.—the beautiful flower that signifies Easter.

Farmers are spending a lot of time at the computer checking out USDA’s latest farming regulations. Robotic weeders are a new development in Illinois! Top agricultural inventors and marketers come up with the next big thing and show it off at the World Ag Expo in California, and the Farm Progress Show in Dectaur, Illinois. Visit Iowa, where farmers are doing research on corn kernels.

Scientific advances in agriculture have spared millions from starvation, and the World Food Prize is up for grabs in Des Moines, Iowa every year. Visit Vermont, home of the largest number of cheese-makers! Michigan is where sugar beets are grown and turned into sweet products for your dinner table. Farmers in Iowa and Kansas are making a tidy profit by welcoming sportsmen onto their land.