From the time he was a teenager, Rocky Bateman never doubted that he was meant to be a farmer. Yet, soon after getting started with his own operation in 1974, he began doubting his management methods. Like other farmers around New Salem, North Dakota, Bateman was growing wheat in rotation with summer fallow on marginal land. "That summer fallow-wheat rotation was driving me into bankruptcy," he says. "I had clouds of dirt blowing from the fields."
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