Volume CXI, No. 2 Huron, SD MARCH/APRIL 2026
A PUBLICATION OF SOUTH DAKOTA FARMERS UNION
SERVING SOUTH DAKOTA’S FARM & RANCH FAMILIES SINCE 1915. 2026 Legislative Day
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Jeff Kippley Re-Elected NFU Vice President
It’s Camp Season 2026!
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Graduate Student Scholarship
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Supporting the Next Generation of Family South Dakota Farmers Union Celebrates Farmers and Ranchers Focus of 2026 Yankton County Farm Family National Farmers Union Convention
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hallenges facing family farmers and ranchers today call for action – not patience, said National Farmers Union President Rob Larew during his 2026 National Convention keynote address. “The billionaires consolidating our food system Scan QR codes are counting on us to be too busy, too tired and too throughout this divided to push back. The politicians who won’t pass article to watch meaningful farm policy are counting on the issue videos of SDFU being too complicated for anyone to pay attention,” members. Larew said. “They have underestimated us before. They are making the same mistake now. … This is our moment – not to survive it – but to shape it.” Action through policy During the National Farmers Union (NFU) Convention held in New Orleans, Louisiana, March 7-9, South Dakota family farmers and ranchers joined the more than 190 farmer-rancher-delegates from across the U.S. in passing policy focused on keeping farmers and ranchers on the land, creating competitive markets and developing a safety net for modern agriculture (view this article online at www.sdfu.org to read Special Order). “We are in a time when young producers do not know if there is a
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The Cap Family farm near Yankton: Justin, Paula, Brandon, Brad, Ione, Hunter and David.
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one Kleinschmit always preferred working outdoors in the corn, sorghum, oats and alfalfa fields on her family’s Bow Valley, Nebraska, farm, but most of her childhood she ended up helping more with housework. “I had four brothers so even though I preferred to be working in the fields, I never could.” Until she accidentally met Utica farmer David Cap. “Both of us got stood up for our blind dates the same night and ended up at the same bar – Our Place Two – and he decided to bug me,” recalled Ione of the evening 61 years ago. After marrying David, Ione got to work outside on his family’s farm as much as she wanted. David is a third-generation South Dakota farmer. His grandpa, Frank II, emigrated from Czechoslovakia and homesteaded the land eight miles northwest of Yankton in 1894.
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