Congress has created a strong safety net for farmers through commodity, price support, disaster assistance, and conservation programs. These dollars are important to farms across America, as they give farmers some stability in a volatile agricultural landscape.

Farmers face exceedingly high input costs, depressed commodity prices, and weather extremes, but they continue to spend countless hours working to grow viable crops, year after year.

To Don Swanson, there is no other way to farm but sustainably. This mindset started with his grandfather and was passed down to his father, then to him and his brother, Bill. It has kept the family heritage farm alive for well over a century in Ottumwa, Iowa.