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“We’re exposing the truth about wolf depredation in Minnesota,” Steve Porter says.
A new documentary, “Minnesota: Fed to the Wolves,” debuts October 1, and its producers contend the film reveals deep damage by gray wolves to rural Minnesota and lack of action by state government.
“We’ve been lied to for years, all while a total crisis explodes,” Porter adds. “But now ranchers are going on camera and on record, unafraid to tell the truth. The state is lying and our documentary is explosive.”
No Conspiracy
With roughly 2,200-3,000 gray wolves, Minnesota has the largest wolf population in the Lower 48—by far.
A packed H4H town hall meeting on wolf depredation in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.(Photo by H4H)
“The Democrats in Minneapolis don’t care about what’s happening to anybody in rural Minnesota,” claims Porter, owner of Steve Porter’s Trophy Whitetail . “Meanwhile, we’ve got parts of the state where you can’t find a deer and we’ve got livestock farmers losing animal after animal. Our investigation shows the entire catastrophe from the front lines of agriculture and hunting. It shows what the state’s been up to while people’s cows, sheep, dogs, and horses get eaten.”
Produced by Hunters for Hunters (H4H), “Minnesota: Fed to the Wolves,” will be available on YouTube .
“When viewers see Minnesota landowners describe their personal anguish and losses from wolves, it’s going to wake people up to what’s happening. We let farmers and ranchers tell their stories, and now it’s clearly evident that this wolf crisis is man-made and 100 percent political.”
Minnesota has the highest population of gray wolves in the Lower 48.(Photo by MDA)
Gray wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) across most of the U.S. In Minnesota, the species falls under a threatened classification. Hunting and trapping are illegal.
On Sept. 4, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14425, “Supporting America’s Ranchers.” Included in the directives was a 90-day review of gray wolf status, carrying the potential of gray wolf removal from ESA protection. (Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum has until December 3 to complete the wolf review.)
Regardless of federal distinction, some Minnesota politicians intend to maintain full endangered status on gray wolves, says Porter, a founding H4H board member.
“We have legislative proof in our upcoming video of lawmakers trying to pass a bill, SS 3631 Amendment A-6, introduced by Democrat Senator Mary Kunesh, which was intended to totally ban ever having a wolf season in Minnesota.”
“Agriculture, pet owners, and hunters pay the costs of an insane policy,” Porter insists.(Photo Minn Senate Bill)
“So, in effect, once wolves would be delisted at the federal level, Minnesota still would have a ban on ever having a wolf season. This wolf hunting ban would be in total disregard of the increase in wolf population or even the extreme amount of wolf damage that is occurring in our state. That means agriculture, pet owners, and hunters pay the costs of an insane policy. Democrat politicians are protecting wolves and there’s no conspiracy. This is an open agenda, pure and simple.”
Same Story
Wolf tracks. Dead cattle. Indemnity payment? No, Porter insists.
“BS. That’s not always true and our documentary shows it. We interviewed a bunch of cattle farmers and I could have interviewed 100 more who will tell you they’re not getting paid.”
“We’ve got one farmer who lost 35 calves to wolves and only got paid for two. Another testified about losing 30 calves and not being properly compensated. They all have the same story and it directly contradicts the state and DNR.”
“Meanwhile, our deer population has dropped in some areas, and DNR blames it on bad winters. Guess what? The same landowners not seeing deer tracks are the same ones seeing wolf tracks.”
October 1
The seeds of H4H’s upcoming wolf documentary were planted in 2024, during a series of town hall meetings , according to Porter. “We’ve now done about 20 of those town halls, with the biggest drawing 700-800 people pissed off about wolves and lack of action by the state. We invited our own in-state DNR to every meeting, but they never showed.”
“Minnesota: Fed to the Wolves,” debuts October 1.
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
A new documentary, “Minnesota: Fed to the Wolves,” debuts October 1, and its producers contend the film reveals deep damage by gray wolves to rural Minnesota and lack of action by state government.
“We’ve been lied to for years, all while a total crisis explodes,” Porter adds. “But now ranchers are going on camera and on record, unafraid to tell the truth. The state is lying and our documentary is explosive.”
No Conspiracy
With roughly 2,200-3,000 gray wolves, Minnesota has the largest wolf population in the Lower 48—by far.
A packed H4H town hall meeting on wolf depredation in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.(Photo by H4H)
“The Democrats in Minneapolis don’t care about what’s happening to anybody in rural Minnesota,” claims Porter, owner of Steve Porter’s Trophy Whitetail . “Meanwhile, we’ve got parts of the state where you can’t find a deer and we’ve got livestock farmers losing animal after animal. Our investigation shows the entire catastrophe from the front lines of agriculture and hunting. It shows what the state’s been up to while people’s cows, sheep, dogs, and horses get eaten.”
Produced by Hunters for Hunters (H4H), “Minnesota: Fed to the Wolves,” will be available on YouTube .
“When viewers see Minnesota landowners describe their personal anguish and losses from wolves, it’s going to wake people up to what’s happening. We let farmers and ranchers tell their stories, and now it’s clearly evident that this wolf crisis is man-made and 100 percent political.”
Minnesota has the highest population of gray wolves in the Lower 48.(Photo by MDA)
Gray wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) across most of the U.S. In Minnesota, the species falls under a threatened classification. Hunting and trapping are illegal.
On Sept. 4, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14425, “Supporting America’s Ranchers.” Included in the directives was a 90-day review of gray wolf status, carrying the potential of gray wolf removal from ESA protection. (Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum has until December 3 to complete the wolf review.)
Regardless of federal distinction, some Minnesota politicians intend to maintain full endangered status on gray wolves, says Porter, a founding H4H board member.
“We have legislative proof in our upcoming video of lawmakers trying to pass a bill, SS 3631 Amendment A-6, introduced by Democrat Senator Mary Kunesh, which was intended to totally ban ever having a wolf season in Minnesota.”
“Agriculture, pet owners, and hunters pay the costs of an insane policy,” Porter insists.(Photo Minn Senate Bill)
“So, in effect, once wolves would be delisted at the federal level, Minnesota still would have a ban on ever having a wolf season. This wolf hunting ban would be in total disregard of the increase in wolf population or even the extreme amount of wolf damage that is occurring in our state. That means agriculture, pet owners, and hunters pay the costs of an insane policy. Democrat politicians are protecting wolves and there’s no conspiracy. This is an open agenda, pure and simple.”
Same Story
Wolf tracks. Dead cattle. Indemnity payment? No, Porter insists.
“BS. That’s not always true and our documentary shows it. We interviewed a bunch of cattle farmers and I could have interviewed 100 more who will tell you they’re not getting paid.”
“We’ve got one farmer who lost 35 calves to wolves and only got paid for two. Another testified about losing 30 calves and not being properly compensated. They all have the same story and it directly contradicts the state and DNR.”
“Meanwhile, our deer population has dropped in some areas, and DNR blames it on bad winters. Guess what? The same landowners not seeing deer tracks are the same ones seeing wolf tracks.”
October 1
The seeds of H4H’s upcoming wolf documentary were planted in 2024, during a series of town hall meetings , according to Porter. “We’ve now done about 20 of those town halls, with the biggest drawing 700-800 people pissed off about wolves and lack of action by the state. We invited our own in-state DNR to every meeting, but they never showed.”
“Minnesota: Fed to the Wolves,” debuts October 1.
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
Cody White climbed into the combine cab about 10 days earlier than he expected this year. Hot, dry weather leading into Labor Day pushed harvest up.
The weather didn’t just get combines running ahead of schedule; wild storms rolled through Maroa, Ill., in June and again in August, impacting the crop.
“We had everything,” White says. “I mean, we’ve had multiple wind storms, multiple tornadoes. It seemed like we were right in the path of all those storms this year, and a lot of water.”
White has seen 15" to 20" more rain than he typically gets in a year. He had fields sitting in water all of June.
Disease Pressure Follows the Water White’s corn was hit with crown rot and tar spot. He’s also dealing with top kill. He hasn’t started harvesting soybeans, but he’s dealing with a crop that’s been impacted by sudden death syndrome and brown stem rot. He expects disease to take a bite out of corn yields.
“We’re probably at least 25, 30 bu. off of last year so far on this. I’m anticipating it to get a little bit better. This is some April-planted corn. I think the May stuff maybe has a better shot, but we’re already way off of last year,” White says. “The bushels make up the difference. Really we’re hoping and praying for bushels because we got some price with us, but now we got higher [fertilizer] and higher fuel costs.”
Cody White talks input prices and weather woes from the cab of the combine in Maroa, Ill.(Haley Bickelhaupt) Fuel Costs Hit During Peak Usage White knows as well as any farmer that bringing in bushels takes fuel to stay running.
The American Farm Bureau Federation reports on-highway diesel prices are up almost 70% year over year. As of Sept. 21, GasBuddy reports the median U.S. on-road diesel price is $6.39 per gallon. The cost is 10 cents lower than the national average and 30 cents higher than last week. California leads the way as the state with the highest average diesel price, $8.38.
Weeks of record-high costs have White rethinking his tillage strategy.
“That’s been hard to swallow because we’ve had a nice rally in the markets due to some of these crop tours and what the growing season’s brought,” he says. “But that’s a little bit negated with the cost of fuel in our highest usage time right here. I mean, we’re absolutely burning through it this time of year.”
The Market Is Playing Mind Games While farmers kick machines into high gear, the markets are adding another layer of stress. The jump in prices looks great on paper, but volatility and input price pressure are catching up with White and others.
“I mean, no one saw the market rallying like this, especially beans,” he says. “A lot of us sold beans with $11 on the handle. So, now it’s hard to sit there and watch them get to $13 when you know you can use extra, whatever you can just scratch and claw to get.”
The weather didn’t just get combines running ahead of schedule; wild storms rolled through Maroa, Ill., in June and again in August, impacting the crop.
“We had everything,” White says. “I mean, we’ve had multiple wind storms, multiple tornadoes. It seemed like we were right in the path of all those storms this year, and a lot of water.”
White has seen 15" to 20" more rain than he typically gets in a year. He had fields sitting in water all of June.
Disease Pressure Follows the Water White’s corn was hit with crown rot and tar spot. He’s also dealing with top kill. He hasn’t started harvesting soybeans, but he’s dealing with a crop that’s been impacted by sudden death syndrome and brown stem rot. He expects disease to take a bite out of corn yields.
“We’re probably at least 25, 30 bu. off of last year so far on this. I’m anticipating it to get a little bit better. This is some April-planted corn. I think the May stuff maybe has a better shot, but we’re already way off of last year,” White says. “The bushels make up the difference. Really we’re hoping and praying for bushels because we got some price with us, but now we got higher [fertilizer] and higher fuel costs.”
Cody White talks input prices and weather woes from the cab of the combine in Maroa, Ill.(Haley Bickelhaupt) Fuel Costs Hit During Peak Usage White knows as well as any farmer that bringing in bushels takes fuel to stay running.
The American Farm Bureau Federation reports on-highway diesel prices are up almost 70% year over year. As of Sept. 21, GasBuddy reports the median U.S. on-road diesel price is $6.39 per gallon. The cost is 10 cents lower than the national average and 30 cents higher than last week. California leads the way as the state with the highest average diesel price, $8.38.
Weeks of record-high costs have White rethinking his tillage strategy.
“That’s been hard to swallow because we’ve had a nice rally in the markets due to some of these crop tours and what the growing season’s brought,” he says. “But that’s a little bit negated with the cost of fuel in our highest usage time right here. I mean, we’re absolutely burning through it this time of year.”
The Market Is Playing Mind Games While farmers kick machines into high gear, the markets are adding another layer of stress. The jump in prices looks great on paper, but volatility and input price pressure are catching up with White and others.
“I mean, no one saw the market rallying like this, especially beans,” he says. “A lot of us sold beans with $11 on the handle. So, now it’s hard to sit there and watch them get to $13 when you know you can use extra, whatever you can just scratch and claw to get.”
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
For as long as Ryan Vos can remember, his family has chiseled bean ground and disk-ripped corn acres every fall.
Not this year.
With diesel averaging $6.28 per gallon across the U.S. this past week, the southwest Minnesota farmer is making a choice that would have seemed unthinkable just a few seasons ago – skipping fall tillage where he can.
“Fuel is just way, way, way too high,” says Vos, who farms with his father, Dale, and brother, Kyle, near Hadley, Minn. “We’re talking about fuel prices affecting the bottom line in ways we have never seen before.”
But the Vos family isn’t abandoning tillage. Instead, they’re taking a harder look at every acre and asking a simple question: Does this field really need a fall pass?
Tillage Where It Counts This fall, the family plans to concentrate tillage on those acres where it provides the most value.
That includes corn silage ground hammered by chopper and truck traffic, end rows where equipment repeatedly turns and parks, and fields receiving manure where incorporation is necessary.
“We’re still going to do tillage on 60% to 70% of our ground,” Vos says. “I know that sounds high, but it’s only because we planted a lot more corn than beans this year. I would say 90% of our bean ground is not going to get tillage.”
That’s a significant change for an operation that traditionally tilled virtually every acre post-harvest.
Vos knows those untilled soybean fields will require attention next spring. The farm isn’t equipped for no-till, so he plans to make a light field-cultivator pass ahead of the corn planter.
“Our planters have to have a seedbed prepared,” he says. “We can’t just go in there and plant.”
For Vos, that makes the decision less about abandoning tillage and more about eliminating passes that aren’t essential.
The Cost Goes Beyond Fuel The tough economics across farm country are impossible to ignore. Vos says one of his farm’s Quadtrac tractors pulling a disk ripper can burn about 400 gallons of diesel in a day. That can cost him more than $2,500 in fuel alone.
“When you’re knocking on the door of $7 a gallon diesel, how do you do that?” he asks. “Every day that tractor is not running is money in your pocket in the short-term.”
And fuel isn’t the only expense.
Drought-baked Minnesota soils have made this year’s tillage especially hard on equipment. Before receiving rain recently, Vos says the ground was so hard he was concerned about destroying shanks and points.
“Before this rain — the farm got 3 inches last week — that ground was so hard we were going to burn points off our disk ripper or shanks off our chisel plows,” he says. “One year we burned off almost three total sets on a disk ripper.”
Those replacement parts add up quickly.
“When you look at how much those points cost, how much the blades cost — fuel costs are just half of our problem,” Vos says. “Now, are we going to lose money on the back end? I’ll let you know next year.”
Don’t Ignore the Acres That Need It Vos knows eliminating tillage across the board isn’t realistic for his operation.
Heavy traffic areas can create compaction that becomes a much bigger problem in the spring. Silage fields and end rows are two places where he believes addressing that compaction now makes sense.
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place right now,” he says. “Fuel prices are too high, but we still have to have a good spring.”
That acre-by-acre approach is one University of Minnesota Extension educator Jodi DeJong-Hughes recommends for farmers reconsidering their fall tillage programs.
If tillage is potentially needed, she says, farmers should look for ways to accomplish the job with fewer and less aggressive passes.
“Sometimes farmers will do two chisel passes in the fall. Just try one pass instead,” DeJong-Hughes advises. “In addition to doing less passes, shallow up your tillage equipment to save on fuel costs and wear and tear on the tractor and points and shanks.”
Leaving more residue also provides benefits beyond reducing fuel consumption. Residue protects the soil surface and can help capture water and snow — an important consideration heading into what climatologists predict will be another dry, low-snow winter in Minnesota.
Spring Will Be the Big Test Skipping a fall tillage pass doesn’t eliminate management. It changes when that management happens.
Mitch Harting, Iowa State University water outreach specialist, points farmers to resources such as the Iowa Learning Farms Whole Farm Conservation Best Practices Manual.
“The manual provides some decision trees to help farmers determine the right direction for their fields based on what their practices are and what they’re planning for next year,” Harting says.
For farmers who leave fields untilled this fall, Harting says spring management will be critical.
“Those acres will need to be managed more like reduced-till or no-till fields, with greater attention to soil conditions,” he says.
That will include paying extra attention to planter settings. More residue may require adjustments to row cleaners. Adequate downforce will be needed to cut through residue and maintain seed depth. Closing wheels should be set to firmly close the furrow to ensure proper seed-to-soil contact.
Harting also recommends offsetting the planter 3” to 4” from the prior year to avoid planting directly into the previous year’s rows.
Looking Beyond Tillage Vos believes today’s high input costs require him to think beyond simply cutting tillage passes.
“You have to keep looking at the big picture,” he says. “If you just make decisions season by season, you’re going to end up sinking pretty fast.”
That’s one reason he’s beginning to experiment with cover crops.
This year, Vos planted a 30-acre test plot of cereal rye on silage ground. It’s his first attempt at using cover crops, and he’s taking a cautious approach.
“I’m just dipping my toe in the water with them,” he says.
The trial could serve a couple of purposes.
Vos wants to see whether cereal rye can help build biological activity in the farm’s hardpan soils. He also hopes it can provide additional grazing opportunities for his beef cattle.
Because of drought, the cattle came off pasture earlier than normal this year. Vos hopes to graze the cereal rye this fall, remove the cattle before they damage the stand, then allow it to recover for another grazing opportunity next spring.
It’s another example of Vos looking for ways to get more value from the acres he already farms.
A Tough Year Calls for Tough Decisions For Vos, the fall tillage decision is ultimately about more than fuel and droughty soils. It’s about recognizing that when margins get squeezed, every pass, every gallon and every piece of iron deserves another look.
“This is hard not just for us. This is hard for everybody,” he says. “When farmers hurt, everybody hurts.”
That pressure is showing up in farmers’ outlook now and for the year ahead. A recent study co-sponsored by the American Soybean Association and National Corn Growers Association and conducted by Farm Journal found fuel and energy ranked as farmers’ top 2027 input concern. On a five-point scale, with 5 indicating “very concerned,” fuel and energy averaged 4.16.
For Vos, that kind of pressure makes it even more important for farmers to look at the whole operation — not just one input or one season.
And he wants farmers to remember there’s another part of the equation that can’t be measured in gallons of diesel or dollars per acre.
“The mental toll this takes on farmers” is something people don’t always understand, Vos says.
His message to other farmers is something he hopes they hear clearly.
“It’s OK to not be OK. It’s OK to ask for help. It’s OK to struggle,” he says. “Just know that we’re all in this together, and we all feel it. You’re not alone.”
Not this year.
With diesel averaging $6.28 per gallon across the U.S. this past week, the southwest Minnesota farmer is making a choice that would have seemed unthinkable just a few seasons ago – skipping fall tillage where he can.
“Fuel is just way, way, way too high,” says Vos, who farms with his father, Dale, and brother, Kyle, near Hadley, Minn. “We’re talking about fuel prices affecting the bottom line in ways we have never seen before.”
But the Vos family isn’t abandoning tillage. Instead, they’re taking a harder look at every acre and asking a simple question: Does this field really need a fall pass?
Tillage Where It Counts This fall, the family plans to concentrate tillage on those acres where it provides the most value.
That includes corn silage ground hammered by chopper and truck traffic, end rows where equipment repeatedly turns and parks, and fields receiving manure where incorporation is necessary.
“We’re still going to do tillage on 60% to 70% of our ground,” Vos says. “I know that sounds high, but it’s only because we planted a lot more corn than beans this year. I would say 90% of our bean ground is not going to get tillage.”
That’s a significant change for an operation that traditionally tilled virtually every acre post-harvest.
Vos knows those untilled soybean fields will require attention next spring. The farm isn’t equipped for no-till, so he plans to make a light field-cultivator pass ahead of the corn planter.
“Our planters have to have a seedbed prepared,” he says. “We can’t just go in there and plant.”
For Vos, that makes the decision less about abandoning tillage and more about eliminating passes that aren’t essential.
The Cost Goes Beyond Fuel The tough economics across farm country are impossible to ignore. Vos says one of his farm’s Quadtrac tractors pulling a disk ripper can burn about 400 gallons of diesel in a day. That can cost him more than $2,500 in fuel alone.
“When you’re knocking on the door of $7 a gallon diesel, how do you do that?” he asks. “Every day that tractor is not running is money in your pocket in the short-term.”
And fuel isn’t the only expense.
Drought-baked Minnesota soils have made this year’s tillage especially hard on equipment. Before receiving rain recently, Vos says the ground was so hard he was concerned about destroying shanks and points.
“Before this rain — the farm got 3 inches last week — that ground was so hard we were going to burn points off our disk ripper or shanks off our chisel plows,” he says. “One year we burned off almost three total sets on a disk ripper.”
Those replacement parts add up quickly.
“When you look at how much those points cost, how much the blades cost — fuel costs are just half of our problem,” Vos says. “Now, are we going to lose money on the back end? I’ll let you know next year.”
Don’t Ignore the Acres That Need It Vos knows eliminating tillage across the board isn’t realistic for his operation.
Heavy traffic areas can create compaction that becomes a much bigger problem in the spring. Silage fields and end rows are two places where he believes addressing that compaction now makes sense.
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place right now,” he says. “Fuel prices are too high, but we still have to have a good spring.”
That acre-by-acre approach is one University of Minnesota Extension educator Jodi DeJong-Hughes recommends for farmers reconsidering their fall tillage programs.
If tillage is potentially needed, she says, farmers should look for ways to accomplish the job with fewer and less aggressive passes.
“Sometimes farmers will do two chisel passes in the fall. Just try one pass instead,” DeJong-Hughes advises. “In addition to doing less passes, shallow up your tillage equipment to save on fuel costs and wear and tear on the tractor and points and shanks.”
Leaving more residue also provides benefits beyond reducing fuel consumption. Residue protects the soil surface and can help capture water and snow — an important consideration heading into what climatologists predict will be another dry, low-snow winter in Minnesota.
Spring Will Be the Big Test Skipping a fall tillage pass doesn’t eliminate management. It changes when that management happens.
Mitch Harting, Iowa State University water outreach specialist, points farmers to resources such as the Iowa Learning Farms Whole Farm Conservation Best Practices Manual.
“The manual provides some decision trees to help farmers determine the right direction for their fields based on what their practices are and what they’re planning for next year,” Harting says.
For farmers who leave fields untilled this fall, Harting says spring management will be critical.
“Those acres will need to be managed more like reduced-till or no-till fields, with greater attention to soil conditions,” he says.
That will include paying extra attention to planter settings. More residue may require adjustments to row cleaners. Adequate downforce will be needed to cut through residue and maintain seed depth. Closing wheels should be set to firmly close the furrow to ensure proper seed-to-soil contact.
Harting also recommends offsetting the planter 3” to 4” from the prior year to avoid planting directly into the previous year’s rows.
Looking Beyond Tillage Vos believes today’s high input costs require him to think beyond simply cutting tillage passes.
“You have to keep looking at the big picture,” he says. “If you just make decisions season by season, you’re going to end up sinking pretty fast.”
That’s one reason he’s beginning to experiment with cover crops.
This year, Vos planted a 30-acre test plot of cereal rye on silage ground. It’s his first attempt at using cover crops, and he’s taking a cautious approach.
“I’m just dipping my toe in the water with them,” he says.
The trial could serve a couple of purposes.
Vos wants to see whether cereal rye can help build biological activity in the farm’s hardpan soils. He also hopes it can provide additional grazing opportunities for his beef cattle.
Because of drought, the cattle came off pasture earlier than normal this year. Vos hopes to graze the cereal rye this fall, remove the cattle before they damage the stand, then allow it to recover for another grazing opportunity next spring.
It’s another example of Vos looking for ways to get more value from the acres he already farms.
A Tough Year Calls for Tough Decisions For Vos, the fall tillage decision is ultimately about more than fuel and droughty soils. It’s about recognizing that when margins get squeezed, every pass, every gallon and every piece of iron deserves another look.
“This is hard not just for us. This is hard for everybody,” he says. “When farmers hurt, everybody hurts.”
That pressure is showing up in farmers’ outlook now and for the year ahead. A recent study co-sponsored by the American Soybean Association and National Corn Growers Association and conducted by Farm Journal found fuel and energy ranked as farmers’ top 2027 input concern. On a five-point scale, with 5 indicating “very concerned,” fuel and energy averaged 4.16.
For Vos, that kind of pressure makes it even more important for farmers to look at the whole operation — not just one input or one season.
And he wants farmers to remember there’s another part of the equation that can’t be measured in gallons of diesel or dollars per acre.
“The mental toll this takes on farmers” is something people don’t always understand, Vos says.
His message to other farmers is something he hopes they hear clearly.
“It’s OK to not be OK. It’s OK to ask for help. It’s OK to struggle,” he says. “Just know that we’re all in this together, and we all feel it. You’re not alone.”
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
Harvest is rolling across central Illinois, but the story on corn isn’t pretty, says Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie.
“For the most part, it’s kind of depressing,” he says of early results. “For a lot of growers, it’s 20- to 40-bushel under a year ago.”
Ferrie says most growers are chasing dry grain and targeting fields most likely to lodge at this point. That’s pushing attention toward early-planted corn and stressing the need to scout and sort fields to harvest by stalk quality day-by-day.
“Everybody’s trying to find dry grain and then pick the highest candidate for going down,” he says. “That earlier April planted corn is where guys are focusing their effort right now.”
Soybeans are a different story. Yields are closer to last year’s results, but the finish has stretched out.
“In the last two weeks, especially, they’ve slowed down a bit,” Ferrie says.
A Thousand Paper Cuts Sliced The Corn Crop Ferrie ties this year’s yield drag in corn to a season-long string of stresses. It’s a point he discussed with AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Tuesday.
“It’s not one single thing that you can point at is it?” Flory noted. “During crop tour we talked about it being death by a thousand paper cuts on this corn crop.”
Ferrie agreed and provided a quick recap of the agronomic issues that have impacted the Illinois crop, starting in early summer:
“With the amount of sprouting we’ve got, unfortunately, it’s going to give us some mycotoxins, I’m afraid, as this harvest goes on,” he says.
Moisture Helps Some Cornfields, Hurts Others Recent rains have been a mixed blessing. Ferrie says May-planted, full-season corn, especially fields planted between May 15-20, can still benefit because much of it isn’t yet at black layer.
“This moisture is probably a plus for the later-planted, full maturity corn,” he says.
But the same pattern is working against compromised, early-planted corn that’s already under stalk and grain quality pressure.
“Some of this corn is just going to have to come out wet,” Ferrie says. “You’re not going to get a point and a half a day like we were getting two weeks ago.”
His message: be prepared to dry and handle wetter grain if that’s what it takes to get vulnerable fields out before they fall apart.
Combines Must Protect Both Yield and Quality With more sprouted, rubbery kernels on the ears, Ferrie says growers will likely have to tighten combine settings to capture salable grain, and then manage the fallout in the hopper and bins.
“Normally that sprouting at the end of the ear is not a real big issue; you can blow that out the back of the combine,” he explains. “But because of the crown rot…we’ve got to set the combines tighter to get corn off the cob, to get it in the tank, and we’ve got to keep an eye on how much air we’re putting to the back of the combine.”
“When guys are checking the settings on their combine, a lot of times they just go to the back end and look and see what’s getting thrown out the back,” he adds. “You’ve got to check the hopper, too, to see what’s getting in.”
Tighter settings and weaker plants also mean more foreign material will move through in the grain stream.
“If you want to get some of those plants that died early with the crown rot, if you want to get some of that grain off, you’re unfortunately going to have some foreign matter in the tank,” he says. “If you’re taking it to town, that’s not really a problem. If you’re taking it to your own bins, it’s something you need to pay attention to.”
Evaluate Fields To Determine Harvest Priority At this point, with stalk quality fading fast, Ferrie is telling farmers to not quit scouting. Ten days is long enough to turn a decent-looking field into downed corn.
“You can go from feeling pretty good about it to the stalk is trashed in that time,” he says.
His prescription is simple and aggressive:
“It’s a situation where there’s a combination of top kill and then southern rust and tar spot moving in on those fields, and it brought them to a screaming halt in as little as 10 days,” Ferrie says. “They just changed color almost overnight, and stalk quality will be quick to fade on those as well.”
His bottom line: if the tops are already dead, those acres jump to the front of the harvest line.
Storage Strategy: Dry, Core and Move Problem Grain First Ferrie says farmers should assume some corn lots will be higher risk going into storage because of sprouting and foreign material.
His checklist for managing those problem bins:
“For the most part, it’s kind of depressing,” he says of early results. “For a lot of growers, it’s 20- to 40-bushel under a year ago.”
Ferrie says most growers are chasing dry grain and targeting fields most likely to lodge at this point. That’s pushing attention toward early-planted corn and stressing the need to scout and sort fields to harvest by stalk quality day-by-day.
“Everybody’s trying to find dry grain and then pick the highest candidate for going down,” he says. “That earlier April planted corn is where guys are focusing their effort right now.”
Soybeans are a different story. Yields are closer to last year’s results, but the finish has stretched out.
“In the last two weeks, especially, they’ve slowed down a bit,” Ferrie says.
A Thousand Paper Cuts Sliced The Corn Crop Ferrie ties this year’s yield drag in corn to a season-long string of stresses. It’s a point he discussed with AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Tuesday.
“It’s not one single thing that you can point at is it?” Flory noted. “During crop tour we talked about it being death by a thousand paper cuts on this corn crop.”
Ferrie agreed and provided a quick recap of the agronomic issues that have impacted the Illinois crop, starting in early summer:
- June water cost both yield and standability. “The water in June took out a lot of good ground, and at the same time brought in the stalk rots.”
- July heat knocked back kernel set. “We got larger pockets of the heat in July throwing that tip off,” Ferrie notes.
- Crown rot and ear position are now compounding grain quality concerns. “Because of the crown rot, we have 10% to 15% of the ears hanging down, and they’re real rubbery, but it’s still salable grain.”
“With the amount of sprouting we’ve got, unfortunately, it’s going to give us some mycotoxins, I’m afraid, as this harvest goes on,” he says.
Moisture Helps Some Cornfields, Hurts Others Recent rains have been a mixed blessing. Ferrie says May-planted, full-season corn, especially fields planted between May 15-20, can still benefit because much of it isn’t yet at black layer.
“This moisture is probably a plus for the later-planted, full maturity corn,” he says.
But the same pattern is working against compromised, early-planted corn that’s already under stalk and grain quality pressure.
“Some of this corn is just going to have to come out wet,” Ferrie says. “You’re not going to get a point and a half a day like we were getting two weeks ago.”
His message: be prepared to dry and handle wetter grain if that’s what it takes to get vulnerable fields out before they fall apart.
Combines Must Protect Both Yield and Quality With more sprouted, rubbery kernels on the ears, Ferrie says growers will likely have to tighten combine settings to capture salable grain, and then manage the fallout in the hopper and bins.
“Normally that sprouting at the end of the ear is not a real big issue; you can blow that out the back of the combine,” he explains. “But because of the crown rot…we’ve got to set the combines tighter to get corn off the cob, to get it in the tank, and we’ve got to keep an eye on how much air we’re putting to the back of the combine.”
“When guys are checking the settings on their combine, a lot of times they just go to the back end and look and see what’s getting thrown out the back,” he adds. “You’ve got to check the hopper, too, to see what’s getting in.”
Tighter settings and weaker plants also mean more foreign material will move through in the grain stream.
“If you want to get some of those plants that died early with the crown rot, if you want to get some of that grain off, you’re unfortunately going to have some foreign matter in the tank,” he says. “If you’re taking it to town, that’s not really a problem. If you’re taking it to your own bins, it’s something you need to pay attention to.”
Evaluate Fields To Determine Harvest Priority At this point, with stalk quality fading fast, Ferrie is telling farmers to not quit scouting. Ten days is long enough to turn a decent-looking field into downed corn.
“You can go from feeling pretty good about it to the stalk is trashed in that time,” he says.
His prescription is simple and aggressive:
- Run push tests and pinch tests every four or five days.
- Prioritize fields with poor stalks and “old-looking” canopies.
- Get to fields that look more like late October than late September corn sooner than later, even if the calendar says they can wait.
“It’s a situation where there’s a combination of top kill and then southern rust and tar spot moving in on those fields, and it brought them to a screaming halt in as little as 10 days,” Ferrie says. “They just changed color almost overnight, and stalk quality will be quick to fade on those as well.”
His bottom line: if the tops are already dead, those acres jump to the front of the harvest line.
Storage Strategy: Dry, Core and Move Problem Grain First Ferrie says farmers should assume some corn lots will be higher risk going into storage because of sprouting and foreign material.
His checklist for managing those problem bins:
- Dry corn. “Take the moisture down to 14%,” he advises.
- Prioritize where grain goes. “Prioritize your grain movement as well. Decide which bins to clean first for that stuff or get to town first.”
- Core bins regularly. “Don’t be afraid to core those bins as you go along to make sure we don’t get anything growing in there that’s going to give us trouble.”
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Steve Porter’s farm is dead. By order of the state, Porter and almost 100 other Minnesota deer farmers are permanently banned from operation.
“Our story should scare people to the core, because it’s one of the biggest assaults on freedom and the Constitution that you’ll never hear the plain facts about,” Porter says. “The state says no one has the right to farm deer, beef, or anything else, and everyone in media and society is blindly going along with it.”
Minnesota’s deer farm prohibition, ostensibly implemented to fight chronic wasting disease (CWD), is a stunning assertion, and the only blanket phaseout of private industry in the U.S. “It’s 100% political,” Porter contends. “This is the weaponization of legislation.”
Significantly, Porter has never had a single case of CWD in his deer herd. Period. “CWD is just the government’s cover,” he contends. “Think about it: In the name of stopping a pathogen, politicians destroy the fundamental rights of citizens. Sound familiar? How’d that work out with covid?”
“If you care about property rights, business rights, farming rights, or the Bill of Rights, then please listen to what’s happened on our land.”
Stan Tvedt, likewise, a Minnesota deer producer, echoes Porter’s contentions: “We’re not making any of this up. I have a farm I can never pass on to my grandchildren. I have a farm that was intentionally killed by the state.”
A Date With Death
He started with a single buck: In 1992, Porter bought one deer. His curiosity blossomed into a majorly successful herd behind a high-fence operation on 140 acres— Steve Porter’s Trophy Whitetail , based in extreme northwest Minnesota’s Kittson County, bumping North Dakota and Manitoba. In just a handful of years, Porter was presenting his biggest bucks at premier expos and selling breed stock across the country. Artificial insemination, doe urine sales, and guided hunts became part and parcel of his business. (Along the same timeline, Porter served in law enforcement across a 30-year career, first as deputy, and later sheriff, of Kittson County.)
In 2002, 10 years beyond Porter’s start in deer production, Minnesota noted its first CWD case in state history—a captive elk in Aitkin County. In 2006, the first whitetail tested positive for CWD on a deer farm in Lac qui Parle County. Four years later, in 2010, Minnesota’s first wild deer with CWD was recorded in Olmsted County.
Minnesota is setting historic precedent through the forced elimination of deer farms.(Photo by MDNR)
CWD is an incurable, fatal disease of the cervid family (deer, elk, moose, and reindeer) damaging brain and nerve tissue, and presumably transmitted via saliva, feces, urine, and other fluids. CWD is not known to occur in other animals or humans.
“DNR and the Board of Animal Health found CWD examples on several deer farms, and as a result, our industry became the canary in the coalmine,” Porter says. “Didn’t matter that hundreds of cases of CWD have been found in the wild. Deer farming gets the blame.”
“In other states, nobody went wild and reacted with a ban. In Oklahoma, for example, they introduced a law for release of a captive deer with genetic CWD resistance into the wild. But in Minnesota? Our politicians and bureaucrats saw CWD as a means to ban deer farming forever. Done.”
In 2023, on the heels of a MDNR/MBHA 2022 report identifying deer farms as a major factor in CWD spread, the Minnesota Legislature passed a total ban on new deer farms (along with a host of tighter restrictions), including the phaseout of every operation in the state. Minnesota’s prohibition is the only total deer farm ban in the United States.
As a result, a Minnesota deer farm can be passed to an immediate family member one time. After the lifetime of that single transfer, the farm is forced to shutter.
“They went scorched earth,” Porter says, “and passed laws that, one, made it illegal to sell our animals in Minnesota. Two, we can’t sell our farm businesses, and we can only give them to a biological child one time and then the farm must die. Three, we must put up an extra $200,000 fence around our existing fence and around our clean, healthy animals if we want to keep farming.”
From a peak of roughly 600 deer farms in the state, approximately 80 survive today—all terminal.
“Our livelihoods, and that of our children, are shut down forever,” Porter exclaims. “Our farm licenses die with us or our sons, take your choice. I have four sons. None of them want to run a farm with a mandatory death date. Remember one of the most shameful parts of this: The government did this even though most all the deer farms in our state never had a single case of CWD.”
“And here’s the part that everyone ignores, heads in the sand,” he adds. “The same politicians, right up to the attorney general’s office, are on record saying they can do it again to any part of agriculture.”
A Clean Farm
The government ban essentially dropped breed stock value to zero.
Minnesota deer producers couldn’t sell in-state product. “Walz had a full Democrat majority and could pass any law that he wanted. They said, ‘Go sell out of Minnesota.’ What kind of idiocy is that for long-term thinking? They also banned deer importation into Minnesota, and then they pretend that other states will say, ‘Hey, we’ll be happy to take your deer when you don’t take ours.’”
Porter, left, discusses deer farm regulations with MDNR wardens on his Kittson County operation.(Photo courtesy of SPTW)
Additionally, exclusionary fencing requirements went nuclear. According to the state, all deer operations must bolster fencing via four options:
One, double fencing with 2 separate 8’-high fences 4’ apart. Two, a secondary mesh fence with no holes bigger than 2”-by-4”, attached to the primary fence with 1’ spacers. Three, attach a wood, tin, or shade cloth reaching to at least 5’. Four, deploy a multistrand electric 5,000-volt fence with battery backup and alarm system.
“That’s about a $200,000 cost to do it right on my operation, partly because of trees and a swampy area. Try getting a loan for a $200,000 fence from a banker when your business is banned. And the whole time, I don’t have CWD and never have. I’ve done state testing for years on hundreds of my deer, with not a single positive for CWD. Doesn’t matter.”
“Please understand the insanity of our situation,” Porter emphasizes. “If I ever did have a positive CWD case, the USDA indemnification is $3,200 a deer. Let’s say, for example, my herd size was 150. If I tested CWD positive, I’d be done farming, and they’d give me $3,200 a deer. They’d come in and kill all my animals, times 150, and I could retire with a small cushion. But since I don’t have CWD, and I’ve never had it, the goal is just to steal my clean farm, steal my entity, and make me go away.”
CWD is a secondary player in the state’s motivation, Porter insists. “Tim Walz had a trifecta by Democrat control of the governorship, House, and Senate, along with his partner, Attorney General Keith Ellison. I believe they wanted to run us all out of business and were offended by what we do and how we have hunts on our properties.”
“Our political class in Minneapolis is probably the most disconnected bunch from hunting, wildlife, rural life, and agriculture of any political group in the country. In my sincere opinion, if we’d have been from Somalia or transgender, then Gov. Walz would have ignored us. To pretend this is about CWD is covering up the truth.”
Deeply Rooted Right
When Minnesota replaced regulation with outright prohibition, Porter bucked the state. He became the central figure of opposition to Minnesota’s captive deer crackdown, and defended his operation, stating his deer were livestock, and protected by existing state law in Statute 17.452 and 35.155 .
The Minnesota Deer Farmers Association (MDFA) filed a lawsuit against the state arguing that residents have a constitutional right to farm, and that state policies violate the 14th Amendment.
“I have a farm I can never pass on to my grandchildren,” says Stan Tvedt. “I have a farm that was intentionally killed by the state.”(Photo courtesy of SPTW)
At one level of litigation after another, MDFA lost, as courts ruled deer producers had no right to farm. In January 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
“When they weaponize legislation, you’re on your own,” Porter says. “We raised $200,000 and fought for the Constitution. At one point, during appeals, assistant attorney general Phillip Pulitzer essentially said there was no right to farm or raise beef. Think about the diabolical intent of that statement, especially coming from the same office as Attorney General Keith Ellison and Governor Tim Walz. Pulitzer was saying exactly what they all seem to believe.”
Porter appears to be accurate regarding Pulitzer’s position. During an appellate level hearing, before a three-judge panel:
Judge:… twice in the state’s brief, you say that there is no constitutional right to farm. Is it the position of the state of Minnesota that the legislature could, if they wanted to, entirely ban the raising of livestock and not violate the constitution?
Pulitzer: This court has held in the Plume decision that there’s no fundamental right to farming.
…
Judge: Let’s suppose that the legislature decides that to combat climate change they’re going to ban the production of all beef in Minnesota. Would that implicate the constitution?
Pulitzer: It would certainly raise, uh, be subject to rational basis review and to the question would be (crosstalk)
Judge: You don’t think that there’s a deeply rooted right to raise livestock embedded in our nation’s history?
Pulitzer: I think it would involve that Gluxburg analysis, yes. I would turn to the Plume case which I don’t have in front of me to push back on the suggestion that it’s not.
“That was all said in open court,” Porter notes. “Imagine what they say in private.”
Fast Train to Extinction
If deer farms can be erased by government, what else could follow? Anything and everything, Porter contends.
Consider avian influenza (bird flu), a heavy threat to the turkey industry, which also affects the dairy industry, and can be transmitted via the pork industry. Bird flu sometimes triggers multi-million bird culls in the turkey industry. Additionally, the disease is transmissible to humans and potentially fatal.
“The government’s reaction to bird flu is never, never to even consider permanently shutting down the U.S. turkey industry,” Porter says. “Instead, when it gets into a turkey barn, the government comes alongside the farmer and helps kill all the turkeys, but they pay the turkey farmer. It’s a disease and the solution is to eliminate the infected birds—not kick every turkey farmer out of agriculture forever.”
“Same thing in the dairy industry. No one in their right mind would ban dairy farms because cows keep getting bird flu.”
A Minnesota deer farm can be passed to an immediate family member one time. After the lifetime of that single transfer, the farm is forced to shutter.(Photo by USFWS)
“But with CWD, which doesn’t have a single documented transmission to a human, the government’s response is a wink-wind and nod-nod to get rid of deer farms forever on this planet and pay nothing to make a farmer whole. The state says we’ll take away deer producer income through legislation, and increase their expenses, and that’ll make them all disappear.”
At present, Minnesota deer farmers are on a fast train to extinction. Porter, with 30 years of law enforcement under his belt, has a safety net via a sheriff’s retirement. However, other producers, such as Stan Tvedt, have their entire nest egg within their high-fence operations.
In Red Lake County, roughly 75 miles southeast of Porter, Tvedt, 66, was in dairy production for decades, but struggled on small acreage. He switched to alternative livestock—deer, and built a successful business, Open Trails Trophy Whitetails.
“Everything I own is in my deer farm. I paid taxes all my life in agriculture,” Tvedt says. “I paid taxes on my land. I paid taxes on my dairy and deer farm. I worked as hard as a man could and was grateful for what I had. In return, the state blamed me for CWD and attacked my deer farm to put me out of business. Then, they took my tax money from my deer farm and land and gave it to fraudsters.”
“I’ll ask anyone out there who follows the law and works for a living: ‘How would you function if you lost your income and could not make a penny from this day forward, and you’re left with a burden of animals that you have to kill and bury on a farm that holds your whole life savings? And then you heard from judge after judge that the Constitution means nothing and you have no right to your livelihood? What would happen to you?’”
No Compliance
Porter refuses to erect a second fence around his operation.
If he maintains the fence refusal, the state will revoke his farm license. “Let’em. I’ve already been charged. Their statute ( 35.155 subd 4 ) says once they take my license, they get to come and kill all the deer on my property.”
“Our story should scare people to the core, because it’s one of the biggest assaults on freedom and the Constitution that you’ll never hear the plain facts about,” Porter says.(Photo courtesy of SPTW)
“I’m not a violent man. I wouldn’t resist violently. But I will insist on a court order with a judge’s signature. That’ll be the day to video-record a slaughter and show the people of Minnesota how the state operates.”
“You’d think our story would’ve made national media headlines across the country over and over, but we’ve pretty much been ignored,” Porter adds. “The big agriculture entities are mainly silent. They lobby both sides of the aisle and there’s no way the big ag organizations will stick their neck out for us. They’d rather we go extinct.”
Right or wrong, Minnesota is setting historic precedent through the forced elimination of deer farms.
“We now have a state government saying out loud—and getting away with it—that there’s no right to farm,” Porter concludes. “The state says it can do whatever it wants and eliminate whatever it wants in the name of natural resources. The Constitution says otherwise. Bureaucrats do not know best.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
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How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
“Our story should scare people to the core, because it’s one of the biggest assaults on freedom and the Constitution that you’ll never hear the plain facts about,” Porter says. “The state says no one has the right to farm deer, beef, or anything else, and everyone in media and society is blindly going along with it.”
Minnesota’s deer farm prohibition, ostensibly implemented to fight chronic wasting disease (CWD), is a stunning assertion, and the only blanket phaseout of private industry in the U.S. “It’s 100% political,” Porter contends. “This is the weaponization of legislation.”
Significantly, Porter has never had a single case of CWD in his deer herd. Period. “CWD is just the government’s cover,” he contends. “Think about it: In the name of stopping a pathogen, politicians destroy the fundamental rights of citizens. Sound familiar? How’d that work out with covid?”
“If you care about property rights, business rights, farming rights, or the Bill of Rights, then please listen to what’s happened on our land.”
Stan Tvedt, likewise, a Minnesota deer producer, echoes Porter’s contentions: “We’re not making any of this up. I have a farm I can never pass on to my grandchildren. I have a farm that was intentionally killed by the state.”
A Date With Death
He started with a single buck: In 1992, Porter bought one deer. His curiosity blossomed into a majorly successful herd behind a high-fence operation on 140 acres— Steve Porter’s Trophy Whitetail , based in extreme northwest Minnesota’s Kittson County, bumping North Dakota and Manitoba. In just a handful of years, Porter was presenting his biggest bucks at premier expos and selling breed stock across the country. Artificial insemination, doe urine sales, and guided hunts became part and parcel of his business. (Along the same timeline, Porter served in law enforcement across a 30-year career, first as deputy, and later sheriff, of Kittson County.)
In 2002, 10 years beyond Porter’s start in deer production, Minnesota noted its first CWD case in state history—a captive elk in Aitkin County. In 2006, the first whitetail tested positive for CWD on a deer farm in Lac qui Parle County. Four years later, in 2010, Minnesota’s first wild deer with CWD was recorded in Olmsted County.
Minnesota is setting historic precedent through the forced elimination of deer farms.(Photo by MDNR)
CWD is an incurable, fatal disease of the cervid family (deer, elk, moose, and reindeer) damaging brain and nerve tissue, and presumably transmitted via saliva, feces, urine, and other fluids. CWD is not known to occur in other animals or humans.
“DNR and the Board of Animal Health found CWD examples on several deer farms, and as a result, our industry became the canary in the coalmine,” Porter says. “Didn’t matter that hundreds of cases of CWD have been found in the wild. Deer farming gets the blame.”
“In other states, nobody went wild and reacted with a ban. In Oklahoma, for example, they introduced a law for release of a captive deer with genetic CWD resistance into the wild. But in Minnesota? Our politicians and bureaucrats saw CWD as a means to ban deer farming forever. Done.”
In 2023, on the heels of a MDNR/MBHA 2022 report identifying deer farms as a major factor in CWD spread, the Minnesota Legislature passed a total ban on new deer farms (along with a host of tighter restrictions), including the phaseout of every operation in the state. Minnesota’s prohibition is the only total deer farm ban in the United States.
As a result, a Minnesota deer farm can be passed to an immediate family member one time. After the lifetime of that single transfer, the farm is forced to shutter.
“They went scorched earth,” Porter says, “and passed laws that, one, made it illegal to sell our animals in Minnesota. Two, we can’t sell our farm businesses, and we can only give them to a biological child one time and then the farm must die. Three, we must put up an extra $200,000 fence around our existing fence and around our clean, healthy animals if we want to keep farming.”
From a peak of roughly 600 deer farms in the state, approximately 80 survive today—all terminal.
“Our livelihoods, and that of our children, are shut down forever,” Porter exclaims. “Our farm licenses die with us or our sons, take your choice. I have four sons. None of them want to run a farm with a mandatory death date. Remember one of the most shameful parts of this: The government did this even though most all the deer farms in our state never had a single case of CWD.”
“And here’s the part that everyone ignores, heads in the sand,” he adds. “The same politicians, right up to the attorney general’s office, are on record saying they can do it again to any part of agriculture.”
A Clean Farm
The government ban essentially dropped breed stock value to zero.
Minnesota deer producers couldn’t sell in-state product. “Walz had a full Democrat majority and could pass any law that he wanted. They said, ‘Go sell out of Minnesota.’ What kind of idiocy is that for long-term thinking? They also banned deer importation into Minnesota, and then they pretend that other states will say, ‘Hey, we’ll be happy to take your deer when you don’t take ours.’”
Porter, left, discusses deer farm regulations with MDNR wardens on his Kittson County operation.(Photo courtesy of SPTW)
Additionally, exclusionary fencing requirements went nuclear. According to the state, all deer operations must bolster fencing via four options:
One, double fencing with 2 separate 8’-high fences 4’ apart. Two, a secondary mesh fence with no holes bigger than 2”-by-4”, attached to the primary fence with 1’ spacers. Three, attach a wood, tin, or shade cloth reaching to at least 5’. Four, deploy a multistrand electric 5,000-volt fence with battery backup and alarm system.
“That’s about a $200,000 cost to do it right on my operation, partly because of trees and a swampy area. Try getting a loan for a $200,000 fence from a banker when your business is banned. And the whole time, I don’t have CWD and never have. I’ve done state testing for years on hundreds of my deer, with not a single positive for CWD. Doesn’t matter.”
“Please understand the insanity of our situation,” Porter emphasizes. “If I ever did have a positive CWD case, the USDA indemnification is $3,200 a deer. Let’s say, for example, my herd size was 150. If I tested CWD positive, I’d be done farming, and they’d give me $3,200 a deer. They’d come in and kill all my animals, times 150, and I could retire with a small cushion. But since I don’t have CWD, and I’ve never had it, the goal is just to steal my clean farm, steal my entity, and make me go away.”
CWD is a secondary player in the state’s motivation, Porter insists. “Tim Walz had a trifecta by Democrat control of the governorship, House, and Senate, along with his partner, Attorney General Keith Ellison. I believe they wanted to run us all out of business and were offended by what we do and how we have hunts on our properties.”
“Our political class in Minneapolis is probably the most disconnected bunch from hunting, wildlife, rural life, and agriculture of any political group in the country. In my sincere opinion, if we’d have been from Somalia or transgender, then Gov. Walz would have ignored us. To pretend this is about CWD is covering up the truth.”
Deeply Rooted Right
When Minnesota replaced regulation with outright prohibition, Porter bucked the state. He became the central figure of opposition to Minnesota’s captive deer crackdown, and defended his operation, stating his deer were livestock, and protected by existing state law in Statute 17.452 and 35.155 .
The Minnesota Deer Farmers Association (MDFA) filed a lawsuit against the state arguing that residents have a constitutional right to farm, and that state policies violate the 14th Amendment.
“I have a farm I can never pass on to my grandchildren,” says Stan Tvedt. “I have a farm that was intentionally killed by the state.”(Photo courtesy of SPTW)
At one level of litigation after another, MDFA lost, as courts ruled deer producers had no right to farm. In January 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
“When they weaponize legislation, you’re on your own,” Porter says. “We raised $200,000 and fought for the Constitution. At one point, during appeals, assistant attorney general Phillip Pulitzer essentially said there was no right to farm or raise beef. Think about the diabolical intent of that statement, especially coming from the same office as Attorney General Keith Ellison and Governor Tim Walz. Pulitzer was saying exactly what they all seem to believe.”
Porter appears to be accurate regarding Pulitzer’s position. During an appellate level hearing, before a three-judge panel:
Judge:… twice in the state’s brief, you say that there is no constitutional right to farm. Is it the position of the state of Minnesota that the legislature could, if they wanted to, entirely ban the raising of livestock and not violate the constitution?
Pulitzer: This court has held in the Plume decision that there’s no fundamental right to farming.
…
Judge: Let’s suppose that the legislature decides that to combat climate change they’re going to ban the production of all beef in Minnesota. Would that implicate the constitution?
Pulitzer: It would certainly raise, uh, be subject to rational basis review and to the question would be (crosstalk)
Judge: You don’t think that there’s a deeply rooted right to raise livestock embedded in our nation’s history?
Pulitzer: I think it would involve that Gluxburg analysis, yes. I would turn to the Plume case which I don’t have in front of me to push back on the suggestion that it’s not.
“That was all said in open court,” Porter notes. “Imagine what they say in private.”
Fast Train to Extinction
If deer farms can be erased by government, what else could follow? Anything and everything, Porter contends.
Consider avian influenza (bird flu), a heavy threat to the turkey industry, which also affects the dairy industry, and can be transmitted via the pork industry. Bird flu sometimes triggers multi-million bird culls in the turkey industry. Additionally, the disease is transmissible to humans and potentially fatal.
“The government’s reaction to bird flu is never, never to even consider permanently shutting down the U.S. turkey industry,” Porter says. “Instead, when it gets into a turkey barn, the government comes alongside the farmer and helps kill all the turkeys, but they pay the turkey farmer. It’s a disease and the solution is to eliminate the infected birds—not kick every turkey farmer out of agriculture forever.”
“Same thing in the dairy industry. No one in their right mind would ban dairy farms because cows keep getting bird flu.”
A Minnesota deer farm can be passed to an immediate family member one time. After the lifetime of that single transfer, the farm is forced to shutter.(Photo by USFWS)
“But with CWD, which doesn’t have a single documented transmission to a human, the government’s response is a wink-wind and nod-nod to get rid of deer farms forever on this planet and pay nothing to make a farmer whole. The state says we’ll take away deer producer income through legislation, and increase their expenses, and that’ll make them all disappear.”
At present, Minnesota deer farmers are on a fast train to extinction. Porter, with 30 years of law enforcement under his belt, has a safety net via a sheriff’s retirement. However, other producers, such as Stan Tvedt, have their entire nest egg within their high-fence operations.
In Red Lake County, roughly 75 miles southeast of Porter, Tvedt, 66, was in dairy production for decades, but struggled on small acreage. He switched to alternative livestock—deer, and built a successful business, Open Trails Trophy Whitetails.
“Everything I own is in my deer farm. I paid taxes all my life in agriculture,” Tvedt says. “I paid taxes on my land. I paid taxes on my dairy and deer farm. I worked as hard as a man could and was grateful for what I had. In return, the state blamed me for CWD and attacked my deer farm to put me out of business. Then, they took my tax money from my deer farm and land and gave it to fraudsters.”
“I’ll ask anyone out there who follows the law and works for a living: ‘How would you function if you lost your income and could not make a penny from this day forward, and you’re left with a burden of animals that you have to kill and bury on a farm that holds your whole life savings? And then you heard from judge after judge that the Constitution means nothing and you have no right to your livelihood? What would happen to you?’”
No Compliance
Porter refuses to erect a second fence around his operation.
If he maintains the fence refusal, the state will revoke his farm license. “Let’em. I’ve already been charged. Their statute ( 35.155 subd 4 ) says once they take my license, they get to come and kill all the deer on my property.”
“Our story should scare people to the core, because it’s one of the biggest assaults on freedom and the Constitution that you’ll never hear the plain facts about,” Porter says.(Photo courtesy of SPTW)
“I’m not a violent man. I wouldn’t resist violently. But I will insist on a court order with a judge’s signature. That’ll be the day to video-record a slaughter and show the people of Minnesota how the state operates.”
“You’d think our story would’ve made national media headlines across the country over and over, but we’ve pretty much been ignored,” Porter adds. “The big agriculture entities are mainly silent. They lobby both sides of the aisle and there’s no way the big ag organizations will stick their neck out for us. They’d rather we go extinct.”
Right or wrong, Minnesota is setting historic precedent through the forced elimination of deer farms.
“We now have a state government saying out loud—and getting away with it—that there’s no right to farm,” Porter concludes. “The state says it can do whatever it wants and eliminate whatever it wants in the name of natural resources. The Constitution says otherwise. Bureaucrats do not know best.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
(Washington, D.C., September 21, 2026) – Today, Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, U.S. Department of Agriculture, held a Strikeforce roundtable with federal agency partners where she announced actions to usher in a new era of companion animal oversight under the leadership of the Trump Administration.
Partners at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the USDA Office of Inspector General (US OIG) and the DOJ OIG participated in the event.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
David versus Goliath all over again. New Jersey farmer Joe Marino is in the bull’s-eye of a monumental legal battle with the highest stakes for agriculture and small business.
In 2016, Department of Labor (DOL) agents ordered Marino to pay $550,000 in alleged H-2A violations, triggering the collapse of his fourth-generation family operation. Despite proclaiming innocence, he was found guilty by DOL employees who operated as in-house prosecutor, judge, and jury.
Marino was denied access to an independent court or jury of his peers. He was subjected to pursuit by DOL officers, enforcement by DOL personnel, trial by DOL lawyers, decision by DOL judge, and approval by DOL appellate judges.
Marino then sued DOL in federal court: He won when the Third Circuit unanimously ruled that DOL’s actions were unconstitutional. However, DOL doubled down, appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court in a seismic case set to be heard in November 2026.
Will federal agencies be allowed to continue confining citizens behind bureaucratic walls with no access to outside courts? Represented by Institute for Justice, Joe Marino is the canary in the coalmine.
The Water Cooler
Sun Valley Orchards once was the biggest produce farm in New Jersey, and among the largest on the East Coast, employing approximately 180 seasonal workers as a hive of industry, sending 15-20 tractor-trailer crop loads per day to the Northeast, South, Midwest, and Canada.
Steered by brothers Joe and Russell Marino in Gloucester County, Sun Valley was in family operation through four generations, expanding from a tiny dirt patch to 3,000 acres. However, after 125 years of continuous production, the farm is now dead.
Left to right: Brothers Russell and Joe Marino, alongside their father Russell Sr.(Photo by IJ)
In January 2016, DOL officers from Washington, D.C., arrived at Sun Valley Orchards’ gate, claiming Marino fired his H-2A workers without compensation and stole food money from their pockets. From the get-go, the Marino denied the charges as “outrageously untrue.” Without any burden of proof beyond its own agency, DOL fined Sun Valley $550,000 and locked the Marino family in a decade of bureaucratic hell, contributing to the permanent closure of Sun Valley.
(For more, see: Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business )
“DOL made certain nobody outside the four walls of the agency could hear the facts and evidence,” Marino told Agweb in 2025.
“I never thought honesty and facts wouldn’t matter in America, but that’s what happened. We were presumed guilty from the start, and it’s shameful what they did to us.”
The Marinos bounced into DOL in-house court and faced attorneys and judges who drank from the same water cooler as the enforcement officers. (One of the judges handling Sun Valley was a 30-year DOL employee, and all the DOL judges were appointed by DOL’s Secretary of Labor.)
“It’s incestuous,” Marino said. “That’s how all our government agencies operate and maintain power.”
Sun Valley lost in DOL court. Sun Valley then appealed in DOL appellate court and lost again. “That’s the system,” Marino added. “Does anyone really think one DOL judge is going to reverse what their friend in a DOL courtroom just ruled on?”
Despite the repeated losses, the Marinos were finally free of the DOL merry-go-round. Backed by Institute for Justice (IJ), they appealed in federal court, and the Third Circuit unanimously ruled that DOL was in violation of the Constitution.
However, DOL and the administrative state wanted another bite at the apple and took the Marinos to SCOTUS. The heavyweight case, set to be heard by SCOTUS on November 10, 2026, will set historical precedent.
“This case is vital,” stresses Rob Johnson , IJ attorney. “If the government can do this to Joe Marino, they can do it to anybody. This is about fairness, the Constitution, and making sure that Joe and other Americans can defend themselves in real court.”
“This is the opportunity for the Supreme Court to say, ‘This has to stop, now.’”
Judge, Jury, Executioner
Déjà vu? In 2021, as Sun Valley launched its lawsuit against DOL, a parallel case was funneling through federal court: SEC v. Jarkesy. In Jarkesy, initially viewed as an earthshaking ruling, SCOTUS ruled that citizens are entitled to a jury trial when hit with civil penalties imposed by administrative law judges.
Jarkesy appeared to punch a gaping hole through all departmental walls. However, federal agencies, insistent on regulatory control, paid Jarkesy little mind.
“We were presumed guilty from the start, and it’s shameful what they did to us,” Joe Marino says.(Photo by IJ)
“The reality is that government agencies have not changed their procedures,” Johnson notes. “We’re seeing practically every agency across the federal bureaucracy using some explanation for why Jarkesy doesn’t apply. This runs across government because there’s a huge amount of resistance to imposing Jarkesy. It shows that no matter who’s in power, at the end of the day, these agencies just want to keep their authority.”
Marino could be the test case where SCOTUS draws a line in the sand. “Basically, DOL has asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Third Circuit’s decision on Sun Valley,” Johnson continues. “The importance of this case goes way beyond farms. If DOL wins this, it means the precedent could affect anyone or any business taken into agency court across the nation.”
Bottom line, in-house courts are unconstitutional, Johnson concludes. “No one should have their property taken without a jury and judge as provided in Article lll of the Constitution. No agency should get to play judge, jury, and executioner.”
Marino awaits the SCOTUS hearing and ruling: “I don’t want this to ever, ever happen to another farmer or small business owner or American. The time for change is right now. It has to be now.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
In 2016, Department of Labor (DOL) agents ordered Marino to pay $550,000 in alleged H-2A violations, triggering the collapse of his fourth-generation family operation. Despite proclaiming innocence, he was found guilty by DOL employees who operated as in-house prosecutor, judge, and jury.
Marino was denied access to an independent court or jury of his peers. He was subjected to pursuit by DOL officers, enforcement by DOL personnel, trial by DOL lawyers, decision by DOL judge, and approval by DOL appellate judges.
Marino then sued DOL in federal court: He won when the Third Circuit unanimously ruled that DOL’s actions were unconstitutional. However, DOL doubled down, appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court in a seismic case set to be heard in November 2026.
Will federal agencies be allowed to continue confining citizens behind bureaucratic walls with no access to outside courts? Represented by Institute for Justice, Joe Marino is the canary in the coalmine.
The Water Cooler
Sun Valley Orchards once was the biggest produce farm in New Jersey, and among the largest on the East Coast, employing approximately 180 seasonal workers as a hive of industry, sending 15-20 tractor-trailer crop loads per day to the Northeast, South, Midwest, and Canada.
Steered by brothers Joe and Russell Marino in Gloucester County, Sun Valley was in family operation through four generations, expanding from a tiny dirt patch to 3,000 acres. However, after 125 years of continuous production, the farm is now dead.
Left to right: Brothers Russell and Joe Marino, alongside their father Russell Sr.(Photo by IJ)
In January 2016, DOL officers from Washington, D.C., arrived at Sun Valley Orchards’ gate, claiming Marino fired his H-2A workers without compensation and stole food money from their pockets. From the get-go, the Marino denied the charges as “outrageously untrue.” Without any burden of proof beyond its own agency, DOL fined Sun Valley $550,000 and locked the Marino family in a decade of bureaucratic hell, contributing to the permanent closure of Sun Valley.
(For more, see: Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business )
“DOL made certain nobody outside the four walls of the agency could hear the facts and evidence,” Marino told Agweb in 2025.
“I never thought honesty and facts wouldn’t matter in America, but that’s what happened. We were presumed guilty from the start, and it’s shameful what they did to us.”
The Marinos bounced into DOL in-house court and faced attorneys and judges who drank from the same water cooler as the enforcement officers. (One of the judges handling Sun Valley was a 30-year DOL employee, and all the DOL judges were appointed by DOL’s Secretary of Labor.)
“It’s incestuous,” Marino said. “That’s how all our government agencies operate and maintain power.”
Sun Valley lost in DOL court. Sun Valley then appealed in DOL appellate court and lost again. “That’s the system,” Marino added. “Does anyone really think one DOL judge is going to reverse what their friend in a DOL courtroom just ruled on?”
Despite the repeated losses, the Marinos were finally free of the DOL merry-go-round. Backed by Institute for Justice (IJ), they appealed in federal court, and the Third Circuit unanimously ruled that DOL was in violation of the Constitution.
However, DOL and the administrative state wanted another bite at the apple and took the Marinos to SCOTUS. The heavyweight case, set to be heard by SCOTUS on November 10, 2026, will set historical precedent.
“This case is vital,” stresses Rob Johnson , IJ attorney. “If the government can do this to Joe Marino, they can do it to anybody. This is about fairness, the Constitution, and making sure that Joe and other Americans can defend themselves in real court.”
“This is the opportunity for the Supreme Court to say, ‘This has to stop, now.’”
Judge, Jury, Executioner
Déjà vu? In 2021, as Sun Valley launched its lawsuit against DOL, a parallel case was funneling through federal court: SEC v. Jarkesy. In Jarkesy, initially viewed as an earthshaking ruling, SCOTUS ruled that citizens are entitled to a jury trial when hit with civil penalties imposed by administrative law judges.
Jarkesy appeared to punch a gaping hole through all departmental walls. However, federal agencies, insistent on regulatory control, paid Jarkesy little mind.
“We were presumed guilty from the start, and it’s shameful what they did to us,” Joe Marino says.(Photo by IJ)
“The reality is that government agencies have not changed their procedures,” Johnson notes. “We’re seeing practically every agency across the federal bureaucracy using some explanation for why Jarkesy doesn’t apply. This runs across government because there’s a huge amount of resistance to imposing Jarkesy. It shows that no matter who’s in power, at the end of the day, these agencies just want to keep their authority.”
Marino could be the test case where SCOTUS draws a line in the sand. “Basically, DOL has asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Third Circuit’s decision on Sun Valley,” Johnson continues. “The importance of this case goes way beyond farms. If DOL wins this, it means the precedent could affect anyone or any business taken into agency court across the nation.”
Bottom line, in-house courts are unconstitutional, Johnson concludes. “No one should have their property taken without a jury and judge as provided in Article lll of the Constitution. No agency should get to play judge, jury, and executioner.”
Marino awaits the SCOTUS hearing and ruling: “I don’t want this to ever, ever happen to another farmer or small business owner or American. The time for change is right now. It has to be now.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
(Washington, D.C., September 18, 2026) – Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA) announced a sweeping crackdown on fraudulent SNAP retailers—bodegas, convenience stores, and grocery stores—across New York’s five boroughs. This investigation, dubbed Operation SNAP Back, included hundreds of undercover investigations leading to action against 170 retailers.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
(Washington, D.C., September 18, 2026) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced today the awarding of over $26 million to farmers and agricultural producers across the country through the USDA Value Added Producer Grant (VAPG) Program. Entities can use these grant funds to develop value-added agricultural products, conduct market research, and implement business and marketing strategies.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
(Washington, D.C., September 18, 2026) – Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) and the New Mexico State Livestock Board have finalized an agreement to enhance state meat and poultry food safety inspection through joining the State USDA Meat and Poultry Inspection (MPI) program. New Mexico’s participation expands local inspection capacity, enhances food safety oversight, and boosts market access for small and very small meat and poultry processors while maintaining strong national standards.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
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