Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • A family tending their taro fields, threatened by apple snails.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964803.jpg
  • Kanoa family tending their taro fields, threatened by apple snails.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_956212.jpg
  • Sugar workers are covered with black char as they harvest cane in the hot sun after fields are burned. Canes are burned before they are cut because leaves from the plant are so sharp they dull blades of their machetes. The stalks are then loaded on a truck, taken to a mill to be processed into white and brown sugar. <br />
The Pomalca sugar cane coop located at Campo Rosaliais, Peru.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187071.jpg
  • Sugar workers harvest cane in the heat after fields are burned.<br />
Workers are covered with black char when they cut sugar canes with a machete. The sharp leaves destroy workers and tools, so they are burned before the raw sugar is harvested. The stalks are then loaded on a truck, taken to a mill to be processed into white and brown sugar. <br />
The Pomalca sugar cane coop located at Campo Rosaliais, Peru.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187070.jpg
  • The Imagine Mosaic, a memorial to John Lennon in Strawberry Fields at 72nd Street in Central Park. The late Beatles musician lived nearby in the Dakota and was shot and fatally wounded in 1980.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968660.jpg
  • Fields are cleared and then burned in preparation for planting.
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  • Le Conte glacier in Stikine ice fields near Petersburg.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114641.jpg
  • A farm family heads home after working in the fields in LaVal under the vista of the Dolomites.  The mountain cliffs are so steep that no glaciers formed on them. The Alps thrust up when tectonic plates collided between Africa and Eurasia.  The Ladin people living in the mountain region have a close bond with nature and the outdoors.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024120.jpg
  • Aerial photo shows fields with various stages of plowing, planting, growing and harvesting after a rain in Finney County, Kansas.
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  • Fields are cleared and then burned in preparation for planting.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306539.TIF
  • Fields are cleared and then burned in preparation for planting.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306538.TIF
  • Irrigating fields in Kara village of Labuk.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306517.JPG
  • A work group clears and burns fields in preparation for planting.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306444.TIF
  • A flooded road through green fields under a cloud-filled sky.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763267.JPG
  • A girl plays in a taro field while the leaves are being harvested.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964827.jpg
  • A grandmother works picking flowers with her family under the smoking volcano Popocatepetl in nearby Atlixco, flower capital of Mexico.  Workers harvest bouquets of zempazuchitl flowers for Day of the Dead celebrations.  Fields full of yellow flowers are cultivated to decorate altars and graves for the Mexican fiesta.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187016.jpg
  • A young boy picks flowers with his family who was harvesting to sell for Day of the Dead, the Mexican fiesta celebration. <br />
Workers harvest bouquets of cempasuchil or marigold flowers from fields full of yellow flowers cultivated to decorate altars and graves for the Mexican fiesta.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187064-1.JPG
  • A pregnant mare rolls in the mud with a plastic bucket over her mouth as a muzzle to keep her from being inadvertently eating caterpillars, thus limiting her exposure to toxins.<br />
In 2001, approximately 25% of all pregnant mares in Kentucky aborted their foals within several weeks (over 3,000 mares lost pregnancies), and abortion rates exceeded 60% on some farms because of Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome (MRLS).  The mysterious disease caused mares to spontaneously abort at an early term as well fully developed foals—the babies that survived had heart and eye problems. Those that didn’t die or were put down had brain injuries and are often referred to as “dummy foals.”  University of Kentucky estimates 1400 foals were aborted costing the state 336 million dollars.<br />
<br />
What was known was that mares were being exposed to something in the fields—a fungus or mycotoxin that seemed to be related to the Eastern tent caterpillar that was found in cherry trees. Farms tried to limit their risk and exposure to the grass by putting plastic buckets over their mouths.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720969.jpg
  • Players wear orange jerseys at an irrigated football practice field in New Mexico. Texas has 88,000 unregulated well heads just across the border depleting the aquifer, making this maintenance difficult.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481173.JPG
  • Dust rises from roads that bisect a dry wheat field between two feedlots. <br />
Drought conditions intensify throughout the great plains for the past ten years with some parts of the state having "extreme drought" conditions.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481065.TIF
  • A harvester works a field cutting crops near Hoxie KS and Imperial NE.<br />
<br />
Clouds of dirt fly into the air where farming can be a challenge as small owners and agricultural corporations are subject to drought and climate change as well as the whims of nature.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481063.JPG
  • Wind turbines in Kansas are the backdrop for the grain elevator in agricultural fields.<br />
<br />
Wind power supplies the state with almost half of its' electrical power. Farmers supplement their income by allowing turbines and that is attracted more than 15 billion dollars in investment to the state in 2022.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481135.JPG
  • Boys play on the slippery slides inside a semitrailer used to haul the wheat crop from the fields to the grain elevator. The farm is planting a drought tolerant variety.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2435369.TIF
  • Sorghum fields guarded by tribespeople on stands at Selicho fishing village. Armed with a homemade slingshot and mud balls, a girl guards her sorghum crop from hungry birds.
    MM8259_20140501_37218.tif
  • Climbers leave their base camp to trek on the ice field of Mendenhall Glacier. The glacier is one of many that connect to the vast Juneau Ice Field, a 1,500 square mile remnant of the last ice age, cradled high in the coastal mountain’s lofty peaks in the Tongass National Forest.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075016.jpg
  • A boy bounces a soccer ball of his head while playing on a field near a large statue of a man with two horses.
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  • Chairs sit under an arbor in a field.
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  • Invasive weeds are removed from a field to strengthen native plants.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964802.jpg
  • A field taken over by introduced Eurasian leafy spurge.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_956208.jpg
  • Field with blooming prairie smoke flowers.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_956207.jpg
  • Backlit water sprays from an irrigation system that waters a field of corn. Corn is a thirsty crop grown for feed.
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  • An irrigation system waters a field of corn and a few sunflowers.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481059.JPG
  • A field of sunflowers is in full bloom in summer months.Nebraska ranks 6th in the U.S. in sunflower production.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481056.JPG
  • Grackles gather on a center-pivot sprinkler to feed on a newly harvested cotton field.<br />
<br />
A half mile long center pivot has a well head at the center and rotates in a circle. Pivots were developed after WWII and allowed this area to recover from the dust bowl.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2473370.TIF
  • A family parks an RV in the field during the harvest so they can escape the heat and other elements like bugs while they eat. They are harvesting drylands wheat which is more drought tolerant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2435365.JPG
  • A family planting area in a sorghum field.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328010.JPG
  • A young Kara boy bathes in water channeling into field plots.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306494.TIF
  • A Kara woman nurses her baby behind a shelter in a field.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306472.TIF
  • A boy bounces a soccer ball of his head while playing on a field near a large statue of a man with two horses.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6879_708746.TIF
  • Chairs sit under an arbor in a field.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6689_702591.TIF
  • Stretched out in luxurious grass, Mary Lyn Ray exults that this open field will never be developed.  She saved this tract by buying it herself and placing a c onservation easement on it.
    RANDY OLSON_06201_503925.JPG
  • A harvester works cutting mature crops on straight rows in Hoxie KS and Imperial NE.<br />
<br />
Clouds of dirt fly into the air where farmers and ag corporations are subject to drought and climate change as well as the whims of nature.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2435370.JPG
  • A 10-year-old boy reflected in a mirror drives a tractor behind two harvesters working in a corn field in Kansas.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481130.JPG
  • A farm worker drives his pickup truck into the field to herd cows to the barn for morning milking in the rural, northern Austria's Alpine region.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1021459.TIF
  • An irrigation system waters a corn crop in Nebraska.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481057.JPG
  • The golden apple snail lays eggs on taro plants in Hawaii.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964830.jpg
  • A woman harvests taro leaves on the family farm.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964829.jpg
  • A farmer leaves muddy footprints in a taro patch.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964828.jpg
  • With ears pricked forward, a yearling thoroughbred curiously awaits at a white fence on Manchester Farm, a Thoroughbred horse with a barn that is located on the backside of Keeneland Race Track. What makes Kentucky special is that it is geologically favored for horses. Millions of years ago, layers of shells were buried and the crushed limestone makes the grass rich in calcium. As the land sinks, hills and valley are formed which make a perfect terrain for building strong muscles when horses run.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720968-1.JPG
  • A small breed of wild horses, brought over from Tahiti, graze on Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1494001-1.JPG
  • A small breed of wild horses, brought over from Tahiti, graze on Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1494001.JPG
  • A small breed of wild horses, brought over from Tahiti, graze on Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493942.JPG
  • A small breed of wild horses, brought over from Tahiti, trek across Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493946-1.JPG
  • A small breed of wild horses, brought over from Tahiti, trek across Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493946.JPG
  • Yearlings stand in a pasture surrounded by white fences and a historic Thoroughbred horse farm. Located in the heart of the Bluegrass, next to Keeneland Race Track, Manchester Farm holds the distinction as one of the most recognizable farms in Kentucky. What makes Kentucky special is that it is geologically favored for horses. Millions of years ago, layers of shells were buried and the crushed limestone makes the grass rich in calcium. As the land sinks, hills and valley are formed which make a perfect terrain for building strong muscles when horses run.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720968-2.JPG
  • Aerial view of a single horse grazing in picturesque, curved-fenced pastures. Once all farms were lined with white fences, but many now are black—easier to maintain. Lane's End is one of the most important stallion farms and breeding operations in the U.S. and also one of the top operations globally.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720976-2.JPG
  • Morning fog rises over Donamire Farm's fenced pastures and pastoral setting in Lexington, Kentucky
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720976-1.JPG
  • Young girls hike through an uplift meadow with a mosaic of flowering plants on Moser Island which separates North and South Arms Hoonah Sound off of Chichagof Island.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075161.jpg
  • A dappled gray Thoroughbred mare runs with a black foal in a pasture on a horse farm in Kentucky.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_737767.jpg
  • Thoroughbred mare with foal in a pasture munching on bluegrass on a horse farm in Lexington, Kentucky. The region is known as the horse capital of the world with around 450 horse farms.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_737765.jpg
  • Thoroughbred mare runs along side her foal in a pasture on a Kentucky horse farm. Kentucky is famous for bluegrass and rolling hills where over 450 farms breed and train race horses.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_737741.jpg
  • Aerial view of Donamire Farm's fenced pastures. Once all farms were lined with white fences, but many now are black—cheaper to maintain. A Thoroughbred horse farm doing well financially still follows the tradition with white paint.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720976.jpg
  • A stallion is surrounded by white fences lined with spring flowering crabapple and cherry trees creating an idyllic, picturesque setting for a Thoroughbred horse farm. What makes Kentucky special is that it is geologically favored for horses. Millions of years ago, layers of shells were buried and the crushed limestone makes the grass rich in calcium. As the land sinks, hills and valley are formed which make a perfect terrain for building strong muscles when horses run.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720968.jpg
  • Nurse mares guard over young Thoroughbred foals who are fitted for a halter the first day of their life. They spend weeks in fenced paddocks eating sweet clover, bluegrass and dandelions while learning to socialize before training begins.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720966.jpg
  • Border collies received affection on a ranch they help manage.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964864.jpg
  • Border collies received affection on a ranch they help manage.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964819.jpg
  • Sheep share pasturage with a forlorn mule.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964806.jpg
  • A terraced V-shaped valley fill sits at the edge of a reclaimed West Virginia mining site. Entire mountains are blasted away in mountaintop removal mining in order to obtain a small seam of coal. Unwanted rock is pushed into valleys and streams destroying natural watersheds and the length of the Ohio River has been filled in. The result is a threat to clean water and the biodiversity of the ecosystem.<br />
<br />
The Central Appalachian Plateau was created 4 million years ago, and one of its richest assets is wilderness containing some of the world’s oldest and biologically richest temperate zone hardwood forest. A flattened moonscape on top is mostly unusable.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996274.jpg
  • From atop a distant hill, a rancher on horseback watches over his herd of sheep on Steens Mountain in southeastern Oregon.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705663.jpg
  • The Rohe family picks sweet corn on their family farm.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06341_515777.jpg
  • A farmer stands with his child in a cornfield.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06341_515756.jpg
  • Sugar workers chew cane during a break from harvesting charred cane in the hot sun. Canes are burned before they are cut because leaves from the plant are so sharp they dull blades of their machetes. The stalks are then loaded on a truck, taken to a mill to be processed into white and brown sugar. <br />
The Pomalca sugar cane coop is located at Campo Rosaliais, Peru.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187072.jpg
  • A young boy carries a bouquet of bright, red zempazuchitl flowers that his family was harvesting to sell for Day of the Dead, the Mexican fiesta celebration. Pickers work late into the evening under the shadow of Popocatépetl, or El Popo as locals call the volcano.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187064.jpg
  • A grandmother and her granddaughter collect grasshoppers in a Oaxaca cornfield. Fried, the insects make a tasty dinner dish.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187018.jpg
  • Nyangatom harvesting sorghum.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306478.TIF
  • A Nyangatom woman harvesting sorghum.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306477.JPG
  • A girl chews sweet stalks of sorghum after laying out seeds to dry.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1283966.TIF
  • Resettled people in a community neighboring a gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222975.JPG
  • Clouds over a green Australian plain.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763241.JPG
  • A Turkish man stands nearby as cows go up the mountain for better pasture.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6689_702588.TIF
  • After the wedding ceremony on the Mendenhall Glacier, a newly married couple waits to fly back to their cruise ship by helicopter.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075165.jpg
  • Armed with a homemade slingshot and mud balls, a girl guards her sorghum crop from hungry birds.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328120.TIF
  • A young girl carries a heavy load as she cuts and plants asparagus shoots and buries them with sand in an agricultural area south of Lima. The plants are deeply covered with soil and remain white from lack of sun light, which some find a gourmet delicacy.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187496-2.JPG
  • Waterfall of melting ice from glaciers in Stikine icefieds.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114642.jpg
  • Cows in Switzerland's Oberalpen Pass.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114564.jpg
  • A couple rides in a limousine to the airport to take a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier for their wedding.
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  • A big congratulations wish to a couple dressed in formal attire who donned crampons to walk on ice to be married on the Mendenhall Glacier. They took a helicopter onto the icefield and said their vows, then were toasted husband and wife.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075164.jpg
  • A hiker explores an ice cave recently revealed at Mendenhall Glacier. As the glaciers in southeast Alaska melt, ice is exposed thousands of years after being buried. Some tunnels in the 1,500-square-mile Juneau Icefield are connected to ice caves, which formed as the glacier moved across uneven surfaces.<br />
During the Pleistoncene Great Ice Age several climate fluctuations created glacial advance and retreat, and vast sheets of ice covered nearly a third of the Earth’s land mass and one half of Alaska. As the climate warmed during the Holocene, ice retreated remaining in Alaskan at high elevations. The most recent variation in advance and retreat created the Juneau Icefield formed 3,000 years ago and ending in the 1700’s. Mendenhall Glacier has flowed for 250 years for 13 miles ending in a lake at its’ base.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075149.jpg
  • Equiped with crampons and emergency equipment, a hiker crawls through a blue ice tunnel formed in the Mendenhall Glacier. As the glaciers in southeast Alaska melt, ice is exposed thousands of years after being buried. Some tunnels in the 1,500-square-mile Juneau Icefield are connected to ice caves, which formed as the glacier moved across uneven surfaces.<br />
<br />
During the Pleistoncene Great Ice Age several climate fluctuations created glacial advance and retreat, and vast sheets of ice covered nearly a third of the Earth’s land mass and one half of Alaska. As the climate warmed during the Holocene, ice retreated remaining in Alaskan at high elevations. The most recent variation in advance and retreat created the Juneau Icefield formed 3,000 years ago and ending in the 1700’s. Mendenhall Glacier has flowed for 250 years for 13 miles ending in a lake at its’ base.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075141.TIF
  • A newly married couple dances on Mendenhall Glacier. They took a helicopter onto the icefield and celebrated after the ceremony. Although dressed in traditional wedding formal wear, they were careful to step over the melting ice in their crampons.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075126.jpg
  • A newly married couple dances while wearing crampons and formal attire as they celebrate on Mendenhall Glacier. Many passengers arrive on cruise ships making tourism the fastest growing industry in Southeast Alaska.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075125.TIF
  • Dressed in formal attire, a couple donned crampons to walk on ice to be married on Mendenhall Glacier. A helicopter swept them onto the icefield where they said their vows that were recorded by a videographer to save their memory.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075124.jpg
  • A hiker treks over cracking ice fissures of Mendenhall Glacier. Locals are drawn to explore newly exposed ice tunnels as the glacier retreats. The face of the glacier is an active calving zone. Ice near the face of the glacier is also weaker and can be treacherous due to the continuing movement.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075118.jpg
  • Taku Glacier in the Juneau Icefield is the deepest and thickest alpine, temperate, tidewater glacier in the world. From the air Taku Glacier appears to be a ribbon that winds out of the southeast corner of the icefield as an outlet glacier with its terminus in the Taku River.
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  • Taku Glacier is the deepest and thickest alpine temperate glacier in the world. It originates in the Juneau Icefield of the Tongass National Forest, and converges with the Taku River.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075111.jpg
  • Taku Glacier is a tidewater glacier and the largest in the Juneau Icefield. Long an anomaly among  glaciers, it was advancing but in recent years has started to succumb to climate change and retreat. The blue ribbon of ice is mixed with sediment with the terminus of the Taku River.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075110.TIF
  • Devils Thumb stands distinctively higher than other granite peaks in Stikine Icefield. <br />
Cloaked with hanging glaciers, it's name is Taalkhunaxhkʼu Shaa in Native Tlingit language, which means "the mountain that never flooded." <br />
The sheer cliffs covered in ice are often unstable creating avalanches making it a technical challenge for advanced mountain climbers.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075094.jpg
  • LeConte Glacier is marked by granite peak formations such as Devis Thumb in the background in the Stikine Icefield.<br />
It is one of the few remnants of the once-vast ice sheets that covered much of North America during the Pleistocene, or Ice Age, the epoch lasting from 2.5 million to 11,700 years ago. LeConte covers 2,900 square miles along the crest of the Coastal Mountains that separate Canada and the U.S., extending 120 miles from the Whiting River to the Stikine River in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.<br />
There are over 100,000 glaciers in Alaska and LeConte is the southernmost active tidewater glacier in the northern hemisphere.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075093.jpg
  • LeConte Glacier is in the Stikine Icefield is one of the few remnants of the once-vast ice sheets that covered much of North America during the Pleistocene, or Ice Age, the epoch lasting from 2.5 million to 11,700 years ago. LeConte covers 2,900 square miles along the crest of the Coastal Mountains that separate Canada and the U.S., extending 120 miles from the Whiting River to the Stikine River in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.<br />
There are over 100,000 glaciers in Alaska and LeConte is the southernmost active tidewater glacier in the northern hemisphere. Since first charted in 1887, it has retreated almost 2.5 miles but is considered stable.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075058.jpg
  • Glaciers hug the granite rocks in the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness near Devils Thumb. Although melting, the Stikine Icecap covers almost 3,000 square miles with many hanging glaciers along the Coastal Mountains in Southeast Alaska.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075029.jpg
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