WAXAHACHIE, Tx. — There is a steady race against the clock for Steve Patman and his workers as they work to get a field of hay harvested before sweltering Texas temperatures become too much to work in.

Patman's great-grandfather first started farming the fields in Waxahachie, Texas, after World War I. But in all his 65 years, this lifelong Texan cannot recall ever seeing things so dry.

"See how the bottom leaves are all dried up, you're losing hay," Patman said kneeling down in the middle of a recently harvested hay field.

It's been more than a month since any kind of considerable rain has fallen on this part of Texas. Irrigating the fields is far too expensive for most farmers. So starved for moisture, crops are dying, forcing Patman to harvest both his hay and corn weeks early.

"It makes me debate whether I need to keep going or stop," Patman said.

At the end of the day, farmers like Patman are producing far less than they had hoped. Just to keep up with rising costs, he recently had to take out a $500,000 loan from the bank.

"I've been farming on the same money since I started. This year kicked us in the butt. You're never getting ahead. It's getting too hard I'm getting too old now," Patman added.

Farmers across the country are in extreme or exceptional droughts right now. They are squeezed between poor growing conditions and inflation costs driving up everything from fertilizer to tractor parts.

"It's terrible and it's not just me I've got farmer friends all over the United States and they're all in the same boat we're in," he said.

Ginger Mulkey managed Boyce Feed and Grain in the center of Waxahachie. She knows how hard her neighbors are working to keep Americans fed. But with each new shipment of feed and grain that comes in, she's forced to raise prices.

"At the end of the day, all I do is adjust pricing. If I'm not staying on top of pricing you're giving it away," she remarked.

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Standing in the middle of a barren farm field in northern Maine, Greg Porter walks the rows of dirt here with brown paper bags in one hand and white wooden stakes wrapped around his other.

Meticulously, he paces across this farm field, opening each numbered bag as he goes, marking down its location on a spreadsheet so that come harvest time in the fall, he knows exactly what he’s looking at.

Porter is part farmer and part researcher. He studies agriculture at the University of Maine in Presque Isle, a small rural community home to about 8,000 people that once was one of the nation’s largest producers of potatoes. They still produce plenty of spuds here, but Greg Porter isn’t farming potatoes for the money. He’s farming them for the future.

“We’re planting 45,000 different individual varieties of potatoes in this field. 45,000!” he remarked as he pulled out another handful of brown bags from his old GMC pickup truck.

Each brown bag Porter opens is filled with about 50 tubers; they’re essentially tiny potatoes. He and his research team have spent two years raising them in a greenhouse, combining thousands of different variations of potato parents to make potato offspring. Essentially, they’re trying to create the most efficient, most delicious potato out there.

These days though, the work in these fields is taking on new importance. With farmers across the country increasingly facing tougher growing conditions because of climate change, the hope is that somewhere in this field they harvest a new kind of potato that’s more resistant to climate change. Some may be able to tolerate higher temperatures and others may be able to handle more moisture.

“We’re developing DNA-based tools to stack the deck in our favor as we select them,” Porter added.

Last year, the potatoes industry in the United States was worth about $4 billion. All the more reason people like Don Flannery with the Maine Potato Board are paying close attention to the work Greg Porter and his team are doing.

“Potatoes are a high-input crop. It takes a lot of money to raise an acre of potatoes,” Flannery said sitting in his office surrounded by various pieces of potato memorabilia.

Aside from more extreme droughts and rain events, many of the varieties of potatoes being cultivated here need less fertilizer. With inflation and rising fertilizer prices, reducing any kind of costs for farmers could mean the difference between losing money and breaking even.

“If you’re not looking ahead and being proactive you’re usually behind in being reactive. Those that are gonna be successful in our business are the ones looking ahead,” Flannery added.

Back in the field, Porter and his team have started sending their potatoes to farms across the country to see how they hold up to growing conditions in states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. The hope is to help potato farmers across this country produce the best tasting, most lucrative crops possible.

“The hope is we produce a few out of our 45,000 that have enough good characteristics that they’re worthy of commercial investment.”

DENVER — Looking at a Colorado used car lot from the street, you see nothing but a shipping container. However when you step inside, it suddenly feels like the future. Nick Millisor is the founder of Ullr's Garden.

"How much nutrients these little plants are getting to how much light, how much red light versus blue light and it also keeps track of everything from PH levels to temperature to humidity," Millisor said.

Millisor is talking about the technology inside of what is actually considered a farm.

"If we were only growing lettuce heads, we could produce about 1,000 heads of lettuce every single week, 365 days a year," Millisor said.

Ullr's Garden is a brand-new business growing the equivalent of a 10-acre farm inside two shipping containers in the heart of downtown Denver.

"I thought there were like three types of lettuce, I was very wrong. There's a lot more," Millisor said.

Caroline Katsiroubas is the marketing director for the Boston-based company Freight Farms. Their mission is to empower anyone to start growing food regardless of background.

"So you don't need a family history in farming or a background in agriculture or agronomy to get started. We kind of provide the technology and the platform and then the training and support for you to get up and running," Katsiroubas said.

Freight Farms said from the snowy Canadian wilderness to Middle Eastern deserts, concrete urban jungles, and everywhere in between, these farms present a reliable source of high-quality and sustainable produce 365 days a year.

"All around making urban agriculture a viable option for food production," Katsiroubas said.

This is just one company creating these opportunities on every corner of the globe, with more than 550 farms spread out across the world, including in 48 U.S. states and territories.

"It's to be able to grow food in places that traditionally or historically have not been able to grow their own food," Millisor said.

What differentiates this from your typical vertical farming warehouse is the size. Smaller space allows for greater changes faster.

"Let's look at our local community in Denver and Colorado and what is a huge problem right now is water," Millisor said.

Farming is the most water-intensive industry on the planet. Farms account for 70% of all water that is consumed annually. That's over 2 quadrillion gallons of water, which is enough to cover the entire United States in 2 feet of water. Ullr's Garden only uses 5 gallons daily, which is 95% less water than traditional farming. Dan Goldhamer with Colorado State University's Denver Extension, which is an extended education program that focuses on agriculture, says the individualization will not only help with this new approach to farming but also with traditional farming.

"In agriculture, there is never one solution that fits all sizes and that container farming and controlled environmental agriculture definitely has a role to play," Goldhamer said. "What's really interesting too about container farms is the ability to collect and manage a whole bunch of data and really kind of design systems that you can steer really easily to maximize those efficiencies."

"Technologies like this are going to be a very important piece of the solution," Millisor said. "We have this saying, think global act local."

That's exactly what this concept is about. Thinking about agriculture and climate from a larger perspective and making a change in your own community.

WINTHROP, Maine — Spend a little time on Craig Hickman’s farm in central Maine and it’s clear he has a passion for growing his own food, something that for him that started early.

"My dad who was a Tuskegee airman on the ground, who probably would have been a farmer in another life, decided to turn our backyard in the inner city, the segregated inner city of Milwaukee into food," said Hickman, who is a Maine state senator.

"If you were dirt poor, but you could grow your food for yourself, then nobody could push you around and tell you what," he said.

Growing up how he did, his farm is not just a means for food, it’s his equal parts church and political ideology

"I feel like food is a ministry. Feeding oneself is a spiritual activity. It's a political activity. It's resistance, it's power," said Hickman.

It’s his strong, almost poetic views of food that are the fuel behind the state of Maine’s newest addition to its constitution: the right to food.

"If you have a right to life and liberty, if you have a right to obtain safety and happiness, which our Constitution says, then how can you not have a right to food?" he asked.

With 61% of the vote, Mainers passed the first in the nation right to food, which states that the people of Maine have the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment.

"More and more, we see if we don't write our rights down and explicitly protect them in constitutions, they can be infringed upon it anytime," said Hickman.

When you first hear of the concept it may sound like a no-brainer. However, according to research done by the University of Southern Maine, the state imports about 90% of the food Mainers consume, making it the state most dependent on outside sourcing of food.

With the pandemic tying up supply chains and stores baring empty shelves when demand shifted, Hickman sees the new amendment as giving people the power to opt-out of the commercial food chain.

"We take our food system for granted. We take our food supply for granted, but the pandemic proved to us we can't do that."

There is some opposition to the idea, including The Humane Society, which has expressed concerns about the legislation opening the door to animal welfare abuses. Hickman believes the existing language prevents that.

"We regulate, how you treat your cats and dogs, where we regulate humane and inhumane slaughter. Those things will not go away because of rights to food. There's language in the amendment that explicitly doesn't allow for the abuse of anything in the production of food, which would include animals," he explained.

The idea is picking up in other states with Washington and West Virginia working on right to food amendments of their own.

While the idea may catch on in other parts of the country, Hickman hopes more of his neighbors take steps to reclaim their power through food.

"Structures change. They don't change overnight. We have definitely thought put a different foundation under our food system. So, now, we'll see what we can build from it," he said.

Climate change is not just changing our atmosphere, it is changing the fabric of many rural towns nationwide.

As the United States has moved to renewable sources of energy, it has strained the coal industry as many coal mines have had to close due to lowering demand.

According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, coal mine employment in the US fell 39% between 2009 and 2016. It has forced many remote towns to adjust their economies to find and create new employment opportunities for its residents.

“There are a lot of special places, but this is definitely a special place,” said Brant Thibodeaux, who lives in the remote town of Paonia, Colorado. “The people that have been here know that and they want to stay here so they will do whatever they can to prevail.”

Paonia is tucked away in the North Fork Valley region of Colorado. It is about an hour and a half from Aspen, and more than four hours away from Denver.

For decades, the region has relied on coal mining to support its economy. Local leaders estimate prior to 2010, one coal job represented at least five other jobs in the region.

In 2010, however, two of region’s three coal mines shut down. As the energy industry began progressing toward renewable sources of energy, coal mines left and so did families. Enrollment at the local high school fell by more than a quarter. It left Paonia with the question, “How do we survive?”

The answer they found, was right beneath them.

People in Paonia began relying on their agricultural roots for income. In 2018, Thibodeaux opened up a winery, Aquila Cellars, that now produces the world’s high-altitude Pino Grigio. It is not necessarily natural for the region’s climate as frequent frosts and long-lasting droughts threaten the livelihood of the vines, but it started a company that earns Thibodeaux a living.

Since he opened, four more wineries in the area have opened as well.

Down the road, Big B’s Apple Orchard is producing a full-blown agrotourism experience. The orchard allows visitors to pick during harvest season as well as camp on its land that sits squarely in a valley surrounded by mountain peaks.

The orchard’s owner is also in the process of building a pond to allow families to enjoy water activities during the summer months, when it frequently invites bands to play on a stage constructed next to the orchard.

“We’ve seen the foot traffic go up 30% [each] year,” said Chelsea Peluso, who has been working at the orchard for more than a decade. “When I first started working here, I used to bring a book. It was so slow. And now, I really need to work for my money,” she said, laughing.

In 2020, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute put out guidelines to help the hundreds of other towns nationwide going through a similar economic transition away from coal. The guidelines include investing in local leadership, entrepreneurship, restoring old mines, digital infrastructure, and bankruptcy protections for residents

It adds on to the many states that have introduced legislation to protect workers in transitioning communities over the last two years. Bills in Illinois, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Vermont have all been introduced in the state legislature.

“[Had we not adjusted], I think Paonia would’ve been another one of those forgotten towns,” said Peluso.

Pumpkins are symbolic of the fall season. But growers around the U.S. are running into more extreme weather, which is impacting the number of pumpkins available in certain regions.

“People have been bringing their children here for generations,” said David Reid, the president of Dave’s Pumpkins.

Reid has been providing pumpkins in northern Illinois since he was in school.

“I started this 46 years ago,” he said.

And like many farmers across the U.S. this year, he’s run into weather-related challenges with his crop.

“This year was a challenging year for growing pumpkins here in northern Illinois. It was very dry early in the season. We got just enough rain right after planting,” he said.

“Some years have been very dry,” Reid explained. “Some years have been too wet, and that's the worst for pumpkins.”

By just a matter of miles, where you grow can make all the difference.

“It makes a huge difference. Just a few miles away, you can get a lot of rain or no rain, and depending on the timing, it can make a big difference on the crop,” he said.

Just south, Abbey Farms has run into different problems.

“Last year, we had complete crop failure of our pumpkin farm, and that was because we had two and a half months of rain right at the time of planting, which just doesn't happen. So, we lost all of our crop,” said Adam Voirin, the chief operating officer at Abbey Farms. “The difficulty we ran into this year was the drought. We somehow came out OK. The pumpkins are lighter than normal.”

Voirin has been there since they started growing pumpkins 13 years ago. He said the yield each year can be drastically different.

“There’s been a lot of challenges with the weather,” he said. “I think we can say the climate is changing, the extremes are becoming more prevalent.”

That can be tough, especially for a state known for pumpkins.

“Pumpkin is actually a very important part of Illinois agriculture,” Reid said.

In 2020, Illinois produced about 35,000 pounds of pumpkins per acre. This was a significant drop from 2018, when the state produced 45,000 pounds per acre, according to stats from the USDA Economic Research Service.

“A big issue for pumpkin production is weather conditions, and depending on local weather conditions, different areas can have a great year or a hard year. And it’s not uncommon to see yields for a state to change up to 14,000 pounds,” said Gregory Astill, a research economist with the USDA Economic Research Service. “In an average year in the United States, farmers grow about 2 billion pounds of pumpkins.”

Illinois isn’t the only state dealing with extremes.

“We have a shortage of pumpkins throughout California,” said Lyra Marble, the owner of Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch in California. “I’ve had to get pumpkins from up in Oregon, which normally those aren't great pumpkins because they get too much rain. Ironically the drought there is helping their pumpkin yield.”

Marble said the drought, supply chain problems, and other logistics impacted their business this fall.

“I’ve been doing this for over 25 years and this is the first year I can’t expect what I've always expected,” she said.

But possible solutions are in the works.

“Since the 1880s, we’ve had temperatures that are increasing,” said Alan Walters, a professor of horticulture at Southern Illinois University. “If it’s going the way it is now, it’s going to be very difficult to grow pumpkins in the future in these areas.”

Walters has been experimenting with more heat-tolerant pumpkins for the future.

“My goal is to develop some more heat-tolerant pumpkin lines that growers can have to utilize for growing pumpkins, especially in more warmer areas like the lower Midwest and upper South, where they grow a significant amount of pumpkins,” he explained. “The climate is definitely changing.”

“The genetic research that's gone into pumpkins over the 46 years, I’ve been growing them, has had a tremendous improvement in the yield and the ability for the pumpkins to be resistant,” Reid said.

“Having a fun experience at the pumpkin patch, that’s what it's about,” Marble said.

As farmers work to provide the selection and the fun that customers are used to getting, they are having to get more resilient and creative as they deal with changes in weather.

“It’s turning into more you're getting 100-year floods, or rainfall events every week. And so it's really hard to rebound from that when the ground can take it a little bit, so we’re investigating new ways of irrigation things like that to help,” Voirin said.

“Farms and those of us that are working with natural products, we are definitely some of the people on the front lines of climate change and seeing what's coming to everyone in the world,” Marble said.

For decades, Black farmers say they have been at the mercy of historically discriminatory lending practices by the U.S. government and banks that do not treat them fairly.

“Farming is really hard for white males, and if it’s really hard for white males, then it’s dreadful for anyone else,” said Zephrine Hanson, an urban farmer who grows small crops she then sells to artisan shops.

Hanson and others say the practices have led to a precipitous decline in the number of Black farmers in our country.

According to the Census of Agriculture, there were roughly 1 million Black farmers in the United States in 1920, comprising around 14 percent of the total number of farmers in the United States.

In 2020, according to the same data, the number of Black farmers in the U.S. had fallen to 45,000, comprising only 1.4 percent of all farmers.

“You know, when you take a man’s farm, it’s not like he’s going down to work at McDonald’s,” said Dr. John Boyd, CEO of the National Black Farmer’s Association. “You break his spirit. You take his history, and dignity, and respect, and you crush him.”

Boyd says he founded the NBFA in the 1980s after he and four other Black farmers would experience discriminatory practices at the hands of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) when they would go into the office and ask for loans.

“At one particular time, [the director of the local USDA] spat on my shirt,” said Boyd. “He tore my application up and threw it in the trash can. I was pleading for $5,000, and this white farmer comes in, during my time when I’m supposed to be getting this loan, and he passes [the white farmer] a government check for $157,000.”

We reached out twice to the USDA for comment but have not gotten a response.

Boyd says, today, discrimination is less blatant. It can be something like pleasantly-worded letters saying loans cannot be processed and a farmer will have to try again next year. But to farmers of color, it is difficult; federal loans are often their only funding option outside of predatory lenders and suppliers who charge outrageous interest rates.

Otherwise, in a business built on credit, Black farmers are pushed out and forced to sell their farms.

“I’ll be honest, I hope the USDA changes, but I’m not waiting,” said Hanson. “That’s definitely something they’ll have to want to change.”

In 1997, more than 400 Black farmers filed a class action lawsuit against the USDA in what became known as Pigford vs. Glickman, charging the agency with discrimination against Black farmers. The government settled for more than $1.25 billion, the largest discrimination settlement ever paid by the federal government.

From lettuce to basil, where some of your food comes from could be changing. Indoor vertical farming is gaining traction in the food industry.

“Today we’re at our research and development facility,” Henry Sztul, the chief science officer at Bowery Farming, said.

From seed… "we’re constantly experimenting with different types of seeds,” he said. To germination flats put in a chamber for a few days, to their final home for growing. “What we look for are the leaves starting to be more fully developed.”

The process takes about a month.

“It’s a 25, 30-day grow cycle for the plant, from seed to shelf,” Katie Seawell, the chief commercial officer at Bowery Farming, said.

It’s an efficient process and this facility only shows a small portion of what they are growing

“We are building local indoor smart farms close to the cities that we operate,” Seawell said. She said they are re-imagining agriculture, and controlling every aspect of the growing process.

“We are not susceptible to some of the external variables or factors that can disrupt the supply chain or the growing process for crops,” she explained. “The ability for the current food system to pivot with agility to meet market demand based on market disruption is very, very limited.”

It’s a problem we saw during the pandemic. Disruptions in the food supply chain and transportation, leasing to rotting piles of unsold produce in some states and food shortages in others.

“What kind of opportunities did the pandemic present, I think one of those is food security,” Joshua Craver, an assistant professor of controlled environment horticulture at Colorado State University, said.

However, Craver said this indoor vertical farming isn’t an ideal solution for every crop.

“There are some crops that just don't make a lot of sense in a controlled environment setting...those range from grain crops or orchard crops,” he said.

Another downfall is the lighting needed. “We typically use a lot more energy to grow our crops in vertical farms that we do compared to fields, or even greenhouse production,” AJ Both, a professor at Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, said. Both does research in plant lighting.

“I think that's an area where we still need to do a lot of work, to try to help the vertical farming industry become even more efficient,” he said.

However, control of lighting does have benefits as well, as it gives growers more control over crop growth, all while taking up less space.

“The benefits of that, of course, are that you can grow a lot more plants on the same footprint,” Both said.

“We are taking non-arable land and transforming it into highly productive farms,” Seawell said.

While it may not be the ideal solution for every crop right now, Craver said it’s a valuable addition to the food industry.

“A lot of the ways I like to describe controlled environments and vertical farming is being another tool in our toolbox,” he said.

Back at Bowery, they are continuing to experiment with new crops and provide fresh food for those at a cost comparable to organic foods.

“As we scale…we will want to compete not only at a premium price point but against traditional agriculture prices as well,” Seawell said.

They currently have 13 products in the marketplace, and the capability to grow 365 days a year.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be in this space and I think there's real recognition that we have to think differently about how we build resilience and strengthen our local and regional food supply systems. We don't believe we’re the only answer to that, but we believe we are a part, a critical part of that answer.”

Demand for U.S.-made goods is surging. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is projecting a record $157 billion in farm exports during the fiscal year 2021.

“In 2020, beef exports equated to roughly $270 per head. In 2021, taken at USDA’s number, it equates to more like $280 to $300 per head,” said Billy Schmitz, who works as a risk manager at a feedlot in Colorado.

The lot where Schmitz works, Five Rivers Cattle Feed, cares for 80,000 cattle. Based on his projections, the increase in exports could mean anywhere from $800,000 to $2.4 million of extra in revenue this year.

“Things have very much improved [since COVID first began],” he said.

Experts say much of the bump comes from China’s involvement in the U.S. market. In 2018, China only committed to purchasing $9.1 billion in exports from the United States, but this year, they have committed $38 billion after former President Donald Trump signed a phase one trade deal with the country in January of 2020.

“We kind of had these adverse conditions [because of COVID] that led to government support,” said the USDA’s chief economist, Seth Meyer. “[We’re] exchanging those for market-based dollars.”

Exports affect multiple parts of the economy. Not only does it contribute to the Gross Domestic Product, but it increases spending among consumers: helpful to small businesses that endured hardships throughout the pandemic.

“It provides us with a bit of relief, not only as cattle producers, but as farm and ranch families, too,” said Schmitz.

2021’s projection marks a steep increase from years of fluctuating export numbers, as well as the highest surplus since 2017.

In 2015, the USDA reported $139.8 billion in exports, $129.6 billion in 2016, $140.2 billion in 2017, $143.4 billion in 2018, $135.5 billion in 2019, and $135.7 billion in 2020.

MALVERN, Iowa (KMTV) -- On a piece of land that has buried train tracks running through it, Tyler Bartley decided to create a large garden to grow local, organic produce and offer it up at affordable prices to his community.

In the bedroom community of Malvern, Iowa it can be tough to compete with the larger city about a half-hour away.

"It was always hard to offer something here that Omaha didn't have better, but having good farmland and quality produce, that's not a challenge here," said Bartley.

Sown Local Foods is able to grow on a larger scale than a typical backyard garden.

"The amount of food has almost tripled in five years, and we're now just scratching the surface on field production of watermelon and sweet corn and stuff that you'd see at bigger stands," said Bartley.

A few years ago they met someone who had extra land attached to where he parked trucks for his business. Bartley set up a garden and is now harvesting arugula and other salad greens.

They have plots of land around the area in Malvern, Council Bluffs, Glenwood, and Pacific Junction.

Once the produce is harvested, it's sold through a number of places. They've partnered with a meal delivery service and restaurants. They also sell at farmers' markets and they have a stand in downtown Malvern.

They accept many forms of payment, including SNAP benefits.

At the stand, a lockbox serves as the cashier. People can just leave payment and take produce.

"The people that are shopping want healthy food for their family, and if you're on a tight budget that's sort of the sweet spot we're at anyways," said Bartley.

Bartley said it takes a lot of hard work, but it's worth it because they feel good about the work they're doing in his hometown.

This story originally reported by Jennifer Griswold on 3NewsNow.com.