Putting family farms first

MADISON, Wis. — Brian Reisinger is concerned about the decline of family farms on the U.S. landscape each year.

“A lot of people in this country have forgotten about the impact that our farmers have,” Reisinger said. “We all know no farms, no food. I talk to people who might know something about farming, who maybe grew up on a farm or in a rural community, and I also talk to people who believe their food comes from a store.”

Reisinger wrote about the answers and solutions he found to declining farm numbers in his book “Land Rich, Cash Poor.” Reisinger shared his ideas during the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s Ag Day at the Capitol program March 26 in Madison.

“We dove into 100 years of farm history,” Reisinger said. “(We) condensed it down to find the hidden eras of history making our farms disappear. Then we wove those issues with our family’s own story.”

Reisinger said he has found his passion in helping people understand what is happening in America’s rural communities and how that impacts everyone.

“(My dad) told me to remember to thank the farmers,” Reisinger said. “Nobody’s really thinking of the farmers anymore, in terms of putting our family farms first in this country — family farms of all types and sizes.”

Throughout his research, Reisinger pinpointed three areas where he believes the U.S. has failed its farm families.

First on his list are the economic crises that have occurred throughout the past 100 years — the Great Depression, the farm crisis of the 1980s, the recessions of the 2000s up through the coronavirus pandemic.

Second, Reisinger cites government policy making as one of the issues.

“There is a lot of good policy making that is done here in Wisconsin by people who understand agriculture, but there are also challenges,” Reisinger said. “Throughout our country’s history, both parties have made a wide range of policy mistakes.”

Reisinger said the 1980s farm crisis era was the result of a myriad of conflicting policies.

“We had government figures on both sides of the aisle that were really pushing farms to get bigger or get out,” Reisinger said. “They were pushing debt to do that. In a few years, they made that debt more expensive by increasing interest rates to try and control inflation. You can argue for or against each of those decisions, but when you do one right after the other, tens of thousands of farms were wiped out.”

Technology is a third area of cause Reisinger said.

“Technology is a huge part of our advancements in agriculture, but a lot of that technology doesn’t work for all of our farms,” he said. “A lot of the technology is leaving many of our farms behind.”

Reisinger said the good news is that there are solutions to solve the issues. These solutions capitalize on the resilience of American farm families, despite the impacts of economic crises, governmental policy and technology persisting.

Reisinger said throughout the last 100 years, on average, 45,000 farms have been lost each year, with 70% of all farms lost since the 1920s.

“That has had so much impact,” Reisinger said. “It obviously affects our rural communities, the farmers still holding on. It affects our schools, even the people who have never set foot in a barn. It affects our food supply.”

Creating entrepreneurial opportunities and developing new markets through research and product development will help stabilize the position of the American family farm, Reisinger said.

In his travels, Reisinger spends time reaching out to consumers, sharing the story of the American farmer.

“I’m trying to debunk issues, helping people understand that the increasing prices they see in the grocery store don’t mean the farmer is doing any better,” Reisinger said. “We don’t have as many farms as we should to supply our food. There are fewer businesses that get our food from the farm gate to the table; those industries are more concentrated.”

Reisinger said putting American family farms first is the key to solving many of the issues that plague society, from affordable food to the environment.

“Almost every decisive issue in this country, farmers can help,” Reisinger said. “There are more people in this room, doing things to help the environment than anybody could imagine. There are lots of problems that could be solved if people engaged farmers in creating the solutions.”

While solutions exist, Reisinger said implementing them is daunting.

“Everyone has to jump in the water at the same time, not only the family farms, but the consumers and even the people who have it out for American agriculture,” Reisinger said. “We have to get everyone rowing in the same direction.”

Reisinger said he finds hope in the two million farms that still exist in America, 96% of which are family owned.

“Even though we’ve made farming not work in this country for so long, for so many years, those family farms still remain,” Reising said. “Just imagine what family farms could do if we could just make it work for them again?”