Latest / UK Column Radio / Land Rich, Cash Poor-The Disappearing American Farmer-with Brian Reisinger

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Land Rich, Cash Poor-The Disappearing American Farmer-with Brian Reisinger · UK Column Radio

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello. I'm Charles Mannett with a UK column interview. There
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: will be notes and links for this at UK column
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: dot Org. I have with me Brian Risinger, who is
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a fourth generation farmer, writer and consultant managing a busy
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: life between northern California and Wisconsin in the United States. Bran,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining me and a warm
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: welcome to UK column.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Charles, appreciate it having me a not
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Now. We are lucky enough to have an international audience
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and I think they would love to have the scene
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: set by you in winding the clock back a little bit,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and before we get to where you are now, would
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: you just give a potted history of your family's farm
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: in the generations that preceded yours, how wor things and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: how have they got to the point of view involvement.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. Our farm began more than one hundred
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: years ago, in the early nineteen hundreds. Nineteen twelve. My
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: great grandfather, Alice Risinger, he actually fled pre World War
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: One Europe. He had been he had grown up in Bavaria, Germany.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: He'd been in the military and he knew he did
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: not want to fight in the war for Germany. He
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: wanted to have a better life, and so he went
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: to America, and he found that life in the rolling
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: hills of southern Wisconsin, which is beautiful, but it had
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: also a very tough but rewarding living of digging your
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: living out of the dirt. So he began farming there
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: with my great grandma in nineteen twelve and the farm
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: rose up through those years that were very difficult subsistence farming,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: but they were also great economic opportunity from the standpoint
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: of farming was a growing entrepreneuri adventure in America at
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: that time. My grandpa came after him and survived a
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: childhood and adolescence through years of depression, climbed out of
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the Great Depression into the middle class, and ran our farm.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: After that, my dad and my mom took over then
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies and sailed into not only a
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: drought in their first year marriage, but into the farm
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: crisis the nineteen eighties, and then that took us on
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: into the current generation where we've survived globalization, recession, COVID,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and more, with my sister actually working full time with
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: my dad on the farm and working to take it
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: over while I help out on the side and volunteer
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: on the business side. They've thrown me in a tractor
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: of my days off, and I work hard to tell
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: our stories.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Excellent, There's going to be a lot more to get into.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And in those generations that you've just described, what sorts
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of farming has been conducted in terms of the sort
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of you know, mix between ourble and pastoral and also
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I think the developments particularly with regard to say mechanization
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and all the rest of it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, what you're talking about is a really crucial thing,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: and it feeds into the overall theme of the book.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: You know, the disappearing American farmer. Why have our farms
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: been disappearing in our country? What has been going on?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: How does that affect our economy and the rest of
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: the world. In the early years, it was really very
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: broadly mixed agriculture. So every animal you can imagine waddling
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: about the farmyard, every type of crop you could imagine.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: They grew fruits, vegetables, row crops. They raised all kinds
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: of animals in addition to raising milk cows, raising and
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: milking cows to produce dairy products, so on and so forth.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: As the years unfolded. In those early years, my great
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: grandparents began to really focus on dairy farming. That's something
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: that was very central to Wisconsin's economy. It still is,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and the reason for that is Wisconsin didn't have the big,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: wide open acreage of the Kansas and Nebraska prairies where
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: you could plant miles and miles of wheat, for instance.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: We had good, solid fertile ground, but it was rolling hills,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: so we needed to find a way to grow crops
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that would actually be used to just feed dairy cows,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: because milking cows was a way to be able to
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: make the money that you needed to make ends meat,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: rather than being able to plant as much wheat or
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: corn as other places. So eventually that evolved into farms
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: like ours, growing alfalfa and corn to feed dairy cows
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and milking dairy cows to produce milk, cream, cheese, so
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: on and so forth. So that's the way that the
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: economy really unfolded in Wisconsin. It's undergone great changes since,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: and it's undergone a great amount of economic hardship over
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: the decades, but that's the model that emerged and that
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: has mostly defined our way of life. And our economy.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Excellent, and you alluded your book, which absolutely we will
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: come on to discuss. So for the audience waiting to
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: hear back that, just wait a little bit longer. What
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I would like to do, because I think it really
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: helps with context, is just to understand the market that
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: that farm back then was satisfying, and how was that done,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: how far did the produce go.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: At that time, it was a lot of local and
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: regional So milk is a very perishable product, like a
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: lot of agricultural products, but it was local and regional,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: and so they would go into town, they would sell
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the cream locally, they would sell the milk. The milk
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: might be transported a bit further, and it was a local,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: regional market where my great grandfather was selling it to
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: someone that he knew there in town, and many of
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: the people who would drink that milk or who would
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: utilize that cream or eat food products that was made
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: from that milk were in his general region. That very
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: much evolved, and milk is now a commodity that is sold,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: bought and sold upon a national and at times international
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: supply chain, and it is much different world where the
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: farmer and the consumer are not as connected as they
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: were in those early days.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think a situation we're saying very much here
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom and in a lot of the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: sort of so called developed world. Now, your book, the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: title of which is Land Rich cash Port, My Family's
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, the title itself tells a lot. But tell
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: us what is it that compelled you to write such
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a book.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Well, this story, in some ways has been with me
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: from the beginning. I grew up with my dad from
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: the time I could walk, and even as a child
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: and moving on through adolescence, I had the sense that
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: our way of life was disappearing. We saw farm auctions,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: we saw farms going under. I saw kids getting on
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: to the school bus to go to school from dormant farms.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I had teachers who would say, how many of you
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: grew up on a farm, and I would raise my hand.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: In each year there were fewer and fewer kids like me,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: and so I knew that farms are disappearing. I didn't
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: understand why, and I didn't understand the impact. And as
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I grew into adulthood, I pursued a career off the
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: farm and writing, and I worked in business journalism when
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I worked in public policy, and I began to see
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the ways that the American economy, and in many ways
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: the global economy, has left behind family farms in our country.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: And I believe, you know, it's to a degree has
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: occurred in other countries as well. Is it is a
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: outgrowth of the way that our economy has evolved. And
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: so I decided that it was time to answer that question,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: that question that had been with me since my childhood.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: So what we've done with the book is we've looked
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: at hidden eras of American history and in many ways
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: they intersect with international history as well, hidden areas of
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: history that have driven the disappearance of the American farmer.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And then we weave that with our family story of
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: us surviving everything from the Great Depression on up through COVID,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: and we've tried to answer that question of how did
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: this happen and what is the impact.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: And on that It's obviously involved an awful lot of
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: research to produce such a thing. What is it in
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: doing that that's really surprised you?
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I was amazed at the number of times
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: that we had decisions that were made knowingly or unknowingly
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: that made this worse. And what I mean by that
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: is there's some natural things that people would expect, particularly
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: if they understand and believe in a market economy and
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: understand how economics work. There was going to be natural
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: consolidation once the North American continent was settled. There was
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: only so much farmland, and you know, you're always going
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: to have the situation where one neighbor is doing a
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: bit better than his fellow farmer and is able to
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: buy him and get a little bigger and do a
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: little better. That's natural market forces. That's natural industry consolidations.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Some of it happens. It can be good, it can
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: be bad. It's a natural thing. What we had happened
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: in America was an unnatural thing. We had some of
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: those natural forces going, of course, but we also had
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: decisions by our government knowingly and unknowingly that tilted the
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: scales against family farms. We also had social factors that
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: drove things. We also had decisions we made about our
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: technology and what kinds of technology we wanted to pursue.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: It tilted things against family farms. There was decision after
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: decision that sort of planted the seeds of a very
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: vulnerable American farm landscape that unfortunately has come home to
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: roost decade after decade to the tune of forty five
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: thousand farms per year for the past century. So many
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: farms America has lost is forty five thousand farms per
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: year on average the past one hundred years. And it's
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: a shocking outcome, and one that didn't need to be
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: to the degree that it did.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Who's shocking? Indeed, No, I send your being, either slightly
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: diplomatic or certainly giving, if not the government that others
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: benefit of the diet by talking about decisions being made unknowingly.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Just go a bit more into that if you can,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: with parts a couple of examples of the decisions taken
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: and the effects that they've had.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: You've seen exactly. I'll give you some examples. And you're
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: not wrong in that there are times where it's very
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: clear that our government has had a certain goal that's
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: been detrimental to farmers, and other times I think there's
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: been bumbling that's gone on. And I'll give you one example,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: and I will stipulate it by saying that we've seen
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: it under both of the major political parties in our country,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: the establishment of the Republican Party as well as the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party have made these mistakes. There are people from
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: all ends of the political spectrum that have anger and
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: frustration with it. For those people who don't trust government
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: or think that government can be part of the problem,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: there are plenty of examples. In the nineteen eighties is
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: a prime one. So I mentioned that my parents their
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: first year of marriage, were surviving a drought that was
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six, and they got through that early
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: difficult period only to sail into the nineteen eighties farm crisis.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: And this was a time when tens of thousands of
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: farms were wiped out, where rural America farm communities like
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: where I'm from, had really their own specific depression. You know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: it was something specific to rural communities, and there are
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of things contributed to it, but the government
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: actually contribute to it is actually pretty shocking. So in
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies and the run up to this, both
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: parties had for a long time been encouraging one way
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: or another farms to quote get big or get out,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: meaning those farms needed to get bigger and some of
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: those farms. They do that for natural reasons. They do
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: that to survive. They do that tour support more than
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: one family. The reality is that whether it's large, medium,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: or small, all of them were being pushed to get
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: bigger or to get out. So there was natural industry
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: consolidation that's being compounded by what the government was doing.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: One way they were doing that was by encouraging more
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: government fueled debt. So farmers were being encouraged by government
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: programs to take out more debts, saying we need you
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: to get bigger, we need to take on more acreage,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: we need you to produce more food for less. And
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: they were doing that, and they were taking on that debt,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: yes of their own decision making, but also at the
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: encouragement and the government money inducement of our federal government.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: And then shortly after that, as inflation in the American
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: economy got out of control, the federal government raised interest rates,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: as we've seen them doing in more recent years to
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: control inflation as well. Now you can argue for or
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: against those different programs in those different initiatives, but when
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: you have a government that does those two things in
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: a row, says hey, farmers, take out all this debt,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: and now we're going to make that debt more expensive.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: You had farmers who were suddenly underwater, who had months
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: or years to pay off debt, who suddenly had their
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: loans getting called in, and they didn't have the money
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: to do it through no fault of their own. It
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: was because of the actions of our government inducing that
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: debt and making it suddenly, you know, devastatingly more expensive.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: And so farmers have been caught in the middle of
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: you know, bumbling and or you know, poorly conceived or
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: poorly executed government decisions, on top of the fact that
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: our government has been driving toward fewer farms in this country. Unfortunately.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Absolutely now the mention of the word debt, one thinks
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of enormous amounts of money being channeled somewhere. Who was
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: benefiting during that period from an industry or corporate angle.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Well, it was supposed to be the farmers who were
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: benefiting from getting some easier financing from the government and
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: able to take out the money. And that's not the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: way that it turned out. And as it turned out,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the government didn't benefit either. The government also shut itself
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: in the foot because the farms began struggling so much.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: The agricultural lenders began struggling so much. Private lenders who
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: had nothing to do with the situation suffered because the
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: farmers were suffering, and so the whole economy got a
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: complete downward spiral in rural communities. And the government programs
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: that were involved in these things also began to teeter
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: and topple and needed to be shored up and dealt with,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: and so none of the people who were supposed to
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: benefit benefited, and the government that did this really didn't
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: benefit either. One thing that did happen is that it
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: contributed further toward more and more family farms disappearing, more
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: and more of the farms that did succeed being the
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: larger farms, and so some of the larger companies in
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the agricultural sector. I don't know if they would have
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: wished this. I don't know if they would have said,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: this is how we ought to benefit ourselves. But those
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: folks who are bigger and able to sustain things more
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: would have benefited from the standpoint of there was more
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: industry consolidation at that point. Again, I don't know that
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: they necessarily would have wished that, but it did serve
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: to move the American economy further away from the family
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: farm model and further toward large, integrated industry than is
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: dominated by a few players, impacting our entire food supply.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: It's not the only thing to contribute toward that, but
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: it's a moment in history.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: That did absolutely I think that could be rolled across
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: almost any industry over that time periods between then and now. Now,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that was the unknowing side of the government decision making process,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: which hasn't turned out well. How about knowing things that
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: they knew were going to cause problems.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, in the depression,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: when a lot of government programs were first instituted, there
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: was a knowledge that they were doing certain things that
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: you try to bring commodity prices up, price supports that could
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: help farms of all sizes, et cetera. But there was
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: also a knowledge that they needed to have American farms
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: producing a certain amount in a certain way, and there
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: were governing boards that were set up that would make
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: decisions about how assistance was going to happen, and those
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: boards almost always shifted toward helping certain types of farms,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: certain sizes of farms, as you get on through the
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: continuation of subsidies in our country, where government money is
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: used to encourage one type of crop over another, we
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: have had very deliberate decisions to prop up certain types
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: of crops. Sugar is a good example, and that is
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: something that is now pervasive throughout the American diet and
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: is also a big part of the American economy through
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: government field money. And that's done at the same time
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: that you know, one state over from where I grew up.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I grew up in southern Wisconsin. One stayed over in Michigan.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: They're very big on growing asparagus and blueberries and crops
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: like that. Food crops like that not only don't have
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: the same level of powerful subsidies of like the sugar industry,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: but in many cases they don't have baseline crop insurance.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: In general, that crop insurance that's supposed to be there.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: The government helps back the financial instrument for it to
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: be there because of things like uncontrollable weather, right, things
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: that are uncontrollable factors, weather disasters, stuff like that, things
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: that maybe a lot of people might have an easier
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: time agreeing we should have a baseline of that. Many
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: of these food crops don't have anything like that. So
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: the decisions made about where subsidies ought to go and
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: where they ought not go have had a very severe.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Impact absolutely, And on that you know, you're talking about
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the decision making processes by government which in effect have
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: delivered opportunities or advantages to larger farms corporations. How now
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: are they exerting the perhaps you know, sort of untoward
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: influence that they have specifically with regard to government policy.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: It's a great question. We wrestle with this in the book.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And what I talk about is it is really the system,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: more so than any one particular actor. And what I
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: mean by that is the American economy. It's not just
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: in one certain sector. And I think you reference this
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: as well. All across the American economy. We have industries
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: that are largely dominated by a few large players. That's
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: something that's happening all over and so at the end
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: of the day, the food companies that have grown large
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: needed to do that to keep up with the retailers
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: and so many of the other folks all across the
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: American economy that have gotten really big. The agribusiness companies
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: needed to keep up with the food companies. The farms
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: needed to keep up with the agribusiness company. So this
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: is an endless thing that is all across the American system,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: and it is systemic, which I think is really important
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: to recognize because it makes it so much more pervasive,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: so much more problematic, so much more difficult. It also
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: explains why there are some good folks in agriculture who
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: have decided they need to get bigger to survive. They've
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: responded to those market incentives. Now there are other folks
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: who might be taking advantage of the situation. There are
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: One of the biggest challenges and problems that we have
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: in American agriculture is that not only has this happened
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: naturally and unnaturally, and not only are people and companies
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: trying to keep up with other companies, but it really
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: sets up a situation where farms that are not of
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: a certain size just economically can't make it anymore. It
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: has ground down their living where if you aren't of
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: a certain size, you can't make a living, no matter
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: how efficient you are, no matter how effective you are,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: no matter how competitive you are in every other single way,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: if you don't have that economic scale, you don't have
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the ability to be able to negotiate the kinds of
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: prices you need to be able to negotiate the situations,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: you need to be able to spread out costs enough
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: across enough of your operation. Now, one of the most
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: dangerous and insidious parts of this is the way that
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: the Chinese government and other foreign adversaries have be going
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: to take advantage of this. So they have done heavy
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: investment in American Aggrica clture and this is companies, but
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: it is also farmland. And the amount of American farmland
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: that has become subject to foreign ownership skyrocketed by fifteen
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: percent in just two years. Now. It's still a relatively
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: small slice of American farmland, but it is growing so
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: rapidly that it's become a very major bipartisan concern. And
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: so there are foreign adversaries that have been exerting their
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: influence over American and culture and wide raty of ways,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: one of which is even getting their hands on the
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: very land where we grow our food.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's a point well worth making. And
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I think also domestically, there are a number of bigger
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: players entering the industry. For want of a better word,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: people like Bill gates. You've made a very big thing
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: about agriculture and similarly have brought up huge tracts of land.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Now you've grown up in farming, you've researched all this
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: for a book. You know about this. To what extent
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: does the general public have any idea?
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: It's a great question, and I think that in general,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: the public isn't aware of it because they're in their lives,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: they have their own difficult economic situations, and our country
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: hasn't focused on it enough for people to realize what's
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: going on. I think people have a general sense that
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: there aren't as many farms as there used to be,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: but they don't understand the degree to which it's happened
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: because we don't talk about it, and they don't understand
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the impact and the degree to which it's happened. We've
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: talked about to a degree forty five thousand farms per
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: year for the past century on average. That's a devastating
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: number three per day in my home state of Wisconsin.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: At certain points. The impact is something that the American
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: public is beginning to feel, but because we all haven't
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: been honest about this, they aren't necessarily aware of why
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: it is and What I mean by that is food
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: price is through the roof times of disaster where certain
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: types of foods are not available in addition to being expensive,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: they may not be available altogether. Impacts on our national security,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: impacts on our environment, impacts on our rural urban divide,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: impacts on our mental health. All these things are happening
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: and the American public is experiencing them, But whether or
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: not they connect them to the disappearance of the American
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: farmer is very doubtful because our country has not faced
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: what we've done to our farmers.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Indeed, and I think one you meant an oblique reference
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to it a minute ago, the scale of the problem
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: is not understood. And I think also even though food
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: security is a massive concern, people are in effect sold
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the narrative that the solution to all this is technology.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: But I think your opinion of that is not quite
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: that that's the case.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, solution is partially about technology, but technology
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: has also been part of the problem, and we need
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: to get technology right in this country. To take just
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: as an example, as we dive into the technology issue,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: to take the issue of food prices. The reason that
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: food prices are so high in America are manyfold inflation
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: that everyone is debating how to fix. This is one
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: of them. But another is that we have a supply
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: chain that is so integrated that there are very few
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: paths for the food to get from the farm gate
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to the day table. Are not enough of them. So
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: in that supply chain is disrupted by COVID or by
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: bird flu or by a war, or by a weather event,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: we have one large distribution center that goes down, it
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: can suddenly impact the price of food because of the
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: availability suddenly plummets. And the other reason that food prices
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: have gone so high is because of innovation is struggling
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: in America. America has been a leader in global innovation
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: and we have the ability to be that again, but
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: right now we are not, and so over the long term,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: food prices are going to continue up because innovation has lay.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Now that gets to the question of in what ways
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: can technology help on hurt. Technology made it possible for
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: American farms and farms in other parts of the globe
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: to take on more acreage and more animals with fewer
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: people breaking their backs to do it. That to a
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: point was a good thing. That was a good advancement
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: what happened in the second half of the twentieth century
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: is America lost sight of something called scale neutral technology.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Scale neutral means it could work for large, medium, and
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: small sized farms just as well, and we lost sight
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: of that. Most of the technology we had ended up
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: being the sort that tilted the scales against the small farms,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: and the small farms were left behind. So technological innovation
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: can be part of the solution. But if that technological
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: innovation continues to leave behind our small farms, we are
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: going to continue to have farms disappear, We're going to
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: continue to have problems with our supply chain, We're going
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: to continue to have problems with innovation. You can't beat
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: down an industry that hard and expect those who emerge,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: even if they are big and strong, to be able
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: to do what we need for our economy.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Now, in talking about that something being scale neutral and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: saying that it was that that idea was lost sight
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: of in terms of technological advancement, I don't want to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: necessarily suggest that you've sort of missed something, as it were,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: but was there not at least a small minority of
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: voices who at the time saw where this may go.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And in effect sort of stood against it, or was
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: there really a sort of blanket acceptance of these sorts
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: of changes.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: This is what's so fascinating about this period of history,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the time in which it happened, there were so many
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: distractions that I think it was largely missed. Not to
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: say that there weren't anybody who noticed it, but here's
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: what was going on. Farm wages were far below factory
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: wages at this time in our country, and we needed
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: some of that technology to help make it so that
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: farms didn't have to have as much labor because they
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: couldn't get the labor, and so we needed things to
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: kind of even out. Eventually, farm wages caught up to
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: factory wages to a degree, to the point that we
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have to have technology continue to help farms get
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: bigger and bigger. We could also have technology that helped
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: farms of all sizes innovate. We missed that moment, And
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: part of the reason we missed that moment is because
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: amazingly this happened at the same time as that nineteen
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: eighties farm crisis we talked about. So if you were
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: to have voices who could have said, hey, you know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: this technology is going to leave behind our farms, that's
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: going to make farms disappear. If someone would have been
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: saying that at that time, it was really screaming into
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the void, because we have tens of thousands of farms
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: being wiped out because of geopolitical and governmental decisions and
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: an economic depression in rural communities, and so this issue
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: of technology was kind of that sleeper force. It was
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: kind of that underground, beneath the surface, sinister force that
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: nobody realized what was going on. We had technology that
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: had been helping farmers get bigger, and that was needed
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: to a degree in those days, and then by the
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: time we could have done something about and changed it
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: in the seventies and eighties, we had all these other
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: reasons for economic devastation to be hitting farms, and so
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: it was largely missed. There were farmers who were the
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: sort of people who would resist technological innovation, wanted to
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: continue with the old ways, who said this technology isn't good,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: it's not going to work, that kind of thing. But
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: they were largely the sorts of folks who were resisting
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: innovation in general. They were resisting advancement in general. It's
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: not that they had a special insight into the type
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: of technology. It was more that they didn't want to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: really engage in technolological advancement. Reality is that had we
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: spott at this, and had we not been distracted by
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the farm crisis and all the economic devastation, we could
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: have said, there's a way for farms of all sizes
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: to advance and to maintain some of the old ways
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: and to maintain that small family feel to their farm
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: while also being able to technologically innovate. We didn't have
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: to have a false choice between moving forward or being
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: left behind. And the reality is that we did because
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: we were in such a cataclysmic time for American agriculture,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: so a few people realized it.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: And with that in mind, effectively the full binary presented.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Do you see any of the existing technologies or communications
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: platforms at the moment as providing a means by which
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the smaller farm may make a resurgence of some sort.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: What's such an interesting thing to look at because we
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: are at a crucial critical pivot time in American evolution
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: on this issue. And what I mean by that is
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the level of technological innovation that it's possible right now
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: is for than ever before, but our risk of letting
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: it leave more farms behind is even greater. So a
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: good example is artificial intelligence AI is the kind of
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: technology that could lead toward really helping only certain types
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: of farms, larger farms. You can imagine a world where
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: we have multiple large farming implements all being driven by
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: one worker in front of a bank of screens, kind
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of like NASA style. You know, that is a world
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: that AI makes possible. There are also technologies that involve
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: AI utilizing small modular vehicles, where they are small vehicles
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: that can self drive across fields and they could spray
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: those fields, whether it's with chemicals or whether it is
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: with natural products, whatever the farm wants to do. They
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: could be going across these fields helping to you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: improve the yield of those fields or treat issues with
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: those fields. We could have those small modular vehicles that
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: could be practical and affordable for farms of all sizes.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: The question is what way is America going to go?
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Is our private industry that drives most of our research
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: and development. Are our companies going to see that there
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: is value in them being able to partner with farms
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: of all sizes. In the event of a disaster, you
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: don't want to have only certain types of farms that
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: you're partnering with, because if our supply and chain were disrupted,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: there's value in having partners of all sizes and all types.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: We need to have our private industry recognize that. We
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: also need to have our government able to have a
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: type of research and development funding that is properly accountable
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: and that can keep pace because right now American innovation
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: in that regard is falling behind. So all across the
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: private sector and the public sector, we need to have
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: a recognition that scale neutral technology is part of this answer.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: And if we don't, AI is going to take an
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: issue that occurred in the twentieth century and is going
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: to make it a far more difficult and pervasive issue
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: in the twenty first century.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: That fool. Having considered what you've just said in relation
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: to your family farm, how does that bear significance to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the current situation or indeed the sort of view of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the future there.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we're a great example of how technology impacted things.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: In the nineteen eighties, when my parents were surviving the
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: farm crisis, they had a time period where our milk
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: herd at that time became sick with an infection called
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: mass sitis, and it was nearly the whole herd. They
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: got through it, They survived, their herd didn't get wiped out,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: and they managed to make it. One of the reasons
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: they're able to do that is because they installed the
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: pipeline in the barn that took the milk directly from
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: the cow's utters to the cooling tank, as opposed to
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: being transported by hand. That was much more sanitary. It
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: was a type of technology that at that time was
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: on a scale it was affordable for farms of all sizes,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: and so they were able to do that. What we
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: saw over the decades is that there were fewer and
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: fewer examples of technology like that. In order to be
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: able to technologically into it, you would have to get
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: far bigger, and so our dairy herd was fifty cows,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: and that at one time was about medium. It was
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: in the slight, little lower side. The midpoint for dairy
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: herd and size in the nineteen eighties was around eighty cows,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: so fifty was in that ballpark. Now the midpoint is
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: twelve hundred cows, and we have found that there is
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: very little technology that can allow farms of our size
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to be able to continue to milk. Now recently we
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: are still farming, but recently, in the spring of twenty
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: twenty one, our family made a choice which was to
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: recognize that and other economic realities and say, we either
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: have to take our fifty cow dairy herd and get
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: much bigger, or we need to pursue a different path
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: and try to see if we can diversify our farming operation.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: We opted for the second, So my dad made the
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: decision to sell our herd of cows and to shift
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: toward diversified farming, doing different types of farming in the future.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: We're lucky enough that we didn't have debt and that
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: we did it at a time where it was early
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: enough where we could try to make those transitions where
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: we didn't have to sell our land along with our
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: dairy herd. So many farms get to a point where,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: because of debt or other dire economic circumstances, when they
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: sell their herd, they have to sell their land. So
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: we're very grateful that we have our land. We're very
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: grateful that my dad still working at that my sisters
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: we're going to take it over and that I can
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: be part of it, and that our kids can be
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: part of it. But it is a very dire situation
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: from the standpoint of farms trying to make that transition
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: and try to avoid the devastation that could come instead.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Absolutely and tell us how have you diversified, what have
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: you gone into and how's that turning out?
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so far it's working well. The margins
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: are still tight for any farm, and particularly a farm
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: of our size, but so far, what we're doing is
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: we're cash cropping, so we're growing the crops that we
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: would have back in the day, when we're also growing
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: other types of crap, more types of wheat, more soybeans
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: that can be used for all kinds of different things,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: and just continuing to look at what crop mix is
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: going to make sense for us. We're also raising beef
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: for consumers, and then we're also raising cows for other
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: dairy herds. We raise heifers that become dairy cows on
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: other farms, and so we're doing those three main lines
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: of business and what it allows us to do is
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: figure out when to buy and sell certain types of
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: crops and products and have a little bit more diversification,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: ability to hedge our bets, and more than one revenue
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: stream to depend upon. The flip side of it is,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: we don't have that dependable monthly milk check and so
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: it's been a challenge, but so far it is something
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: that's working out excellent.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: And just tell me more simpally. You talking about the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: beef for consumers, do you mean dealing directly with your
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: client base.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in some cases we do that. We also sell
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: beef cattle into and out of local sale barns. So
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: we'll purchase animals and will help them grow up to
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: a certain weight, and then we'll sell them back into
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: the sale barn and we'll sell them to other producers.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: So we're part of that beef economy in a wide
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: variety of ways. But to some degree we also sell
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: directly to consumer, and we're working on more ways to
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: do that as well. We're trying to have as many
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: ways that we can get our products from our farm
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: gate to dinner tables or other places in ways that
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: they'd be used as possible. So in some ways we're
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: a supplier to other farms, and in some ways we're
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: a producer direct to consumer as well.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: For decades, there's been a great interest in America well
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: in the provenance of food and all the sort of
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: natural elements of it. So is this a model that
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: you see being replicated elsewhere and that you see sort of,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: you know, reaping dividends as the years go on.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: There are many farms that are trying to figure out
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: what their path is, that are diversifying, or that are
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: pursuing alternative specialty products, or that are trying to work
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: directly with consumers. There are many farms that find that
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: it doesn't work. The margins are still very, very tight,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: and the reality is that most of these farms don't
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: make the full time income for their families. My family
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: isn't an exception to this. My sister works more than
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: one job and that has become the norm. The farms
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: in our country either're quite large or the smaller farms
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: that remain are generally supplemental income. And you have people
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: who are working construction sites or pulling factory shifts, or
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: pouring concrete or bringing other small businesses working two or
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: three jobs alongside of operating that farm because they love it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: And what we need to do in this country is
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: figure out a way for those farms to be growing
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: entrepreneurial ventures again, and that is the dilemma that we face.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And then you know, on that we talked about
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: government regulation, We've talked about huge corporate interests and the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: fact that the scale of operations has changed quite so radically.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: It is the small farmer in effect penalized by regulation
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: that does that better suit the bigger producers, and therefore,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: what can you do about it?
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, government regulation increases the cost of being able
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: to make a living and increases costs, It increases compliance,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: It makes it more difficult and more expensive. And the
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: reality is that whether those regulations are designed to regulate
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: larger entities or not, they affect the smaller entities. And
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: the smaller entities are the ones that don't have the
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: resources to deal with them. And so it has absolutely
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: added costs and problems and challenges on top of tax
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: burn and other issues. And so when you have farms
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: that each year are finding that no matter how good
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: they are, no matter how competitive they are, no matter
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: how they work, the system is unfair to them and
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: it is each year getting harder and harder to make
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: a living. When you add on to that, the government
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: making it more expensive, it's even more problematic.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: And on that and by way of an example, there
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: seemed to be much to do about Thomas Massey's Prime Bill,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: which was to reduce federal interference in the slaughter and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: movement of meat. Has that or you know other sort
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: of in effect areas of pushback that have made any
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: substantial difference to smaller farms.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: And I think America is wrestling very much with how
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: to do this. We need more of the American public
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: becoming aware of these issues to be able to put
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: more pressure on their elected officials to deal that. We
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: need both parties to engage in this issue, and we
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: really need a fundamental transformation by both parties. We need
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: both parties to recognize and understand and the ways in
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: which we have driven farms out of business in this
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: country and the ways that that's impacting food. And so
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: there are folks who are aware of the issue and
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: are working on it, but not nearly enough people. And
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: to a large degree, our farm regime, as it were
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: for government programs is something that everybody has something they
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: don't like. The right and the left have things that
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: they criticize about our subsidies and other government programs. People
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: outside of farming certainly critique that, and people within farming,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: and so everybody has something they don't like. The problem
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: is that in America we aren't rolling up our sleeves
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: to do the kinds of deep reform needed. We're really
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: just sort of tinkering around the edges of those programs,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: if we're dealing with them at all. And so these
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: government programs are getting piled one on top another. One
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: economist that I spoke with described it like a fragile
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Jinga tower, which is to say, you could argue in
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: favor or against any one particular government policy or program.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: What we have right now is they have been all
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: stacked on top of one another in a very fragile way,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: not sure what to do with any one particular block,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and if we were to move it in the wrong way,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: the whole power could come.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Down in terrifying prospect. I think I'm right. The current
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Farm Bill is under review for the next five years.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Is that something that is well, I mean, obviously it's
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: of interest to you, but how exactly will that retain
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: to your family's predicament.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: The Farm Bill is a crucial piece of legislation, and
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: the problem that we have is that because of partisan gridlock,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Congress has not been able to take up the bill
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: in a meaningful way. It actually did expire, and so
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: what happens is one thing is that because the Farm
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Bill affects so much of how the industry is constructed
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: and affects so much about pricing and other things. In
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: order for agricultural lenders to lend money to farmers to
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: be able to plant, many farmers will take out a
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: loan to plant their crops, and then we'll pay off
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: that loan when their crops come in or at a
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: later point. And so in order for or our farmers
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: to be able to receive financing whatever kind of finance
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: they want to do, they need to have a farm
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Bill so that all the lenders can say, Okay, this
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: is the shape of the industry, here's how this is
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: going to work. And since we don't have that, it
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: impacts financing for families. The other thing that it does
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: is it means that we don't have a long term
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: sense of where the industry is going, and we're missing
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: an opportunity for reform. In our case, our farm we
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: generally attempt to avoid debt whenever we can. There are
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: times where we have to take it out and we
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: would be impacted by the fact that lending isn't something
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: that can move forward right now. We at this point
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: are trying to avoid debt as much as we can.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: So the way we're affected in bigger ways is just
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: through the huge imbalances and problems with our government programs
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: that aren't being meaningfully reform. So to have new entrepreneurial ventures,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: to have new types of crops that we could grow
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: and be able to make a profit on, to try
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: to bring our farm into a healthier economic state, or
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: farms like ours, we need to have deep reform to
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: these government programs. And so some farms are affected in
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: the immediate sense in terms of not being able to
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: get the type of financing that they need. Other farms
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: are affected in the longer term sense, in the sense
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: that most of these farms are locked into the type
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: of farming they've been doing for a very long time,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: whether it's working or not, because the way our government
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: programs have kept everyone locked.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's quite afficult to be and sort of on that.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: You're well, the situation is asymmetric in so far as
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: your voice compared with the bigger players will be very quiet.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: But so is there a sense of collaboration among smaller
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: farmers and if so, how does that exert itself.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: There are organizations that organize smaller farms or organizations that
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: represent farms of all sizes. The farming industry is relatively
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: well organized from that standpoint. The problem that we have
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: is that the farmer and the consumer need to be
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: in broader league together, and we need our country to
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: understand the connection between what's happening to our farms and
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: what's happened to our food. If we were to accomplish that,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: where farmers and consumers could be rising up together to
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: be talking about the impact on our food and why
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: we need to create a new entrepreneur opportunity for our farms,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: we could make a bigger change. And right now we
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: have an organized industry that is largely left with trying
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: to protect what it has because we aren't able to
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: make larger change. And there are examples of things that
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: are misunderstandings that keep us from doing this. For instance,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: it's very natural. It's incorrect, but it's very natural for
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of consumers to assume, well, when I'm paying
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: more for my groceries. That must mean that farmers are
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: making more. That's not the case. The farm product goes
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: through so many hands between the farm gate and the
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: dinner table that each of those hands needs to make
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: its profit along the way. That when the price goes
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: up or down in the grocery store, there's really not
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: a fluctuation that the farmer feels. The farmer is facing
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: changes in commodity prices in global markets that affect them.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Usually when the consumer is facing a crunch, the farmer
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: is facing a crunch as well. But there are ways
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: that the disappearing American farmer is affecting food prices. As
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: we mentioned, so the farmer isn't making more money when
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: the consumer pays more. But when we have so many
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: farms disappearing, and we have a highly integrated system that
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: is so easily disrupted by disaster, that does increase the
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: price of food. And when we have an industry that
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: is getting hammered so hard that it can't properly innovate,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: that does affect food prices. And so the farmer isn't
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: doing better when we have food prices. They're usually doing
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: just as bad as the American consumer. But there are
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: ways that the disappearance of our family farms is affecting
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: the price of food, and if we could have farmers
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: and consumers recognizing that together, it would be a much
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: larger ground. So while there it be much more public
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: support for larger scale changes.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Which begs the question what is the media doing about
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: all of this?
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Well, it's very rare for farm country in our nation
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: to get the kind of attention that it ought to get.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: It happens in spurts. So in the nineteen eighties when
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: there were tens of thousands of farms being wiped out,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: there was a fairly legitimate national conversation around what to do.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Since then in the twenty tens, when there were a
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: lot of farms going under in twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: there was a there was a bit of a time
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: where the national media was screaming about this issue. But
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: in general, what America likes to do is remind itself
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: of its beautiful farming history and tell itself stories about
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: our hard working, brave farmers. And we're really, while those
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: things are true, in many ways, we're really lulling ourselves
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: into sleep. We're really allowing ourselves to not believe that
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: we're stamping our farms out in this country, and so
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: there needs to be a much more serious national conversation,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: and unfortunately, the media tends to be focused on other things.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: And I mean, obviously, you've written a book which we've
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: talked about, and you write outside of that. Is this
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: an area that you're writing on specifically and that you
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: able Do you feel you're able to reach a further
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: audience through that? Yeah?
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: You know, I am grateful to say that the book
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: seems to have begun a national conversation. We've had national
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: media outlets covering this issue, and we've been doing well
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: at trying to advance this and get more hearts and
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: minds engaged on the issue. I'm also a columnist for
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: the USA Today Network, where I write regular rural columns
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: about what's happening to our farms and rural economy, but
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: also more generally, what's happening what rural issues? What are
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: those hidden stories of rural America that affect all of America?
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: And I have found that although historically our country has
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: failed to recognize these issues, and although historically the media
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: has been focused on other issues, I have found that
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: there's an intense interest on this issue, and I'm grateful
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: to say that. I think it has to do with
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: the fact that people in America care more than ever
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: where their food comes from, and they've experienced disasters like
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: COVID and other things, and they know that there's something
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: is amiss, and people have a sense that there's something wrong,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: and so we're trying to get voice to what that
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: thing is. And I'm glad to say that we've been
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: able to contribute to a stronger national conversation than there's
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: perhaps been in the asked.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Good Well, I mean that certainly sounds like progress, and
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: I hope wish you luck with furthering that message. But
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: tell me, though, you've looked into the past, certainly in
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: your own family's context, but also the wider context, and
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: you have a very good idea of what's going on. Now,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: what do you see as the big challenge of the future.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: The big challenge of the future is whether or not
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: we're going to be able to change government policy in
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: a way that can enable more entrepreneur opportunity for farms.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: So are we going to be able to spur the
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: kind of research and development revolution that we need with
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: scale neutral technology that can make it possible for more
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: farms to innovate without having to lose their family farm status.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Are we going to have government policies that allow American
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: farmers to sell abroad without being subject to completely unfair
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: and imbalanced trade policies? Are we going to have free
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: but fair trade? Are we going to have our opportunities
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: for the American farmer and American consumer to organize themselves
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: around local and regional markets so that there can be
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: more opportunity. If we can do this, there can be
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: more entrepreneur opportunity for our farmers, and there can be
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: more choices for our consumers. If we can't do all
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: of these things, if we don't make changes across a
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: number of fronts, we're going to continue to see farms disappear,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: We're going to continue to see problems with our food supply,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: and we're going to continue to face all of these problems,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: which again, you know, span the gamut from the ways
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: that they impact our mental health to our environment and beyond.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: We talked about the influence that government decisions have, whether
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: they're knowingly or unknowingly set in motion effectively in the
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: wrong direction. You've given certain examples of being able to
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: act in effect without subsidy and do stuff outside of
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: government interference. To what extent do you think that can
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: be expanded, that people can operate outside of government control
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: or reliance upon government.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Well, we're seeing it more and more with the farmers'
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: markets that's spread up across the country, and there's more interest,
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: as I said, than ever before about where our food
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: comes from. There is an interest in buying local and
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: natural products, and so there is room for more of that.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: But we need to move to a place in this
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: country where we both parties undergo transformation to understand this
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: issue in order for it to happen, because otherwise what
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: we really have is the pendulum swinging back and forth
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: between the two parties, And the reality is that the
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party hasn't necessarily understood the way that regulations keep
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: us from solutions, the realities that the Republican Party for
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: a long time has not necessarily seen the way that
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: the direction and the anti competitive direction that our economy
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: has gone have made it harder for farmers as well.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: So we have deep realizations that we need from both
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: our political parties.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: And going back to the rural urban divide being one
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: of the many facts that's changed over the years, and
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the fact that you are diversifying, certainly as a farm yourselves,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: and that this is happening more widely. Is there a
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: movement towards effectively sort of showcasing the natural environment and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the farmed environment to urban communities and trying to get
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: people out to view what's going on to educate.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's done in a variety of ways.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: As people going more interested in their food, there's a
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: lot more telling the story of where that food comes from.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: That's an opportunity for farms and ranches. The other thing
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: that's going on is agritourism, where people are able to
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: get out into the countryside and see what's going on.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Over the weekend, I took my young seven month old
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: girl to a pumpkin farm, and I, although she's maybe
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: too young to understand all of it, I like to
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: expose her to things, and she was able to see
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: and we were able to be there where so much
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: food and other products are produced, and I think that
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: there is an opportunity for more and more of that.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: And at the same time, so many of the built
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: in ways that we used to do that have gone away.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: As our countries become more divided, there is still strong FFA,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Future Farmers of America and four Age Clubs. These are
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: youth programs where kids learn about agriculture, and there are
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: still a good many of those in rural areas and
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: they're very important to the community. But the rural urban
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: divide in our country, where urban American and rural America
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: are further apart. There are really two economies, the urban
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: economy where there's growth or downturn, and the rural economy
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: where there's really never growth. There are divides between these
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: people in terms of being able to know and understand
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: one another. And so over time, more and more people
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: have become more distant from where their food comes from,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: and have become more distant from the farm economy, and
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: they don't understand it as well. And in many cases,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: in the case of our citizenry, it's innocent. They don't
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: have any idea, they don't have any way. And so
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: there are efforts and there are things that we can do,
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: but so much of the fiber that had tied us
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: together as frayed in this country.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: You spoke about the young and about education. How is
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: this subject dealt with by schools or you know, the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: education system in explaining to children of school age what
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the situation is and how important the support of, as
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: you say, not just American but smaller scale American farmers is.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: You know, there are individual teachers out there who are trying.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I spoke with the teacher the other day who learned
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: of my book who is interested in the topic and
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: wants to expose his kids to them. More So, there's
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: all kinds of people that are fighting this fight. But
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I do think that the royal urban divide in this
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: country has gotten us further and further away from it,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: and I think that some of the divisive debates in
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: our country have made it worse. For example, the debate
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: over our environment in America. The reality is that farmers
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: are the original conservationists and care about the land more
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: than anyone. And so there are people who care about
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: our environment, and there are people who farm who could
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: be in league together, who could be working together on
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: things like oil health. How do we have healthy soil
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: that can create high yields for the farmer and be
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: healthy for the rest of us over the long term?
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Abundance of water? How can we have an abundant supply
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: of clean water that can help facilitate farming, can also
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: make sure that we all have a clean natural resource
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: on in the future. These are things that farmers and
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: people who care about the environment could be working on together. Instead,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: we have very divisive debates around our environment, and some
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: of those debates end up targeting farms and putting farms
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: in a position of having their way of life be
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: even more expensive and even more difficult to keep from
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: being wiped out. And so we need to change our
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: way of communicating around a number of issues, environment being
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: one of them, to be focusing on the areas of
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: agreement that we can collaborate on rather than those things
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: that divide us. So that's another barrier absolutely.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: And in the British context, we've just had statistics released
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: on the effect of environmental schemes here and of our
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: total utilized agricultural area, the uncropped area has risen by
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: by one hundred and seven percent in the last year
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: due to the influence of environmental land management schemes. Effectively,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: farmers have had a carrot dangled in front of them
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: to cease producing food in order to enter into an
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: environmental scheme for which they'll be paid a guaranteed return
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: of these sorts of policies affecting use of land in
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: the state.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Those sorts of policies were utilized in a much heavier
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: way during and after the Great Depression, when there was
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: an effort to limit the supply of food to increase
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: the price of that food, ironically at a time when
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: many Americans were starving, and so it was very controversial,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: but farmers were paid money to leave large tracts of
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: land foul. They're actually paid to plow up fields and
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: to leave them barren. There are in our country. There
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: are some conservation programs that encourage farmers to rotate or
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: have land be able to kind of recuperate and last
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: and rest and be rejuvenated. But it is not on
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: the kind of large scale that you're talking about where
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: large amounts of farmland are being taken out of production
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: by government programs. But it is something that this country
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: has a history of in the past.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: With your amazing insights that you've had in writing the
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: book and being able to see not just the current
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: situation but the past, if you were able to pick
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: up all the pieces of the jigsaw and put them
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: back together, in a slightly different way. How would you
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: do that?
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, if I had the magic wand and could go
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: back in time, I would have ensured that any government
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: programs that we had that needed to be there were
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: there for baseline things like protecting against uncontrollable weather events.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: There needs to be some level of stability for our
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: food supply, of course, but I would have strived to
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: have our government making fewer choices about the types of
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: farms that we ought to have. And I would have
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: also had our not only our government, but also our
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: private industry focused as much as possible on investing in
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: the type of innovation that can be utilized by the
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: broadest base of farmers possible, so that our private sector
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: innovation on farms could have continued to be broadly shared.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: And I also would have made sure that as we
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: were pursuing international trade, that we were making sure that
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: we were doing that in a way that allowed our
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: farmers to compete on an even playing field. And those
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: are just a few of the things. But I think
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: if our government had made different decisions on those issues,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: while we would have still had some degree of farms
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: disappearing through natural market consolidation, we wouldn't have had to
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: have jet fuel port on it by our own political leaders.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I'm sure we can go on brother discussing exactly how
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: things could have been done differently. I mean on the
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: immediate horizon. Do you we talked about farm bill a bit,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: but do you see any significant sort of decision point
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: looming where you feel there could be a real effect
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: if such and such a thing did change.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: The farm Bill is a very big one. We're also
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: surrounded by moments like that right now, in this time
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: where Americans care more than ever where their food comes from.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: If we were in a position where the American public,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: everyone in the American public, began to purchase food in
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: a way that recognized the need for more opportunities for
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: our farmers, we could make a change. And so what
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I mean by that is, right now, most people buy
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: their food from the conventional store and it's bought off
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: the national food market essentially, and going to a farmer's
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: market or something like that is a bit of a lark.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: It's something that's done on the weekends. It's usually done
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: by affluent people. That sort of thing. If we were
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: to have a world where the American consumer were to
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: diversify how they purchase their groceries. This could make a
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: huge difference. They could go to farmers' markets for produce,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: they could stop off at the local butcher shop by
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: the way, they could go to their grocery store. And
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: many grocery stores are happy to carry local options if
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: they know that their customers want that. And so if
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: customers were consumers, we're going to their existing places where
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: they buy their food and asking for fresh local food,
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: and if they were patronizing places that provide it now,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: and we could create more ways for the farmer and
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: the consumer to be connected. This is something that could
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: change everything. If each American consumer did that to a
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: small degree, you can bet that the American system of
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: entrepreneurialism would find a way to meet those needs. And
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: so we're surrounded by those choices every moment, every day,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: and that's part of what I'm hoping is by telling
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: the urgent story of our disappearing farmers, my hope is
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: that more people pay attention to this issue, and perhaps
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: it creates more market opportunities for farmers and more options
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: and choices and better food security for consumers.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and obviously you know very much the central purpose
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: of your book, which on that how are you finding
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: its treatment by effectively broadcasters or media outlets that have
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to be able to talk to you about it,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: and I would hope promote it. How's that going?
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: The big challenge is getting folks to pay attention to
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: what's going on and what's called the fly over country
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: in America. When you're in the middle of the country
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: like this, it is sometimes something that national media hasn't
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: had a natural reason to look at, unfortunately. But when
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: we've gotten the attention, and we've got more attention than
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: I think people expected us to, We've found that media
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: outlets have generally understood the issue and been willing to
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: highlight it. I'm happy to say the Associated Press book
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Review vite a positive review, calling the book an anthem
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: to the family farm in America. And we've found that
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: where we've engaged in the conversation, when we're able to
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: get people's attention on this issue, it leads to really
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: interesting discussions and robust debate. And I'm glad to say
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: that the story I think has been received well and
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: people seeing what's going on in our economy and us
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: with our family story trying to show the impact that
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: has on the ground seems to be having an impact,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: and so I hope that continues.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Well, absolutely so will I so will the audience. What
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I would like to do is just give your choughs.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Just remind us the title of the book and where
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: people I mean bearing in mind the majority of the
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: audience will be in the UK, but obviously all over
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the world. Where can people find your book?
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Landage Cash Poor is available on Amazon and any
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: other online retailer. It's also available in bookstores nationwide across America.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: If people are in America, they can get it at
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: a local bookstore ask them to order it for you.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Probably the easiest way is Amazon overseas. And so we
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: have found that wherever we go, people who care about
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: these issues are able to help advance it. So I
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: hope that if anybody does me the honor of picking
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: up the book, they find it of interest. And I
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: hope that we can just continue to raise awareness of
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: these issues and keep the conversation moving forward to be
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: able to do something about it.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And then you've spoken quite a bit about the
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: family farm. Is it a place that people can visit
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: and effectively sort of look at online or get in
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: touch and can we have details about that.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. There's more about not only
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: myself in the book, but also on our farm. I'm
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: at my website Briandashriisinger dot com. That's Brian b R
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I A N DASH Risinger R EI SI n G
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: e R dot com.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Excellent, Well we'll push in that direction too, and other
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: writings that you've done, and and sort of social media presence,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: how about that? Yeah?
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I am available on x at Brianjreisinger dot com.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: So at Brian b N Jays and James Risinger R
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: I S I N G E R. And also I
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: have a wide write of columns out there. I write
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: for the USA Today Network via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: in my homestate oft Wisconsin, and we tell a wide
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: variety of stories there about farms and other types of
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: people and issues in rural areas that, again I think
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: affect not only those rural areas, but affect many of
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: the rest of us as well.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: And bear in mind what's on the horizon in November.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: How many of the presidential candidates have a copy of
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: your book so far?
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: That's a great question. I hope that it gets to
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent because i'd like to have both parties
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: and the leaders of both parties aware. I'm not sure,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: but I do know that a good many of my
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: readers have been spreading it to public officials on both
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: sides of the aisle, and my hope is that we
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: can get more and more focus on it as we
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: go along.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I'm quite right now, Brian. You've given us
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: a fantastic ride through your thoughts, your life experiences, what's
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: contained within your book, and I think the audience would
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: have been very gripped by all that you've had to
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: said and all you've had to say and of course
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: given people lots of food for thought. So just before
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I let you go, I just remind the audience that
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: notes that relate to what Brian said and links to
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: his book and his social media presence and all the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: rest of it will be at UK column dot org.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: If you are not already doing so, or in a
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: position to support us financially, then please consider a membership
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: with UK Column. And it just remains for me to
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: thank Brian very much indeed for joining me on a
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: UK Column interview, and please do keep in touch, but Brian,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: thank you very much.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Indeed, thank you, Charles. I appreciate it, and thank you
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: for everything you're doing to raise the important issues that
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: you do