It’s easy to feel discouraged when listening to stories defining the problems facing farmers and ranchers across the midwest and northern plains. Everyone, it seems, is fighting some sort of behemoth – Smithfield, Monsanto, Walmart, oil and gas corporations, water shortages, shamefully beholden politicians, low farmgate prices, rising land prices, feelings of isolation, pesticide drift, long-gone infrastructure, soil infertility, or high energy costs.