 I can think of a couple neighbors, their stress level, if it starts getting dry, it goes through the roof. I don't think there's near as many variables for me to worry about that there used to be. I think I'm more realistically confident now than I was then. I see the way that we're doing things is on the right path. Every year I put together a cash flow plan and every year I manage to reduce my input costs. And the less money you're putting in on inputs into a crop means the less crop you need to break even. So I think that contributes a lot to my lower stress. With each passing day, more farmers and ranchers are realizing the agronomic, economic and environmental benefits of better soil health. But a fascinating poll recently conducted by South Dakota State University reveals that farmers who are using soil health-improving practices in their operations have lower stress levels, are more satisfied with farming and are more optimistic about their futures than their conventional farming peers. We wanted to find out more about the correlation between growing healthy soil and growing peace of mind. So we sat down with a few South Dakota producers who are using soil health practices. We asked about the role soil health has on their stress levels. Does it affect their bottom lines? Does it improve their farm or ranchers' resilience or their outlook on the future? Here's what they had to say, along with some of the poll's eye-opening results. In short, improving soil health and improving peace of mind go hand in hand. If you have the good healthy soils, you just don't have as many stress factors that come into play as when the soil isn't quite as healthy. You have more resiliency in that ground that can handle these wide swings in moisture. With the soil health, the way it is, it just seems like everything just works a little bit better. It just seems like the ground can bounce back faster when you have a good soil health. Now, with our ability to have less inputs, we don't worry as much about the markets because we can't change that. We had to learn and then now we're back up and sometimes we're not sure if what we're doing is right, but if stress hits, it's only for an hour or two and then we're kind of throw it and go on with life. My dad had done a lot of the big changes on the grain side, the farming side of the operation, with the no-till and the small grains. The big thing that we could add to was utilizing forages with the small grains and not just a spring wheat for grain. But growing our own forages in the spring, follow it with a cover crop and then gracing those cattle on the crop fields. It's saved so much money in the cattle feed side of our operation that it's grazing those cover crops and the crop residue out there. When we sat down and penciled it out the first year, we didn't quite believe that the savings were there until you sit down and push the pencil. We're going to be able to make it a profitable year by spreading out our risks and not just having one or two things that we get our income from. And if mother nature would take out that one or two things, then that would be a very hard thing on an operation, but we have spread our risk out over many different entities. And so I feel that in the future that we can definitely make it work and keep the diversity going. Our main goal is to try to increase our organic matter on all of our ground. I think if we can get those soil, organic matter levels up in our soils, we can get to the point where we can get a crop off of it every year. And that's where our resiliency is coming in, having that organic matter there to manage that water when it comes and then hold it there when it's dry. Resiliency on our operation is being able to get some kind of production off of that ground every year, no matter what the weather throws at us, whether we're extremely wet or extremely dry. Resiliency means for my operation more profitable operation. We can handle the stresses that are presented to us throughout the year, whether it being drying conditions or above normal precip. We bounce back. We don't have those wide swings. I'd say our soil health practices have definitely made a huge difference in our operation in the past three years, three, four years now. 17 and 18, we were pretty dry in this part of the world. And we were somehow able to raise some really good crops. And I think it was just a tribute to our management practices and the no-till and the diversity in our crops. That we had more soil moisture banked in the soil than we thought. And that really helped us get through those really dry years. And then in 19, we were wet, just like everybody else. Probably not as extreme as Southern South Dakota, but we were pretty wet. There was prevent plant around. And we had a small portion on our farm, but we ended up getting planted like 95% of our acres in 19. And I don't think that would have been possible without our practices that we were using. So I'm fairly satisfied with the way that the farming is going right now. I grew up into the no-till system. My father was the one that had to go through more of the struggles of getting the ground converted into the no-till system and getting through those struggle years. And so I've just kind of picked up and made the improvements and tried to improve every year. I hope that our kids understand things and want to educate themselves and to take the farm to the next level. It is very important to us that we maintain a soil health on our operation for our children. It's a family operation, so I'm not operating with my dad every day, which is important to me. And now I have a young family and I'm bringing them in, and that's important to me too. But with that, having that goal of improving the ground and improving soil health and improving our pastures and our farm ground and sharing those goals with everybody involved in the operation, from my dad to my kids and my wife and all that, that really brings a lot of satisfaction to your life when you know you're doing something valuable to the ground and to improve it for that next generation. I'm very confident in my operation. I really think that we're on the right path, we're making improvements all the time. It's a cliche, but I'm living the dream. I got three granddaughters that live two miles away that are a joy to have around and I'm farming with my son. I'm excited about what we're doing, what we're building, we're doing new things every year and there's a future here. So I currently have three daughters, a seven-year-old, a three-year-old, and an eight-month-old. I think one of them could be a farmer. I want to see them get into what we're doing because I know that there can be a legacy here for them.