The Great American Road Trip Inspires Families To Experience Real, Patriotic America Together
The series aims to inspire Americans to see America for themselves.The series aims to inspire Americans to see America for themselves.America is losing its farmers to bankruptcy and suicide
While suburban consultants call in sick with mild lower-back aches from ergonomic office chairs, Iowa corn growers lose arms to steel PTO shafts on 200-horsepower tractors.
Agricultural labor is unforgiving. In fact, farming is more dangerous than working as a police officer or firefighter, with 23 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers.
I am the son of a farmer. I know firsthand what backbreaking labor actually costs and how brutally the modern system devalues it.
Bitter harvest
Heavy steel farm implements chop, grind, and crush human tissue without delay. Spinning driveshafts running at 1,000 revolutions per minute yank loose shirttails into gearboxes within milliseconds. Grain bin entrapments swallow dozens of operators every harvest season, suffocating men under 50,000 pounds of shelled corn in 20 seconds flat.
Even so, today some of the greatest dangers facing American farmers aren't found in the fields. They're found on the balance sheet.
U.S. Department of Agriculture reports project total farm debt to hit $624.7 billion very soon. A brand-new John Deere combine can cost as much as $1 million on the lot, while the increasing computerization of farm equipment has produced a years-long battle over whether farmers can repair machines they ostensibly own. In July, the Federal Trade Commission and five states reached a settlement with Deere & Company requiring it to give farmers and independent repair shops access to software and other repair tools previously available only to authorized dealers.
That is a rare piece of good news. American Farm Bureau Federation records show that Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies rose by 46% last year, with more than 315 cases filed in federal court. Farm families sign multimillion-dollar operating notes every spring, gambling their ancestral property on diesel prices and unpredictable rainfall.
For too many farmers, crushing debt becomes a death sentence. Centers for Disease Control data shows farmers take their own lives at a rate 3.5 times higher than the national workforce average. The official body count stands at 43.2 suicides per 100,000 farm workers. Behind every statistic is a family who loses a husband, father, brother, or son.
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Extreme isolation
A grower drags himself out of bed at four in the morning to pull 16-hour shifts in 100-degree heat. He provides endless tons of cheap grain for coastal grocery chains. His personal paycheck yields negative operating margins and endless bank interest notices.
Extreme isolation magnifies the misery, leaving men alone for hours on end, with overdue land mortgages and loaded shotguns. Rural mental health services remain nonexistent, forcing decent, hardworking Americans to fight crippling depression with manual labor until their bodies give out.
America lost 15,000 individual farm operations in 2025, an average of 41 every single day. Thomas Jefferson championed a nation of independent yeoman farmers owning land free of debt. Wall Street hedge funds buy up those foreclosed family tracts on county courthouse steps today.
The USDA found that the only sales category in which the number of farms actually increased was farms with annual sales of $1 million or more. Half of all American farmland is now operated by farms with sales of at least $500,000.
Global fertilizer empires and multinational grain trusts operating from high-rise office buildings accelerate this destruction. Commercial nitrogen fertilizer costs continue to surge, making every harvest more expensive and turning the simple act of breaking even into a Sisyphean struggle.
Future foreclosed
Who would willingly sign up for such a life today? The numbers reveal a troubling answer.
The average American farm owner is 58 years of age. Farm kids watch their fathers spend a lifetime battling debt and despair only to see little reward at the end. Many understandably walk away from the family business. America is running out of farmers, and the consequences will reach every dinner table in the country.
I’m not an American citizen, but I am the son of a farmer. I know firsthand what backbreaking labor actually costs and how brutally the modern system devalues it. When you grow up on a farm, you learn early that livestock don't take holidays. The crops don't wait for good weather, and equipment breaks precisely when you need it most.
It is an existence defined by physical risk and absolute exhaustion. The work is thankless, and the farmer lives a largely invisible existence. He is ignored by many and mocked by those who have never done a day of physical work in their lives.
To ignore or mock the farmer is to undermine the very foundation of self-reliance. A country that destroys its independent producers surrenders its national independence to foreign supply chains and corporate conglomerates. Conservative ideals depend on preserving private property rights and local community ownership.
And American food security depends on those who begin work at sunrise and end long after it has set. Saving the American farmer requires restoring basic economic sanity to rural property rights. Urgent action is needed before the damage becomes irreversible.
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America’s energy-dependent food supply is highly vulnerable to a global spike in oil prices and to many other potential disruptions.
This new laser farming technique could free us from pesticides — forever
Farming with lasers will make you healthier — here's how.
An attachment, powered by artificial intelligence, could save farmers from a seemingly ever-present headache, while producing a higher yield than ever before.
'[This] is now the cheapest way to control weeds in the vegetable fields.'
This laser farming technique uses powerful 240-watt lasers, high-resolution cameras, Nvidia processors, and nearly two dozen simple LED lights.
The operation is called "laser weeding," and it comes from company Carbon Robotics, which has developed technology to destroy weeds with lasers while keeping crops intact, seemingly eliminating the need for pesticides that contain harmful chemicals.
"Optimal thermal energy destroys the meristem, stopping regrowth and returning weeds to organic biomass," the company says on its website.
The machine looks almost like a UFO when in action, with lights flashing and little puffs of smoke coming off the ground. The "LaserWeeder" is slowly pulled over the crops and targets weeds — using AI programming to identify them — and takes them out with a laser.
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United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently promoted the technique on "The Joe Rogan Experience," telling the host that one farmer he interviewed in Texas had dropped her costs from $1,500 per acre (to pay for pesticides and labor) to $300 per acre.
"It's a million-dollar machine, which sounds like a lot, but you got 8,000 acres and you're paying $1,500 an acre per growing season," Kennedy explained.
"[This] is now the cheapest way to control weeds in the vegetable fields. ... It kills the weeds at every stage of their life," he continued. "It identifies their species and kills them instantly, all the way down through their root system by exploding them with this laser."
Kennedy went further and said for farmers who are using the machine, they've seen a "30% increase in productivity" on the farm.
"It's a million-dollar machine, but it pays back," he reiterated.
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Rogan asked a few simple questions about the machinery, including whether it would impact food and if it could be used for bugs.
The answers to those questions were "no" and "yes," respectively.
"They can do it for bugs too. ... They identify them and zap them," Kennedy claimed, while adding there is no "impact" on the food.
According to Carbon Robotics, the machinery lowers weed control costs by 80% per year and kills 99% of weeds that grow around carrots, herbs, onions, and leafy greens.
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Farmers' Almanac rescued from extinction, keeping 200-year tradition alive: 'It felt wrong'
A family-owned winter sports company is stepping in to save a critical piece of Americana.
Based in Maine, the 208-year-old publication had seemingly released its final edition in November, after offering weather predictions and gardening advice for more than two centuries.
'It felt wrong to stand by while an irreplaceable piece of our national heritage disappeared.'
The company wrote a heartfelt goodbye on its website toward the end of the year, saying that the 2026 Farmers' Almanac would be its final release.
"Though the Almanac will no longer be available in print or online, it lives on within you," editors Sandi Duncan and Peter Geiger wrote.
Fading fast
While the team did not give a specific reason for the closure in their post, CBS News reported that the publishers cited growing financial challenges involved with producing and distributing in today's "chaotic media environment."
As the almanac was starting to fade from public memory, publisher Tim Konrad stepped in.
Konrad founded family-owned media company Unofficial Networks, which focuses on content related to skiing, snowboarding, national parks, mountain adventures, and outdoor exploration.
"I saw the announcement that one of America's most enduring publications was set to close, and it felt wrong to stand by while an irreplaceable piece of our national heritage disappeared," Konrad said in a press release on the almanac's website.
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'Living link'
Describing the publication as an important piece of American history, Konrad said it is "more than just a book — it's a living link to generations of knowledge and curiosity about the natural world."
In addition to a photo alongside Geiger, the entrepreneur said he has been working closely with the team to preserve its most beloved content, like its long-range weather forecasts, humor, and the publication's "distinctive voice."
Geiger praised the transition and exclaimed, "An American tradition continues!"
The editor went on to say that the values and wisdom of the almanac have been protected and nurtured for 200 years, and he is grateful to have found the "right next custodian in Tim Konrad."
Geiger added, "I am also confident he will honor its heritage and carry it forward for generations to come."
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New harvest
The Farmers' Almanac — not to be confused with rival publication The Old Farmer's Almanac — was founded in 1818 by poet and astronomer David Young and publisher Jacob Mann. It will continue to be accessible online, with plans to revive the annual print edition in future volumes.
Unofficial Networks has built a strong brand and following in its own genre, garnering over 250,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel. The channel features first-hand footage of avalanches along with skiing content.
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Forget Greenland — we’re losing the real green land that feeds America
The world is abuzz with chatter about the United States’ pursuit of Greenland, but Daniel Horowitz, Blaze Media host of “Conservative Review with Daniel Horowitz,” says we ought to consider prioritizing a different kind of green land: “our pastures, our farms, our ranches.”
America’s food security, or lack thereof, is an issue that should deeply concern every American, he says. Between rising beef prices, the “endless shrinkage of ranchers exiting the farming business,” “the consolidation of corporate farms,” the “corporate monopoly of meat processors,” “inflation-driven land depreciation,” and the “government’s steering capital to data centers instead of ranches,” America’s ability to feed her people is growing weaker by the day.
Horowitz confesses he has grown weary of the Trump administration’s geopolitical distractions and obsession with building AI data centers when “the future of [America’s] food security is what matters.”
“We should be pushing for a Manhattan project for cheap and abundant food, for more ranchers, more farmers, more utilization of the land to produce American-made beef rather than cloud-based AI slop that's actually now about to pop as a bubble and is not really getting us anything,” he says.
Yet Horowitz sees this prioritization not as a purely conservative misstep, but as a clever pivot by the left.
The shift toward prioritizing AI over food production, he argues, is just progressives’ latest trick in their long game: “jiu-jitsuing” conservatives’ support for “functional energy” and funneling it toward “building their surveillance, transhumanist cloud” to create a world where “we own nothing, are dependent on government,” small businesses (including ranchers and farmers) are crushed, and we’re all forced to “put our lives on the cloud.”
Based on several Davos speeches delivered at this year’s World Economic Forum conference, it appears that fossil fuels are back in style with the elites, but Horowitz warns that their plan is to “siphon it all off for their cloud-based, transhumanist" trashing of the internet.”
“Consuming all of our land — not for food, farming, ranching — but for cloud. That's what this is all about,” he says.
He accuses the Trump administration of “literally digging our own grave” by handing power-hungry elites tax breaks, streamlined regulations, and priority land access for massive data centers, all while pushing policies that would block states and localities from using basic zoning rules to safeguard farmland and ranching.
In short, their efforts are paving the way for the destruction of farmland to build “massive power-sucking dung holes,” where our data will be stored and likely used to surveil us.
What this administration should be doing, Horowitz says, is “getting out of the way of ranchers and farmers so that we have safe, healthy, abundant, cheap food and protein in this country.”
To learn more about the boots-on-the-ground fight for food security in America, Horowitz interviews Texas cattle rancher and co-founder of the Beef Initiative Cole Bolton.
To hear their conversation, watch the full episode above.
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