Speaker 1: Coming up on eight oh five and fifty five care
Speaker 1: CD talk station. I'm very happy Friday Eve to you.
Speaker 1: Been looking forward to this conversation all morning. My next
Speaker 1: guest Brian Reisinger. He grew up on a family farm
Speaker 1: in Sault County, Wisconsin and loves to talk about the
Speaker 1: hidden stories of rural America. Like most children of farmers,
Speaker 1: he worked with his father from the time he could
Speaker 1: walk before he ultimately entered the world of business and
Speaker 1: business journalism and public policy. He has been published in
Speaker 1: like every single publication you can think of, USA Today, Newsweek,
Speaker 1: Yahoo News, Wisconsin Public Radios, Wisconsin Life. I could go
Speaker 1: on Real Clear Politics and go to that site all
Speaker 1: the time. He also is an award winner National Society
Speaker 1: and Newspaper Calumnists, first Place in Seven Hills Literary Contrast Contest,
Speaker 1: and the Soul Sword And I could go on, But
Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about his very first book,
Speaker 1: Land Rich, Cash Poor, My Family's Hope and the untold
Speaker 1: history of the Disappearing American Farmer. Brian, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Morning Show. It's a real pleasure to have you on today. Hey,
Speaker 1: good morning, It's good. I feel like I have some
Speaker 1: at least connection with you. I am. I outkicked my
Speaker 1: coverage when I married my wife. She grew up on
Speaker 1: a rural dairy farm out in Pennsylvania, a little town
Speaker 1: no one's ever heard of called Avella. Her dad literally
Speaker 1: worked his entire life every single day. If you don't
Speaker 1: milk the cows twice a day, you don't get paid.
Speaker 1: So it was a small farm, a house he built himself.
Speaker 1: They all grew up, they all worked the farm, never
Speaker 1: had really much money at all, but it was just
Speaker 1: it's just it's an amazing life when you hear the
Speaker 1: stories and the hardships that go along with it. It's
Speaker 1: not an easy life at all. Something I know that
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that you know about, and so quite
Speaker 1: often you know multiple generations. You know, kids want to
Speaker 1: move away, they want to go to the city. They
Speaker 1: don't want to follow in their father's or mother's footsteps.
Speaker 1: And I suppose that's part of this disappearing American farmer concept.
Speaker 1: But it's beyond that, isn't it, Because it's expensive to
Speaker 1: be a small farmer these days.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. I'm so glad we share that history.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like your wife's probably a hard working
Speaker 2: person with all values and had a great child that
Speaker 2: you know, you're absolutely right in terms of the way
Speaker 2: you describe the way of life. And here's the issue.
Speaker 2: It goes so deep. It does have to do with
Speaker 2: what's our next generation doing, but it has to do
Speaker 2: with economic factors, governmental factors, technological factors, all kinds of
Speaker 2: ways that we've been leaving our family farmers behind.
Speaker 1: That's what we do in the book.
Speaker 2: We dive into the hidden airs of history that are
Speaker 2: driving that disappearance. Why is it happening and what's the consequence.
Speaker 1: To all of us?
Speaker 2: And then when we leave that with my family's story,
Speaker 2: and those are stories that are probably like the ones
Speaker 2: you heard from your wife's family stories. Is survival of
Speaker 2: you know, weather farm acts and economical people from the
Speaker 2: depression to today. And you know, it's definitely a unique thing.
Speaker 2: It's a life filled with with both beauty and hardship
Speaker 2: that goes hand in hand.
Speaker 1: Well. Growing up, you know, I not fully appreciating the
Speaker 1: concept of the small, the family farm by contrast to
Speaker 1: the corporate farm. And of course, if you're a corporate farm,
Speaker 1: you can afford to buy the what I don't know
Speaker 1: how much one of those massive tractors costs there are
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I just I can't
Speaker 1: imagine a situation where my now late father in law,
Speaker 1: he lived in ninety three, I think years old, the
Speaker 1: idea that he could ever afford something that costs so
Speaker 1: much in order to just sort of just try to
Speaker 1: keep up in terms of competing. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: it represents such a colossal challenge for small farmers to
Speaker 1: compete with, you know, somebody who's got tens of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars because they're backed up by major corporations.
Speaker 2: You know, it does.
Speaker 1: And here's what's going on.
Speaker 2: We've got that kind of force going on all across
Speaker 2: our economy. So the food companies are working to keep
Speaker 2: up with the rest of the American economy by getting
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger. The agribusiness companies work and keep a
Speaker 2: food company, and the farmers are not trying to keep
Speaker 2: up with the AGGA business food company sverone's trying to
Speaker 2: keep up with the Joneses. So you got farmers, whether
Speaker 2: they're big, small, or medium, they are all trying to
Speaker 2: keep up with the Jones And everybody has that pressure
Speaker 2: to get bigger or get out. Our bigger farmers got
Speaker 2: that way trying to survive a lot of our medium
Speaker 2: and smaller farms. You ended up not making it because
Speaker 2: that we do still have a lot of family farms
Speaker 2: left in this country. But it's truly against the odds.
Speaker 2: It's people like your father and mom work continue to work,
Speaker 2: trying to figure a way to be competitive, to be efficient,
Speaker 2: to be resourceful, even though the economic crises and government policies,
Speaker 2: you know, hit them in unique ways that people don't understand.
Speaker 2: And even though so much of our technology, to your point,
Speaker 2: has been leaving family farms behind. It doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be this way, but it certainly is this way. With
Speaker 2: the deck stacked against our family farmer who's whatever their
Speaker 2: type of size, fighting to keep.
Speaker 1: Going well, and it almost seems like they're intentionally trying
Speaker 1: to put the small farm out of business. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever seen it, and I know
Speaker 1: it's Britain or the United Kingdom and Clarkson's farm, you know,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Clarkson has this farm and every show really illustrates
Speaker 1: the insanity of the micro management of government authorities over
Speaker 1: the types of crops that are grown where they can
Speaker 1: be grown. You know, the amount of moisture contact a
Speaker 1: content in a rape seed, And it's almost as if
Speaker 1: they want to drive them ount of business with rules
Speaker 1: and regulations. Then you keep on the whole idea of
Speaker 1: this climate change religion, cow flatulence. We need to regulate that,
Speaker 1: we need to regulate how much space your chickens have
Speaker 1: or your pork has. I mean, it just adds so
Speaker 1: much additional cost burden and I guess paperwork on the
Speaker 1: small farmer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you're so right. Every single day, government requirements, regulations, taxes,
Speaker 2: different things are really waging war on the American family farmer,
Speaker 2: and you know, the people who care about our environment.
Speaker 2: The irony is that there's nobody who cares as much
Speaker 2: about our soil health and abundant water, clean water as
Speaker 2: our farmers. So there's a lot of room for people
Speaker 2: who care about environment and farmers to work together. But
Speaker 2: the problem is our political debates divide everybody, and we've
Speaker 2: got government that's really stamping out family farmers. I give
Speaker 2: you one brief, perfect example. This happens. This stuff happens
Speaker 2: every single day. But there's really really serious times in
Speaker 2: our history or escalated in the farm crisis. The government
Speaker 2: was pushing more debt on farms to make them get bigger,
Speaker 2: and then within a few years they raised interest rates
Speaker 2: because they were trying to deal with inflation. You can
Speaker 2: argue four or against the government trying to encourage farmers
Speaker 2: to expand, you can argue four or against changing interest rates.
Speaker 2: But when you push debt on them with the government,
Speaker 2: and then you use that same government to make that
Speaker 2: debt more expensive, you wipe out tens of thousands of farms.
Speaker 2: My parents, we tell the story in the book. They
Speaker 2: just barely survived that they had been dealing with a
Speaker 2: drought and almost had to take out a bunch of
Speaker 2: debt right before the farm crisis hit. They didn't have
Speaker 2: to do that because they've banded together with neighbors to
Speaker 2: get through that drought year, and they avoided taken on
Speaker 2: debt which would have wiped them out in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: just like happened at tens of thousands of farms, all
Speaker 2: at the hand of our government.
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad you brought that up, that banded together,
Speaker 1: because I've also gotten stories from my wife, you know, anecdotes,
Speaker 1: and it's like I shouldn't. I should give credit to
Speaker 1: my dad's side of the family too, because they were
Speaker 1: all what I call dirt farmers in Tennessee. So I
Speaker 1: got farm stock on both sides. But the idea of community,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the more positive things, and
Speaker 1: one of the reality is of you know, when you
Speaker 1: ask yourself, when you hear about you and I talking
Speaker 1: about all this crisis and the problems and the difficulties
Speaker 1: of being a farmer. There are so many rewards to
Speaker 1: being a small farmer. And part of it is that
Speaker 1: sense of community. Because the entire region where my wife
Speaker 1: grew up, they're all farmers. They're all engaged in the
Speaker 1: dairy business or you know, or or at least some
Speaker 1: aspect of farming. And when the hard times hit, when people,
Speaker 1: you know, struggle with difficulties, they all step up to
Speaker 1: the plate and help each other out. It's a beautiful
Speaker 1: thing to behold.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right. By the way, I'm glad that they
Speaker 2: put a microphone in front of somebody who's got farming
Speaker 2: on both sides of your family. That's outstanding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you see, I do. You're following the footsteps.
Speaker 1: I practiced law for sixteen years, and I've been on
Speaker 1: the radio now for this is my nineteenth year. I
Speaker 1: think I was frightened away by the hardships that I
Speaker 1: saw when I was exposed to it.
Speaker 2: Brian, Well, I'll tell you we struggle with those same
Speaker 2: things in our family. My sister's work and take over
Speaker 2: the farm for my dad. I worked with my dad
Speaker 2: from the time like a walk. I love my roots,
Speaker 2: but I didn't have their talent for cattle and crops.
Speaker 2: So although I still worked them on the business side
Speaker 2: and they throw me a track from my dad, but
Speaker 2: sue my writing career. I'm just honored to be able
Speaker 2: to tell the stories. So you and I have come
Speaker 2: to some of the same things. But you know your
Speaker 2: point on neighbors banning together. You're absolutely right. That neighbor
Speaker 2: that I mentioned that helped my parents get through the
Speaker 2: farm crisis in nineteen y is what happened is he
Speaker 2: was an elderly man didn't need all the crops in
Speaker 2: his field. My dad was a young man starting out
Speaker 2: and had field that were barely putting up the crops
Speaker 2: he need to feed his animals, so they went what
Speaker 2: they call halves. And you might know this from your
Speaker 2: own family background, when you go have one guy does
Speaker 2: the work and then they split the crop right. Well,
Speaker 2: the old man the name was Leo, and he refused
Speaker 2: to take his fair share. He gave my dad more
Speaker 2: of the crop than he ought to have, and my
Speaker 2: dad kept on going down there trying to pay him money.
Speaker 2: And he walked into the guy's cigarette you know, filled
Speaker 2: living room, trying to hand him money. There after dame
Speaker 2: finding the guy said you just got married. You don't
Speaker 2: know me nothing to take it and go, And we
Speaker 2: get emotional just thinking about what he's been gone for
Speaker 2: a number of years now. But if he hadn't done that,
Speaker 2: my parents would have taken out a load of debt
Speaker 2: potentially just before the farm crisis hit. And it was
Speaker 2: that working together and that sense of local community that
Speaker 2: really got people through. And by the way, you know,
Speaker 2: my dad was able to help this guy, but he
Speaker 2: put in extra hours working around the clock to get
Speaker 2: the crops off this guy's feel. So it's people helping people,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the other sense I always get is in
Speaker 1: another story back in from my wife. Back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: we went through stagflation and the economy went down the
Speaker 1: toilet and I'm sure it happened in multiple different times
Speaker 1: over the life of that particular farm and my father
Speaker 1: in law. But because they were realistic and not materialistic,
Speaker 1: they pretty much were self sufficient. They didn't you know,
Speaker 1: want more. They didn't think that, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 1: I wish I had a better this, or that they
Speaker 1: had everything they needed. And so when hard times hit
Speaker 1: the general population and people then had to do without something,
Speaker 1: they became used to like, oh, we're going to have
Speaker 1: to cut back on this, or we need to drop
Speaker 1: the country club membership because of the you know, the
Speaker 1: economic day, their life remained static. They continued to live
Speaker 1: at the same level, which was enough to feed them
Speaker 1: and satisfy them and pay the bills, and they it
Speaker 1: was sort of if they didn't have a newspaper, they
Speaker 1: didn't even realize the rest of the world was going
Speaker 1: through this turmoil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely right. You know, It's one of the
Speaker 2: things that I encountered so much when I was working
Speaker 2: on the book, because I knew these family stories, I
Speaker 2: knew bits and pieces of them, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: reconstruct and be able to tell the survival stories. But
Speaker 2: then I started researching what was going on around us
Speaker 2: at that time. What was happening to my great grandparents
Speaker 2: in the early nineteen nine So what was happening to
Speaker 2: my grandparents and the depression? What were the bigger forces
Speaker 2: at play? And it's so true that you know, when
Speaker 2: you're on the ground and the farm, you don't necessarily
Speaker 2: have a way to see the bigger forces affecting you.
Speaker 2: And then vice versa. Right the rest of the country
Speaker 2: that's living out some of those forces doesn't necessarily get
Speaker 2: a chance to see what's on the farm. And that's
Speaker 2: really the challenge, that's the core reason that our farms
Speaker 2: are disappearance because that disconnects And here's the thing. It
Speaker 2: impacts not only our rural communities like where I'm from
Speaker 2: and like where your family has roots that are getting
Speaker 2: hollowed out, but it impacts every single American dinner table,
Speaker 2: because when we're losing our farms, we're impacting the price,
Speaker 2: the health, the security of the foot would supply for
Speaker 2: every single American.
Speaker 1: Brian Rising here, the author of the book we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, land Rich, Cash Poor of my Family's hope
Speaker 1: and the untold history of the disappearing American farmer. Brian,
Speaker 1: if you could fix something, And I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: for an initial question of the answer, can the small farm,
Speaker 1: can the the the American small farmer be saved? Can
Speaker 1: they continue assuming they desire to continue farming as opposed
Speaker 1: to corporate sized farms? Can they survive? And if there's
Speaker 1: something if the answer may be leaning toward no because
Speaker 1: of all the things that we sort of scratch the
Speaker 1: surface of that you dive in your dep two in
Speaker 1: your book, what would you change that might lead to
Speaker 1: a better life for them or a more successful, lasting
Speaker 1: farm life.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know there is reason for hope. We've lost
Speaker 2: seventy percent of our farms in the past century, which
Speaker 2: is devastating, but we still got nearly two million left.
Speaker 2: And here's the incredible thing. Ninety six percent of them
Speaker 2: are family farms. And it's because people have farms that
Speaker 2: they're working part time, walls, pulling two to three jobs
Speaker 2: to keep things going. So these are families, nearly two
Speaker 2: million families that are you know, continuing to fight forward
Speaker 2: even though we haven't, you know, made the economics work
Speaker 2: in this country. Imagine if we made the economics work again.
Speaker 2: And so we do need to change things, and there's
Speaker 2: moves we can make that can inject new entrepreneur opportunity
Speaker 2: out there for our farmers. We need to research and
Speaker 2: development revolution so that all of our technology is bringing
Speaker 2: farms of all sizes, medium and small as well as
Speaker 2: large along. We need to change our policies to make
Speaker 2: sure we got fair markets for small businesses in this country.
Speaker 2: And we need to make sure the consumers who care
Speaker 2: about where their food comes from take steps toward buying
Speaker 2: from local farmers. Buy from a farmer down the road,
Speaker 2: you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine that that was an injection of positivity
Speaker 1: the whole buy local, buy from your local farmers that
Speaker 1: you know, eat and consume local. What's available fresh from
Speaker 1: the farm, you know, grass raised, a grass fed beef
Speaker 1: raised from your local farmer. It should be easier for
Speaker 1: I suppose farmers to slaughter their own beef and sell
Speaker 1: it locally. Maybe I knew Congressman Tom some Mess. He's
Speaker 1: on my program a lot. I'm a huge fan of
Speaker 1: it is he has his own farm, and you know,
Speaker 1: he is a big fan of you know, raw milk
Speaker 1: or some health benefits of that. My wife grew up
Speaker 1: drinking it, you know, straight from the cows. It's as
Speaker 1: healthy as she could possibly be. So, you know, but
Speaker 1: maybe this RFK junior emphasis towards health might give that
Speaker 1: much needed infusion for the local farmer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's the hope. There's always opportunity in
Speaker 2: peril and for the farmer, and you know, people caring
Speaker 2: about where the food comes from and us shifting toward
Speaker 2: farmers able to meet the markets they are meet now,
Speaker 2: but also meet new markets from people who care about local,
Speaker 2: regional fresh food, who care about specialty foods. Being able
Speaker 2: to shift our farm economy in that direction. That creates
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur opportunity for our farmers. It also creates more
Speaker 2: options for our consumers. We've got to make sure that
Speaker 2: we make those transitions. Understand that farms are small businesses.
Speaker 2: Then I have a whole lot of money sitting around
Speaker 2: and investing new things, but they can make change over time.
Speaker 2: And if we can get focused on that and every
Speaker 2: consumer takes a step toward the farmer, I know the
Speaker 2: farmers are ready to take more steps toward the consumer.
Speaker 1: And knowing the farmers the way I do, I know
Speaker 1: you you are right on that. Brian Rising, your author
Speaker 1: of land Ridge Cash Poor, My family's hope and the
Speaker 1: untold history of the disappearing American farmer. Hopefully we can
Speaker 1: reverse that process. Brian, it's been a real pleasure talking
Speaker 1: with you today. I appreciate you spending time with my
Speaker 1: listeners of me and for writing the book, which is
Speaker 1: now available on my blog page at fifty five krs
Speaker 1: dot com so people can easily get a copy of it,
Speaker 1: and I strongly encourage them to do that because you
Speaker 1: will have a much more profound appreciation for the hard
Speaker 1: work that these men and women put in every single day. Brian,
Speaker 1: you take great care of yourself.
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you too, thanks for having me my pleasure.
Speaker 1: It's eight nineteen right now, fifty five KR City Dog Station,
Speaker 1: it being Thursday. I heard me the aviation expert Jay
Speaker 1: Ratliffe waiting in the wings. Looking forward to having him
Speaker 1: back on as I always am. Maybe a word or
Speaker 1: two about the markets, given his experience with and activities
Speaker 1: trading stocks every day. Jay Radley will be up soon.
Speaker 1: I hope you can stick around for that. But first,
Speaker 1: speaking of farming, you can get I'll tell you what,
Speaker 1: but our remot is in addition