In this speculative interview set in 2035, we spoke with Dusty Raines, an agricultural extension agent in the Texas Panhandle who has spent the last decade developing what he calls "Crop Hospice"—helping farmers navigate the end of traditional Great Plains agriculture. His parents named him Dusty in 1988, decades before the name would become darkly appropriate. We met at a café in Amarillo between his farm visits, his truck still coated in the morning's dust.

So. Crop Hospice.

Dusty: Yeah, I know how it sounds. When I first started using it in workshops around 2028, people thought I was being morbid or cute or both. But farmers understand hospice. They've sat with dying parents, dying livestock. They get that hospice isn't about giving up. It's about managing an ending with dignity while you figure out what comes next. That's exactly what we're doing with crops that can't survive here anymore.

The first time I used the term was with a cotton farmer who'd had three consecutive failed harvests. He was still out there planting, still hoping. I said, "Look, we're in hospice care with cotton now. We can keep it comfortable, we can have some good days, but we need to talk about what happens after." He got it immediately. Started crying, actually. But he got it.

Your family grew cotton for three generations. When did you realize it was over?

Dusty: 2019. My dad had already died, and my mom was trying to keep the operation going with my uncle. I was working for Extension by then, watching the climate data. I ran the numbers for our specific acreage. With the precipitation trends and the aquifer depletion rates, we had maybe five years of viable cotton production left. That was optimistic.

I showed my mom the projections. She sold within six months. Some neighbors thought we were quitters. A few of those neighbors are bankrupt now. pauses That sounds harsher than I mean it. Some people had to stay and try. We needed the data from their failures. That sounds even worse. Jesus.

You've become known for being very direct about what won't work. How do farmers react?

Dusty: Depends on the farmer. I've been cussed out more times than I can count. Had one guy throw me off his property in 2031 when I told him wheat wasn't viable on his land anymore. But I've also had farmers thank me for finally telling them the truth after years of other people blowing smoke.

The worst is when they want me to give them hope I don't have. "What if we do this? What if we try that?" Sometimes I can say yes, let's try that. But sometimes I have to say, "That's not hope, that's denial, and denial is expensive."

The best conversations happen when we can get past the grief and into problem-solving mode. Okay, traditional crops are done, but what about agave? What about industrial hemp? What about solar leases? Some farmers have actually increased their income by getting out of the crop game entirely.

What's actually growing now that wasn't ten years ago?

Dusty: Agave is the big surprise success. We've got several operations growing it for tequila and agave syrup, and it's genuinely profitable. Prickly pear cactus for nopales and cactus fruit—there's a whole market developing. Some drought-resistant sorghum varieties are hanging in there. Kernza, this perennial grain, is showing promise in some areas.

But here's what nobody talks about: the success rate is maybe 30%. For every farmer who finds something that works, two others try something that fails spectacularly. I watched a guy invest $200,000 in drought-resistant chickpeas based on some university research. Total crop failure two years running. He's working at a feed store now.

We needed those failures. That's how we learn what actually works here versus what works in a research plot with optimal conditions. But it's real people losing real money, and I'm the one who sometimes encouraged them to try.

You mentioned solar leases. How many farmers are just getting out of agriculture entirely?

Dusty: More than you'd think. I'd say 40% of the farmers I work with are in some stage of transitioning out of crop production. Solar leases are huge—you can make more money leasing your land for solar than you ever made farming it, and you don't have to do anything. Wind leases too, but solar is easier.

Some are keeping a small operation going while working other jobs. Some are selling out entirely. There's this one family that sold their 3,000 acres to a solar company and the dad now works as a maintenance tech for the solar array on his former land. He told me it's weird as hell but the pay is better and he sleeps at night.

I run these support groups now, basically, for farmers in transition. We don't call them that. We call them "diversification workshops," but it's grief counseling with spreadsheets.

What do you wish you'd known in 2025 that you know now?

Dusty: long pause

That the emotional work would be harder than the technical work. I thought this job was about agronomic advice—soil science, crop selection, irrigation efficiency. It is that. But mostly it's about sitting with people while they process the end of their way of life.

I wish I'd known that some of the experimental crops that looked most promising in 2025 would be completely unviable by 2030. We wasted a lot of time and money on things that couldn't adapt fast enough to how quickly conditions changed.

I wish I'd known that community matters more than individual farm success. The farmers who are doing okay now are the ones who collaborated—shared equipment for new crops, pooled resources for experiments, supported each other through the transition. The ones who tried to go it alone mostly failed.

And I wish I'd known that my name would become a running joke. "Dusty Raines teaching drought management." I've heard every variation. My wife wants me to go by my middle name, but at this point, leaning into it is easier.

Are there still people in denial about what's happening?

Dusty: Oh, absolutely. I've got farmers who are still planting wheat on land that hasn't produced a viable wheat crop in five years. They'll tell you it's just a bad streak, that the rains will come back, that this is temporary.

And look, I get it. If you accept that this is permanent, you have to accept that your entire life plan is obsolete. That the land your family has worked for generations can't support that work anymore. That's existential. Denial is a survival mechanism.

But denial is also expensive. Every year you plant a crop that won't grow is a year you're not adapting to something that might work. We're running out of time for experimentation. The window where you can afford to fail and try again is closing.

What keeps you doing this work?

Dusty: laughs

Honestly? Spite. I'm too stubborn to let this region just die without a fight. And every time we find something that works—every farmer who successfully transitions to a new crop or a new income stream—that's a middle finger to the idea that this place is doomed.

Also, I'm good at it. I'm good at the hard conversations. I'm good at looking at land and telling people what's possible and what's fantasy. I'm good at sitting with the grief while also pushing toward solutions. Those are weird skills to have, but they're needed right now.

And there are good days. Last month I visited a farm that's been in the same family since 1910. They're growing agave now, and they're profitable for the first time in a decade. The grandson told me, "We're still farmers, just different farmers." That felt like a win.

What do you tell young people who ask if they should go into agriculture here?

Dusty: I tell them agriculture in the Panhandle in 2035 looks nothing like agriculture in 2015, and it'll look different again in 2045. If they can handle that uncertainty, if they're interested in experimental crops and alternative income streams and constant adaptation, then yeah, there's a future here. If they want to do what their grandparents did, then no. That future doesn't exist.

I also tell them to have a backup plan. And I tell them their mental health matters more than the land. That's something my generation didn't understand—we thought you sacrificed everything for the land.

He checks his phone, grimaces at the time.

I've got another farm visit. Guy wants to talk about converting to industrial hemp. I'll probably spend two hours explaining why his soil isn't right for it, and he'll probably plant it anyway, and I'll probably be there when it fails helping him figure out what's next.

That's the job now.