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Speaker 1: And on the eighth there, God looked down on his

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Speaker 1: planned paradise and said, I need a caretaker. So God

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Speaker 1: made a farmer. God said, I need somebody willing to

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Speaker 1: get up before dawn milk cows, work all day in

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Speaker 1: the fields, milk cows again each supper, then go to

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Speaker 1: town and stay past midnight at the meeting of the

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Speaker 1: school board. So God made a farmer. I need somebody

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Speaker 1: with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf, and yet

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Speaker 1: gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call

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Speaker 1: hogs team, cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait

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Speaker 1: lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies, then tell

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Speaker 1: the ladies to be sure and come back real soon

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Speaker 1: and mean it. So God made a farmer. Somebody would

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Speaker 1: bail a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing,

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Speaker 1: who would laugh and then sigh and then reply with

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Speaker 1: smiling eyes when his son says he wants to spend

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Speaker 1: his life doing what Dad dons. So God made a farmer.

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Speaker 2: On this episode of News World, my guest today grew

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Speaker 2: up on his family farm in Sauk County, Wisconsin, got

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Speaker 2: involved in politics, and lived and worked in Washingt, d C.

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Speaker 2: Then headed back home to be a part of the

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Speaker 2: family business. His new book describes his journey land Rich,

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Speaker 2: Cash Poor, My Family's Hope, and the untold history of

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Speaker 2: the disappearing American farmer. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest,

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Speaker 2: Brian Riisinger. He's a columnist and consultant. Worked with his

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Speaker 2: father from the time he could walk before entering the

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Speaker 2: worlds of business, journalism and public policy. He currently serves

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Speaker 2: as president and chief content officer of Midwestern based Platform Communications,

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Speaker 2: splitting time between a small town in northern Cali and

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Speaker 2: the family farm in southern Wisconsin. Brian, welcome and thank

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Speaker 2: you for joining me on news World.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me on and for

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Speaker 3: bringing light to this issue.

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Speaker 2: I appreciate it given everything you've been doing, what inspired

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Speaker 2: you to write land Rich Cash for?

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Speaker 3: You know, growing up seeing my dad so devoted sun

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Speaker 3: up to sundown, covered in the dust in the fields,

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Speaker 3: working with the animals, I knew that it was a

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Speaker 3: rare way of life, and it was becoming rarer. You know.

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Speaker 3: There would be teachers who would ask how many kids

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Speaker 3: grew up on a farm, and I'd raise my hand

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Speaker 3: and they'd say a generation to go out about every

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Speaker 3: one of you, and it was just a minority of us.

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Speaker 3: So I knew that that was happening growing up, but

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Speaker 3: even as I came into adulthood, I didn't know why

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Speaker 3: that was. And so many people where I'm from didn't

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Speaker 3: necessarily know what were the big macroeconomic forces and other

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Speaker 3: thanks driving that. As I got into business journalism in

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Speaker 3: public policies, you said, I began to see someone was

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Speaker 3: going on in our economy and some of the ways

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Speaker 3: that it had left people like where I'm from behind,

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Speaker 3: and so I thought, somebody needs to crack this code,

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Speaker 3: investigate this, and marry these things. So I took my

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Speaker 3: upbringing that I was so lucky to be part of

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Speaker 3: that has so much beauty and hardship to it, and

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Speaker 3: I married that with some of what I saw, and

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Speaker 3: I looked for hidden airs of history throughout our country's history.

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Speaker 3: And what I found, miraculously to me, was that my

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Speaker 3: family's story lined up so often with what had been

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Speaker 3: going out there, and we didn't even know it. And

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Speaker 3: so that was a bit of a discovery along the way.

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Speaker 3: But that's why I wrote it, because I wanted to

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Speaker 3: answer that question.

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Speaker 2: Now, as I understand it, your great grandfather came to

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Speaker 2: the US after World War One. Could you tell us

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Speaker 2: a little bit about his journey and how that then

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Speaker 2: shaped the legacy of your family farm.

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Speaker 3: He had an incredible journey. He actually he escaped pre

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Speaker 3: World War One Europe and came here in part because

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Speaker 3: he didn't want to fight in the war. Not that

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Speaker 3: he didn't want to fight, he'd served in the military,

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Speaker 3: but he wanted to have a better life. He didn't

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Speaker 3: like what was going on in Europe and the way

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Speaker 3: that everything he could see the tinderbox, and so he

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Speaker 3: came to America and he found a better life in

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Speaker 3: the rolling hills of southern Wisconsin. Now at that time

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Speaker 3: it was subsistence farming, and my great grandma had also

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Speaker 3: come over for a better life, and so they really

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Speaker 3: dug a living out of the dirt, and they in

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Speaker 3: the early nineteen hundreds did what farmers were doing at

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Speaker 3: that time, which was finding a way to take this

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Speaker 3: opportunity and turn it into an entrepreneurial venture. And some

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Speaker 3: crops could make it and some couldn't, and they had

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Speaker 3: very very hard conditions, but they made it through to

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Speaker 3: the point that before the Great Depression, farmers were coming

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Speaker 3: into a position of getting ready to move into the

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Speaker 3: middle class.

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Speaker 2: In some cases, her great grandma did she know him

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Speaker 2: before she came over?

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Speaker 3: Amazingly, No, They grew up in Bavaria, just three miles apart,

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Speaker 3: and they met actually at a funeral in Wisconsin, surrounded

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Speaker 3: by the German Catholic crucifixes and other things that were

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Speaker 3: familiar to them as one of the places, you know,

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Speaker 3: church functions such as a funeral or wedding, one of

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Speaker 3: them only places to meet people, especially in those remote days.

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Speaker 3: So they met, and as it turned out, they'd only

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Speaker 3: been three miles apart back in Bavaria.

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Speaker 2: You talk about subsistence farming, what did they primarily grow.

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Speaker 3: In those days? It was very much mixed agriculture. I

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Speaker 3: tell many people it was like Charlotte's web. Every animal

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Speaker 3: you could imagine waddling about every crop you could imagine,

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Speaker 3: so fruits, vegetables in addition to corn and hay and

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Speaker 3: row crops, apples, everything. And then they not only had

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Speaker 3: dairy cows, which is what came to define the Wisconsin economy,

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Speaker 3: but they also had ducks and turkeys and chickens and

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Speaker 3: pigs and raised beef in all of this, and so

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Speaker 3: what they were trying to do is they were in

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Speaker 3: a bid to see what could put the most money

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Speaker 3: in their pocket and the most food on their table.

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Speaker 3: This was sort of the American experiment at that time

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Speaker 3: in the Midwest particular, but it happened in different places

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Speaker 3: at different times of trying to figure out, Okay, what

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Speaker 3: is this states, what is this local community's niche? And

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Speaker 3: at that time it had not yet totally emerged to

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Speaker 3: be dairy al that was trending toward dairy. So they

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Speaker 3: grew and sold everything they could to try to make

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Speaker 3: a barker to try to feed their kids.

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Speaker 2: And did they only end up as dairy farmers.

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Speaker 3: They did. They found that milk was sort of the

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Speaker 3: currency of the land. What was happening is Wisconsin did

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Speaker 3: not have as much wide open acreage as Nebraska and

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Speaker 3: Iowa where you could just put rose and rose of

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Speaker 3: corn as far as I could see. So we had

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Speaker 3: to find a way to have our acreage be more potent.

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Speaker 3: And this is where American ingenuity and research and development

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Speaker 3: and all of these pieces began to work together, where

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Speaker 3: people said, hey, you can grow hay and corn. That's

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Speaker 3: nutritious enough to feed to dairy cowsm With the right

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Speaker 3: kinds of technology and the right hard work, you can

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Speaker 3: really have a dairy herd that can yield a lot

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Speaker 3: of milk. And so that's why Wisconsin emerged as America's dairyland,

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Speaker 3: and my great grandfather really sort of riding that dynamo

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Speaker 3: as it came.

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Speaker 2: You make a key point, though, that in the twenties

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Speaker 2: farmers almost broke through, and then the whole with the

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Speaker 2: Great Depression, the whole agricultural income system really collapsed. Talk

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Speaker 2: about the impact that on your family and on your neighbors.

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Speaker 3: Correct. And it's a crucial question because something that I

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Speaker 3: learned and that I think a lot of readers across

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Speaker 3: the country might not know up until maybe us talking

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Speaker 3: about it here is that when the Great Depression hit

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Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty nine, Black Thursday, in farm country, they'd

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Speaker 3: been in years of depression before that, almost a decade

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Speaker 3: before that. And what happened is price is crashed right

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Speaker 3: after World War One and initiated kind of a nineteen

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Speaker 3: twenties egg depression that predated the Great Depression. And so

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Speaker 3: you're absolutely right, they were in a position where they

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Speaker 3: were about to climb in that middle class, and suddenly

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Speaker 3: they were living in depression conditions in the nineteen twenties

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Speaker 3: as well as the nineteen thirties, and so the farms

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Speaker 3: that got through that. What happened is that's the moment

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Speaker 3: in the nineteen twenties. That's the moment when we stopped

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Speaker 3: having more farms in this country and we began having fewer.

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Speaker 3: And that has been a trend that has gone unabated,

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Speaker 3: and in many ways our country has made worse ever since.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 3: Obviously, once America was settled, there was limited land, and

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Speaker 3: there was going to be natural industry consolidation wherever there's competition,

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Speaker 3: so there were always going to be fewer farms. But

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Speaker 3: that's the moment. When it happened. It was in the

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Speaker 3: middle of economic catastrophe, and it persisted for decades afterward.

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Speaker 2: Did it get better with World War Two or what

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Speaker 2: led to the rise of the modern relatively prosperous American farm.

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Speaker 3: You're exactly right. World War II, just as it drove

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Speaker 3: recovery from the Great Depression at large, also drove recovery

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Speaker 3: in farm country, and so there were many, many farms

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Speaker 3: that were wiped out. There were tens of thousands of

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Speaker 3: farms wiped out in the twenties and thirties. Those that

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Speaker 3: made it through had done it by scrimping and siving,

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Speaker 3: maybe finding an opportunity to buy a neighbor out of

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Speaker 3: foreclosure and find some cheap land. That's actually what my

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Speaker 3: great grandfather did. He held on, he held on. There

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Speaker 3: were medical bills that went unpaid, there were farm injuries,

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Speaker 3: there were tragedies. His son lost his leg, and they

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Speaker 3: did all of this through the twenties and thirties, made

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Speaker 3: it through onto the other side, and my great grandfather

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Speaker 3: had saved enough money to purchase a farm up the

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Speaker 3: hill that had gone into foreclosure, and that's where my

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Speaker 3: grandpa came into the picture, and my grandpa then bought

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Speaker 3: that farm for my great grandpa, and so my great

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Speaker 3: grandparents were still paying off the mortgage on the original farm,

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Speaker 3: and then my grandpa and eventually my grandpa and grandma,

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Speaker 3: although he was a bachelor for a number of years,

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Speaker 3: took over debt and paid that off as well. And

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Speaker 3: so if you could get through and find a way

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Speaker 3: to acquire more land, you were able to at the

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Speaker 3: end of that climb in the middle class, and they

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Speaker 3: just slipped by and did that. As my great grandfather's

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Speaker 3: generation was ending and the torch was passing to my grandpa.

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Speaker 2: You'd be in to have a relatively prosperous agricultural community.

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Speaker 2: But then the pressures to get bigger or go out

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Speaker 2: of business really begin to build. Talk about that whole

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Speaker 2: notion that is almost impossible to run a small farm

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Speaker 2: and be competitive in the modern world.

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Speaker 3: It is, And there are historical based arguments and facts.

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Speaker 3: There's also political debate that grows out of this air.

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Speaker 3: And I guess what I'll say is, you know, friends

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Speaker 3: on the right end the left have things to be

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Speaker 3: up to set about this period of history in terms

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Speaker 3: of what happened. But the reality is that the American

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Speaker 3: farmer emerged into a world where he was the little

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Speaker 3: guy alongside of big government and big business. And on

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Speaker 3: the big government front, there was the intervention from the

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Speaker 3: depression that some would argue was needed and some would

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Speaker 3: argue was not necessarily geared the right way. But whatever

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Speaker 3: the case, it continued on that intervention that post government

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Speaker 3: programs continued on, and at the same time as we

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Speaker 3: emerged in the nineteen fifties, we had an economy again

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Speaker 3: to be dominated by big in a much bigger way,

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Speaker 3: bigger businesses, bigger companies in more and more industry sectors. Again,

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Speaker 3: some of that is natural through the course of economic competition.

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Speaker 3: Some of it perhaps is less so. But what happened

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Speaker 3: is the farmer was put into a position of constantly

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Speaker 3: chasing scale, either because of the economic reasons of all

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Speaker 3: the large companies across our country, or because of the

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Speaker 3: way that the government programs work, which over time they

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Speaker 3: are prone to favoritism and abuse. And so again, there

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Speaker 3: are things that people on the left and the right

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Speaker 3: can be frustrated about here. But the American farmer was

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Speaker 3: the little guy in a suddenly much bigger world, and

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Speaker 3: it created that economic scale pressure, among other problems.

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Speaker 2: What was the role of advancing science and technology and

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Speaker 2: all this. The amount of science that now goes into

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Speaker 2: agriculture is just unbelievable. It has no relationship to two

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Speaker 2: hundred years ago. This is in many ways, agriculture may

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Speaker 2: be the most effective user of science and technology. Talk

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Speaker 2: about both what's happening with science and technology and what's

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Speaker 2: its impact on the quality of life for farmers.

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Speaker 3: It's astounding the role that technology plays in agriculture, absolutely right.

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Speaker 3: And it has been a double edged sword that is

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Speaker 3: so large and so sharp it's almost unfathomable. And I'll

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Speaker 3: talk the good first, because it's undeniable. We went from

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Speaker 3: horses to tractors. I mean, we went to motorized implements,

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Speaker 3: and we went to electricity, and those are just the

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Speaker 3: basic building blocks to your point. There are incredibly sophisticated

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Speaker 3: systems that help farmers with the planting and the harvesting

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Speaker 3: of their fields, making sure that they get the precise

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Speaker 3: amount of moisture for soybeans, all of these incredible things,

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Speaker 3: and that's amazing, and it is a modern miracle that

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Speaker 3: has made it possible for us to feed more people

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Speaker 3: more affordably, with fewer people breaking their backs to do it.

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Speaker 3: And that is a good thing ultimately. And that's another

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Speaker 3: part of some of the disappearance of farms that was

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Speaker 3: going to be natural. There were going to be some

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Speaker 3: farms moving on as we got to a place where

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Speaker 3: not everyone had to grow their own food anymore, right,

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Speaker 3: And so that was an incredible thing. It's still incredible.

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Speaker 3: It's still advancing us every day. The reason I call

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Speaker 3: it a double edged sort is because it also needlessly

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Speaker 3: ended up favoring some farms over others, and that has

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Speaker 3: been one of the major areas where we contributed to

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Speaker 3: disappearance of farms in a way that we didn't need to,

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Speaker 3: and that we can talk in a bit about how

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Speaker 3: that impacts food price. But what happened in the fifties,

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Speaker 3: sixties and seventies, there was a need to help farm

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Speaker 3: wages catch up with manufacturing wages. Everyone is leaving the

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Speaker 3: rural areas to go work in the factories, and that

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Speaker 3: was natural, normal economics. When we got to the seventies,

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Speaker 3: the way that they had been doing that was through

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Speaker 3: technology that made it possible for farms to take on

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Speaker 3: more acres and more animals with less labor. That was natural.

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Speaker 3: Over time, those wages caught up to one another, where

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Speaker 3: farming factory wages weren't quite so out of whack, and

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Speaker 3: so there was a need for more innovation and advancement

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Speaker 3: to continue to improve productivity and continue to feed this country.

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Speaker 3: But we didn't need that technology to create additional pressure

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Speaker 3: for bigger and bigger farms. It could have been more

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Speaker 3: what's called scale neutral technology, where a big farm a

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Speaker 3: medium size from a small farm can all justify their

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Speaker 3: own version of that technology and be able to continue

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Speaker 3: to innovate. So when we got to the seventies and eighties,

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Speaker 3: there was no more reason for technology to tilt only

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Speaker 3: toward the large or primarily I should say toward the

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Speaker 3: largest farms. There would have been an ability for entrepreneurial

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Speaker 3: ventures of all sizes in the agger culture community to

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Speaker 3: benefit from agriculture and continue to innovate and continue to

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Speaker 3: have a strong small business sector I'll call it in

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Speaker 3: the form of small and medium sized farms persisting. We

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Speaker 3: didn't do that, and so technology was a massive human

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Speaker 3: miracle as pertains to agriculture, but it also needlessly tilted

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Speaker 3: the scales against some farms that could have very well

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Speaker 3: been efficient enough pound for pound to continue competing.

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Speaker 2: When you look at all these different things going on simultaneously,

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Speaker 2: the emergence of new kinds of scientific agriculture, and now

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Speaker 2: of course with the ability of GPS and robotics and

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Speaker 2: I mean, all of which costs more and more money.

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Speaker 2: So in a way, farming becomes a remarkably capital intensive

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Speaker 2: kind of business. What's the role of government policies and

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Speaker 2: government subsidies. Do they help or hurt small family run farms.

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Speaker 3: The reality is that they do on some level provide

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Speaker 3: a certain type of safety net needed for uncontrollable factors

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Speaker 3: such as weather. And there are also farms that the

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Speaker 3: reality is they syst because they've been able to tap

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Speaker 3: some of those government programs. That's true. It's also true though,

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Speaker 3: that the subsidy regime that we have in this country

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Speaker 3: is one that people from the right and the left

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Speaker 3: and everyone in between, including the farmers who benefit from

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Speaker 3: it because they need to, don't like. There's something that

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Speaker 3: everybody doesn't like about it. And I think there is

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Speaker 3: an ability to have that baseline safety net, but to

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Speaker 3: have the subsidies adjusted so as to not necessarily be

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Speaker 3: driving so hard toward one sector or another. And also

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Speaker 3: we have to remember that whether people like government or not,

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Speaker 3: the more plentiful the government programs, the larger those programs,

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Speaker 3: the more likely it is that those farms that can

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Speaker 3: afford the lawyers and accountants and the lobbyists to navigate

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Speaker 3: that system are going to benefit from it. So there's

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Speaker 3: a need for reform there. I think related and contained

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Speaker 3: in your question something really crucial, which is the role

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Speaker 3: of research and development, and there needs to be proper

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Speaker 3: accountability that folks on the right would want to see.

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Speaker 3: And there also needs to be something to be done

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Speaker 3: by the way which we're lagging in this country, and

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Speaker 3: a lot of that can be private money, but some

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Speaker 3: of that is the role of government in finding discovery,

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Speaker 3: and there's a way I think to make those programs

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Speaker 3: accountable enough that people can trust that those tax dollars

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Speaker 3: are going toward good innovative ideas that can lead to

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Speaker 3: private sector innovation in the way that the Internet or

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Speaker 3: other things emerged from government spending to some degree, but

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Speaker 3: it needs to be accountable and properly targeted in.

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Speaker 2: That context, do you have any sense that the government

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Speaker 2: understands the importance of distinguishing between sustaining small and family

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Speaker 2: run farms and the policies that help the large corporate farms.

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, there is no indication that they do. I think

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Speaker 3: that we're hopefully reaching a point like we are with

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Speaker 3: many problems in this country, where people are frustrated enough

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Speaker 3: that maybe elected officials will begin to see it. There

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Speaker 3: are a few who understand it. I appreciate your question

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Speaker 3: because you're making a crucial point there, but we absolutely

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Speaker 3: need to change the understanding of our policy makers. The

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Speaker 3: reality is that this is a way for farmers of

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Speaker 3: all sizes, large, small, and medium to be able to

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Speaker 3: compete if they can find that innovation. Now, there are

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Speaker 3: opportunities when we look at where we're at with technology

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Speaker 3: artificial intelligence. For example, there's a world where, and I

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Speaker 3: talk to a lot of economists that study this, there's

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Speaker 3: a world war that technology can simply lead to a

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Speaker 3: large farm having one employee watching a bank of screens

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Speaker 3: kind of like a NASA command center, driving tractors all over.

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Speaker 3: That probably will come to pass. There's also a world

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Speaker 3: where small self driven vehicles can help with fertilizing fields,

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Speaker 3: whether it's spreading way or whatever the case may be,

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Speaker 3: with small affordable vehicles where a small farmer could afford

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Speaker 3: that investment, and at the end of the day, all

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Speaker 3: the farms are looking for the same thing. Can I

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Speaker 3: invest in this technology and will it have a payback

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Speaker 3: for me what my dad would call penciling out. Will

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Speaker 3: it pencil out soon enough that it'll pay for itself

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Speaker 3: over our enough number of years that the return all

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Speaker 3: get will justify the technology. That's something that's very possible

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Speaker 3: for large farms right now. It's not as possible for small,

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Speaker 3: medium sized farms. But AI that's an example of one

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Speaker 3: thing that good. These small driverless vehicles and fields is

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Speaker 3: an example, and there's many.

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Speaker 2: How does all this then affect kind of small town America?

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Speaker 2: Because originally the small towns grew up surrounded by lots

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Speaker 2: of little farms, and as the little farms disappear, you

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Speaker 2: begin to lose the marketplace that they sustain. So how

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Speaker 2: has that effected, for example, in Wisconsin smaller towns.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's been a hollowing out of rural America. And

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Speaker 3: I come from a small town. Our farm is between

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Speaker 3: Plain and Spring Green. My dad still runs at my sisters.

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Speaker 3: We're going to take it over, and I help out

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Speaker 3: on the business side. They throw me in a tractor now.

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Speaker 3: And then it used to be there were farms that

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Speaker 3: would sustain an entire family, and that those farms really

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Speaker 3: surrounded the communities and really built those communities, and they

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Speaker 3: were feeding those communities, and they were supplying a market

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Speaker 3: and it was self reinforcing. These areas have been depopulated

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Speaker 3: in a way that is shocking, that goes beyond the

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Speaker 3: normal shift from the farm to the bright lights of

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Speaker 3: the city and the shift toward urban jobs. And now

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Speaker 3: we have a situation where the hollowing out of rural

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Speaker 3: America has become so difficult that it's devastated many of

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Speaker 3: these areas. And in many ways, the decline of farms

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Speaker 3: is sort of a precursor to the rest belt decline.

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Speaker 3: In many cases these areas overlap as well, and so

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Speaker 3: it's really been very, very problematic. And I'm hoping though,

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Speaker 3: that we're at a point in our country where we

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Speaker 3: can to recognize it. For two reasons. One is COVID,

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Speaker 3: although a terrible thing in many many ways, did have

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Speaker 3: the one small silver lining of having people moving to

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Speaker 3: different areas seeing how mobile our economy could be. So

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Speaker 3: there are more people moving to rural areas. Actually, rural

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Speaker 3: population recovered for the first time in a couple decades

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Speaker 3: or recently here. That's one reason we have more money,

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Speaker 3: more ideas, and more people coming into rural areas. The

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Speaker 3: other reason is that our food prices and our food

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Speaker 3: supply have been shown to be so problematic, and it's

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Speaker 3: not simply a matter of the inflation debate. It is

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Speaker 3: a matter also of the loss of farms and the

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Speaker 3: limiting of the distribution channels that we have for food

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Speaker 3: in this country that have led to higher prices and

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Speaker 3: a vulnerable supply chain as we saw during COVID, but

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Speaker 3: also as we see from birdfloo and other kind of

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Speaker 3: spotfires that pop up. And so I'm hoping that because

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Speaker 3: in a post COVID world and because of what's happening

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Speaker 3: with food, people look at this and say, we need

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Speaker 3: to do something about these disparing farms. We need to

401
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:26,160
Speaker 3: do something about these rural communities, because it's not only

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Speaker 3: affecting those communities.

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Speaker 2: So we sort of touched on something which became kind

404
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Speaker 2: of a political issue a week or two ago, and

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Speaker 2: that is, to what extent are higher prices for food

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Speaker 2: a function, for example, of higher prices for energy, which

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Speaker 2: then goes also into things like fertilizer. And to what

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Speaker 2: extent is it price gauging? How do you interpret the

409
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Speaker 2: market as it affects the American consumer?

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Speaker 3: The issues driving our food prices are so much fundamentally

411
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Speaker 3: deeper than our public debate has gotten to. It is

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Speaker 3: true that increasing costs of energy and fertilizer and seed

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Speaker 3: and other things have contributed to higher costs for harmers,

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Speaker 3: but that's been going on forever. When I grew up

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Speaker 3: in the nineties, I remember emerging from college in the

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Speaker 3: early two thousands and meeting a banker in Nashville who

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Speaker 3: talked about the good years after the Great Recession. And

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Speaker 3: I looked at and I said, when were the good years?

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Speaker 3: And that's because in where I'm from, the prices have

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Speaker 3: always been going up, and the income opportunities, the entrepreneur

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Speaker 3: opportunities have always been faltering, at least as far as

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Speaker 3: in my lifetime, as we had a good middle class

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Speaker 3: living that I saw slipping away. So that's always been

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Speaker 3: going What is.

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Speaker 2: There about living on a farm which despite all of

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Speaker 2: these problems and all these challenges, people just do it.

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Speaker 2: It is truly a way of life. What is there

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Speaker 2: about that way of life?

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Speaker 3: It gets down into your blood and your bones. And

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Speaker 3: when you wake up in the morning you see the

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Speaker 3: sunrise over the land, when you walk down to the

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Speaker 3: barn and you hear your dad whistle, and with one

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Speaker 3: whistle the cow dog runs out and brings the cows

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Speaker 3: in from pasture. When you grew up driving with your

435
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Speaker 3: dad to check the hay by hand, and you see them,

436
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Speaker 3: look at the sky and feel the moisture of the

437
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:23,280
Speaker 3: hay and kind of decide whether it's time to cut

438
00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:25,400
Speaker 3: it or whether the rain's going to come. These are

439
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,480
Speaker 3: magical things, and you learn work ethic, you learn about

440
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:31,359
Speaker 3: the circle of life, You learn so many things that

441
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:33,320
Speaker 3: just become elemental to who you are and so many

442
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 3: of the values that matter to our country. I think

443
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 3: that's why this is a troubling issue too, And so

444
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,640
Speaker 3: that's why. And despite the hardship and the difficulty of it,

445
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:42,840
Speaker 3: it's just a beautiful way of life. And it's truly

446
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:45,080
Speaker 3: it's not only your home or only your job, but

447
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 3: it's your community, it's your heritage, it's everything.

448
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,919
Speaker 2: I always get the sense when I talk to friends

449
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 2: of Glistas who are still committed to the land, that

450
00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:01,720
Speaker 2: there's a satisfaction they get out of getting up every day.

451
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 2: A number of them are still dairy farmers, and just

452
00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 2: the interaction with the dairy cows, the interaction, the quality

453
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 2: of the air, the beauty of the land, that there's

454
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 2: something that just makes them feel good.

455
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 3: It's just fulfilling. It truly is a calling. It's like

456
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:22,600
Speaker 3: that old broadcast, So God made a farmer, you know.

457
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,360
Speaker 3: It is such a fulfilling thing. It's who you are.

458
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 3: And when I grew up and learned that I wasn't

459
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:30,119
Speaker 3: going to farm just because my gifts were elsewhere, that

460
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 3: was a very difficult struggle for me. I was the

461
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 3: first eldest son in four generations to not do it,

462
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 3: and for a long time I felt like I'd let

463
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 3: my dad down, even though he was supportive. And the

464
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 3: reason for that is I saw him, and I saw

465
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:42,239
Speaker 3: his devotion. I saw he got out of it. It

466
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 3: was a calling, it was what he was meant to do,

467
00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 3: and ironically, even though he didn't have a choice, it

468
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 3: was what he was supposed to do as well. But

469
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 3: it gets down into your blood and your bones.

470
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 2: As I say, what advice, given all the complexities we're

471
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 2: discussing here, what advice would you give to young people

472
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,160
Speaker 2: who are kind of interested in pursuing a career in

473
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 2: farming but not quite sure if it's the right path

474
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 2: for them.

475
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 3: There are some hard asset type things that you have

476
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 3: to figure out. Where are you going to get land?

477
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 3: Is there land that you can purchase from your dad

478
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:18,639
Speaker 3: like my dad did his dad? Will you need to

479
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,880
Speaker 3: lease land? Those things will severely impact your business model

480
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 3: one way or the other. For certain. But the biggest

481
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,400
Speaker 3: thing that I say to young people getting into farming

482
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 3: in the way that my sister is coming up taking

483
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 3: over from my dad, is you have to engage and

484
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 3: talk to people, other people on agriculture, people in other

485
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 3: parts of the economy. The thing about farming, one of

486
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 3: the things is there's a beauty in the remoteness. There's

487
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:41,919
Speaker 3: an individualism to it. You learn to figure things out yourself,

488
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 3: as part of the reason that people are so independent

489
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 3: minded in rural areas. But you also can become too

490
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:51,719
Speaker 3: remote and not know what's going on, not know what's happening,

491
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,119
Speaker 3: and so you may not learn that there's a new

492
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 3: technology that you can adopt. You may not learn that

493
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,640
Speaker 3: there's a new crop that you could grow that can

494
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 3: diversify your mix. And maybe it's only ten or twenty acres,

495
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 3: but it's a new area that in ten years it's

496
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 3: going to be a major market. You have to engage.

497
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 3: You have to make sure that the beauty and the

498
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:11,400
Speaker 3: remoteness of the life doesn't withdraw you from what's going

499
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 3: on in agriculture, what's going on in our society, because

500
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 3: you have to have a voice in it to be

501
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 3: able to have a shot.

502
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 2: So the unbalanced though, do you think that there's a

503
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 2: very satisfying potential future for a young couple that wants

504
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 2: to go do it.

505
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 3: It's an incredibly hard life, especially if you're trying to

506
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 3: start out in it, but it is incredibly valuable and worthwhile.

507
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 3: Part of the issue, I think is answering the question

508
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 3: of can we save our farms for the future or

509
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 3: can we reduce the amount of disappearance. I think we can.

510
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 3: We have lost forty five thousand farms on average annually

511
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:46,679
Speaker 3: for the past century. That's more than seventy percent of

512
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 3: our farms. We still have nearly two million left. And

513
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:51,919
Speaker 3: the incredible thing about that is ninety six percent of

514
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 3: them are family operations, and the majority of them are

515
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 3: medium and smaller farms. And these are farms that are

516
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 3: not providing full time income. That's how they're still there.

517
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 3: So people are pulling shifts at the factory, pouring concrete,

518
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 3: working construction jobs, and running a farm. What if we

519
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 3: could do things to make those two million farms entrepreneurial

520
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 3: businesses again, growing ventures again. We have nearly two million

521
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 3: families that are resilient enough to keep farming despite how

522
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 3: hard this is, so what could we accomplish if we

523
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 3: could make that entrepreneurial opportunity better like it was when

524
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 3: my great grandfather came here from Wartar in Europe, although

525
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 3: with a bit more stability and less turmoil to come,

526
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 3: I would hope, because there should be a brighter opportunity

527
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 3: for farms if we can open up that kind of

528
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 3: opportunity again.

529
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:39,360
Speaker 2: How much of that's a function of figuring out how

530
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 2: to market so that the farmer gets a higher percentage

531
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 2: of the value of what's being sold.

532
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 3: It's a huge part of it. One of the big

533
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,439
Speaker 3: kind of five solutions that I talk about in the

534
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 3: book where I went through this hidden history and I

535
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 3: looked for places where we had false choices. Where can

536
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 3: we reject the false choice and try to find a

537
00:26:57,560 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 3: new way. One of them is trying to find a

538
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 3: way to work andize farmers around new market opportunities and

539
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 3: building out rural regional economies that can connect the farm

540
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 3: gate more closely to the dinner table, the farmer and

541
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 3: the consumer more closely together, so that people are buying

542
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 3: food not only from the grocery stores, which they should

543
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 3: continue to do. Enough of the national and global supply

544
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 3: chains but also locally directly depending on the type of food.

545
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 3: There's a real opportunity to do that right now, and farmers,

546
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 3: through social media, through greater awareness and concern for the

547
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 3: public about where their food comes from, have a bigger

548
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 3: opportunity than ever to do that. I kind of joke

549
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 3: that we need to get the farmers and the hippies

550
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 3: together a little bit more because we need farmers' markets

551
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 3: to be more than a novelty, you know. We need farmers' markets,

552
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 3: grocery stores that carry local goods, specially food stores, permanent

553
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 3: outdoor markets, distributors that are there to serve these regional economies.

554
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 3: We need all of that to sprout up in this

555
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 3: economy to be able to create that kind of entrepreneurial opportunity.

556
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 2: I frankly take hope from what you've written that seems

557
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 2: to me that while there are big challenges, there are

558
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 2: also wonderful opportunities, and that it's a fight worth taking

559
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 2: to make sure that our policies maximize the opportunity for

560
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 2: small and family run farms. And that's not something I

561
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 2: think what you've written is coool.

562
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:18,360
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, I appreciate that, and I certainly hope

563
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 3: people can take hope from it. I felt that we

564
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 3: needed to stare into the difficulty of these problems and

565
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:26,159
Speaker 3: face the hard truths about them, and I also hoped

566
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 3: that we could find pass forward. That's also true of

567
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:31,400
Speaker 3: my family story. You know, I weave these hidden airs

568
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 3: of history with my family story, and with my family story.

569
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 3: I talked with my dad and everybody, and you know,

570
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 3: we talked about pharmaceuicides, we talked about mental health, we

571
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 3: talked about addiction, different things our family has dealt with

572
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 3: over the generations. And we felt that we needed to

573
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 3: be honest about the problems so that people could be

574
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 3: with us for the journey and more hopeful when they

575
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 3: saw us come through. So we wanted to create an

576
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 3: honest picture about our personal story and an honest picture

577
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 3: of the economic, technological, social, and political situation that our

578
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 3: country is in. So my hope is that people arge

579
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 3: with hope. But perhaps it's hard fought.

580
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 2: But now, as I understand, I feel on my priying

581
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 2: for a second, you both have a base in Wisconsin

582
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 2: and you are also in California.

583
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a great question. I struggle with the rural

584
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:19,239
Speaker 3: urban divide myself, and so what I did was. I

585
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 3: grew up not having the talent for cattle and crops,

586
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 3: and my dad did, and I knew I would have

587
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 3: to find my own path. I found that with writing

588
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 3: first and journalism and then in public policy. And I

589
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 3: came back to Wisconsin and I was working in public

590
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 3: affairs consulting, and I began to get reinvolved with our

591
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 3: family business because I saw what was disappearing, and my

592
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 3: dad invited me in. So I help out on the

593
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 3: business side and they throw me in a tractor on

594
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 3: my days off. And also in addition to that, my

595
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 3: wife is from northern California, of all the places for

596
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 3: a Wisconsin farm boy to go, and so I'm very

597
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 3: fortunate in that we moved out there to northern California.

598
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 3: We live in a small town of Moraca. We rent

599
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: an apartment here. People ask, how can you afford to place? Say, well,

600
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 3: we can't afford a place in California, let alone two places.

601
00:29:58,120 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 3: But what I do is we rent a place here

602
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 3: in northern cal California, and I come back to Wisconsin.

603
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 3: I to live on the farm when I'm at home,

604
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 3: and that's something I hadn't done since I left for college.

605
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 3: And so in some ways, my life is going back

606
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 3: and forth between this rural world and the more urban

607
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 3: world that I'm trying to work connect, and in some

608
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 3: ways I get to be more in touch with my

609
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 3: roots than ever because when I'm home, I live on

610
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 3: the family farm, and I drink these stories in and

611
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 3: I work alongside my family in a way that wouldn't

612
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 3: have been possible otherwise.

613
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 2: It's a great story and I think a real contribution.

614
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you for joining me your

615
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 2: new book, land Rich Cash Poor, My Family's Hope and

616
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 2: the Untold History of the Disaperian American Farmer. It's a

617
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 2: great read. It's available now on Amazon and in bookstores

618
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: everywhere in Brian. Thank you for sharing with us.

619
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me on and for

620
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 3: shedding light on this issue.

621
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 2: Thank you to my guest, Brian Risinger. You can get

622
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 2: a link to buy his book, land Rich Cash Poor

623
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 2: on our show page at Newtsworld dot. Newtorld is produced

624
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 2: by Gangwich three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is

625
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 2: Guarnesy Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. Artwork for the

626
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 2: show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the

627
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 2: team at Gingwigh three sixty. If you've been enjoying newts World,

628
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 2: I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate

629
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 2: us with five stars and give us a review so

630
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 2: others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners

631
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 2: of news World can sign up for my three freeweekly

632
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 2: columns at gingwichthree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich.

633
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 2: This is neut World