Millet anyone? Facing soil crisis, US farmers look beyond corn and soybeans

Shovel in hand, Duane Hager heads for his cornfield and digs up a shovelful of dirt, revealing wriggling earthworms. Although a pelting rain has soaked his gray T-shirt in seconds, not a single puddle lies in the field or in the cow pasture beyond – a sign of vigorous, uncompacted earth.

“If you have soil that is healthy and balanced, it translates into your animals,” says the Kellogg, Minn., dairy farmer.

Across the American Midwest and Plains, small groups of farmers are looking at their most important resource – the soil – and contemplating big change. Their grandfathers and great grandfathers