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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George nor with

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Speaker 2: you our special guest this hour, Brian Reisinger. He'll be

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Speaker 2: with us next hour as well to take calls. His

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Speaker 2: book is called Land Rich, Cash Poor. Brian, if you

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Speaker 2: had that one wish about the American farmer, or what

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Speaker 2: would that wish be?

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Speaker 3: You know, that wish would be that we could find

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Speaker 3: a way for the two million farms that we have

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Speaker 3: remaining in this country to be growing entrepreneurial businesses. Again,

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Speaker 3: when my great grandpa got here, farming was a hard life,

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Speaker 3: but it was filled with opportunity buried in the land,

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Speaker 3: and now that's less so. So many of the farm

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Speaker 3: families that are operating these two million farms, unless they're

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Speaker 3: on the larger end of the spectrum, are working construction jobs,

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Speaker 3: pulling factory ships, porn concrete, you know, work in multiple

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Speaker 3: jobs in addition to running their farm, and it's only

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Speaker 3: supplemental incomes. Then and if we could find a way

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Speaker 3: for people's desire to know where their food comes from

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Speaker 3: and the greater safety, sometimes the better price is more

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Speaker 3: options that could come with all of that could be

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Speaker 3: a real boom for the consumer, but it could mean

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Speaker 3: a resurrection for the American farmer. And that's what I

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Speaker 3: worry about most is seeing farms slip away year after

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Speaker 3: year and trying to find a way to do something

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Speaker 3: about that.

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Speaker 2: Has the push for gluten free hurt farms at all.

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Speaker 3: You know, that is a great question, And I think

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Speaker 3: that anything that limits the amount of stuff grown out

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Speaker 3: of the grounds using our food is not necessarily a

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Speaker 3: good thing. Now, that doesn't mean that people who have

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Speaker 3: a specific gallergy into gooten or anything else shouldn't have options.

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Speaker 3: They absolutely should have options in our food economy to

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Speaker 3: have something that works well with their bodies. So there's

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Speaker 3: a certain amount of that that I want to allow for.

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Speaker 3: But I do think that some of the overall push

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Speaker 3: and some of the desire to have foods that are say,

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Speaker 3: artificially made or modified, foods that don't come from animal products,

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Speaker 3: foods that don't come from things going out of the

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Speaker 3: ground that are manufactured in a factory, that overall push,

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Speaker 3: I think is part of an overall problem we have

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Speaker 3: where we don't always know where our food is coming from,

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Speaker 3: and part of a problem that we have where it

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Speaker 3: is making it harder and harder for farms to have

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Speaker 3: places to shift their food and fiber and sell it

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Speaker 3: to make money, and that's contributing towards the problem. I

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Speaker 3: think that in general, we're better off when we're eating

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Speaker 3: things that are grown up out of the ground or

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Speaker 3: that are raised on the land, when we're talking about meat,

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Speaker 3: and so, I think there's a real value in people

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Speaker 3: getting back to those basics. There's a reason that human

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Speaker 3: civilization survived on that per centuries and there's good reason

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Speaker 3: to continue with it, and I think it's something that

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Speaker 3: can help people with having something more natural in their bodies.

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Speaker 2: Is this push to veganism hurting farms at all?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think it is. And again I

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Speaker 3: want to be respectful people's beliefs. If someone has a

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Speaker 3: reason that they don't want to have meat in their

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Speaker 3: body for a philosophical reason or for an individual health reason,

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Speaker 3: I want to allow for that in this country. But

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Speaker 3: I do think it is going too far. I think

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Speaker 3: that there's an anti farm sentiment out there that people

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Speaker 3: don't realize what it's doing to our farms. It's a

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Speaker 3: natural thing to raise and consume animals and it's part

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Speaker 3: of a circle life.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: I grew up on a farm where we would see

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Speaker 3: calves born. My dad would get up in middle night,

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Speaker 3: take us down into the barn and we would see cavesborn.

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Speaker 3: When there was a cow that was having difficulties labor

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Speaker 3: and would he would help pull that calf and he would,

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Speaker 3: you know, swipe its nose clean and help it take

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Speaker 3: its first breath. We love our animals, and we also

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Speaker 3: know our animals have a purpose. That's a circle life.

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Speaker 3: That's a very natural thing for people. It's been part

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Speaker 3: of mankind's existence for centuries.

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Speaker 2: Some of these big farms, I just am amazed at

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Speaker 2: how they can pump out the foods that they do.

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Speaker 2: For I was at the food store couple days ago.

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Speaker 2: Brian picked up a carton of strawberries. The company was

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Speaker 2: called driscoll. I don't know if they were in California

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Speaker 2: or if they were made and planet in Mexico, but

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Speaker 2: they must add hundreds of boxes and that was in

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Speaker 2: just one store.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really incredible, George. There are things about our

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Speaker 3: food system they're a modern miracle, and then there are

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Speaker 3: things about our food system that maybe aren't so good.

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Speaker 3: And the reality is right now, we have a situation

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Speaker 3: where of our two million farms that are left after

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Speaker 3: having lost forty five thousand each year on average and

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Speaker 3: the past century, a lot of our food is produced

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Speaker 3: by a small number of large farms, and so we

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Speaker 3: do depend on those farms. And some of those farms

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Speaker 3: got that way just because of natural economic pressures and

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Speaker 3: because of the need to support multiple generations of a

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Speaker 3: family or what have you. But there is something to

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Speaker 3: be said for the fact that we don't need to

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Speaker 3: rely on a small number of large farms to suppuire

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Speaker 3: food when we could have a large number of farms

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Speaker 3: of all sizes, small, medium, and large supplying our food.

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Speaker 3: Who to give us more choices. It would give us

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Speaker 3: more ways to have food be affordable, particular during times

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Speaker 3: of disaster when our supply chains get shut down. Having

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Speaker 3: more ways for food to get from the farm gate

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Speaker 3: to the dinner table would help us keep prices down

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Speaker 3: and have our food supplied to be reliable. It could

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Speaker 3: allow people to know more where the food comes from.

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Speaker 3: It would allow farmers to have more entrepreneur opportunities. So

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Speaker 3: there's something to be said for finding a way to

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Speaker 3: spread out where our food comes from in this country

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Speaker 3: so that we can keep it affordable and avoid disaster.

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Speaker 2: What percent of the farms are done with the large

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Speaker 2: corporations as opposed to the individual farmer.

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Speaker 3: That is a great question. Now here's something that's interesting

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Speaker 3: that I think people maybe don't realize when we hear

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Speaker 3: the debates over larger farms. Ninety six percent of our

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Speaker 3: farms in this country are still family operations.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: Now the number yeah, and the number of them that

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Speaker 3: are not family operations. They to your point, they may

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Speaker 3: be corporate owned, they maybe have different types of investor

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Speaker 3: models and things like that. So those farms are out there,

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Speaker 3: but many of even the largest farms in this country

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Speaker 3: are family operations. Now they're large family businesses, and they

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Speaker 3: may have boards and they may have other types of investors,

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Speaker 3: but they're still family operations. Now, here's the thing. The

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Speaker 3: small number of very large farms that supply a lot

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Speaker 3: of our food, if you set them aside, it is

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Speaker 3: still around nine and ten farms that are small and

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Speaker 3: medium sized farms in this country. They're just not turning

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Speaker 3: a profit, and they're the ones that are slipping away.

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Speaker 3: Those are the ones that when people think of Charlotte's Web.

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Speaker 3: You know, when people think of farm stories of families

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Speaker 3: growing up on the land and the people who own

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Speaker 3: the land, of the ones operating it, those are those farms,

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Speaker 3: and those are the farms that are at risk of

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Speaker 3: becoming land rich cash corps slipping away year after year.

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Speaker 2: It's traumatic, isn't it.

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Speaker 3: It really is an incredibly, incredibly heartrending thing to see.

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Speaker 3: I you know, in recent years, there was a time

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Speaker 3: period in my whole home state of Wisconsin where we

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Speaker 3: were losing three farms per day, three farms per day,

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Speaker 3: and we saw that, you know, among our neighbors. You know,

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Speaker 3: my dad is still farming, and my sister's working to

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Speaker 3: take over the farm, and we're so so fortunate to

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Speaker 3: have made it through. COVID almost knocked us down for good,

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Speaker 3: but we made it through. And we were looking around

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Speaker 3: in the years before that and during and we saw

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Speaker 3: farms getting auctioned. I remember picking up the phone talking

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Speaker 3: to a woman whose son I went to school with,

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Speaker 3: and I was trying to talk to her about rural issues,

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Speaker 3: and she said, you know, I don't know what I

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Speaker 3: can tell you because I don't know how many more

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Speaker 3: days we're going to be here, and sure enough they

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Speaker 3: were selling their farm before too long. It is. It

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Speaker 3: is a tragic thing to see, whether it's the auction

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Speaker 3: where you go and the farmers turn up to try

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Speaker 3: to buy a cow to support their neighbors, or whether

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Speaker 3: it is an individual sale to someone else, whether it's

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Speaker 3: a bank foreclosure. It's happening every day in this country.

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Speaker 2: I had one hundred and fourteen acre farm there's Springfield,

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Speaker 2: Illinois back in the nineties. It was a horse breeding

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Speaker 2: farm and I was sharecropping with a neighbor who didn't

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Speaker 2: have the money for all the acreage, and I didn't

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Speaker 2: have the equipment for the farming, so we just did

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Speaker 2: a deal and it worked.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know, there are ways. There are a

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Speaker 3: lot of people who want to get into farming. That's

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Speaker 3: the incredible thing. There's a whole new generation of people

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Speaker 3: who want to get into farming. It is so difficult

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Speaker 3: to do if you can't find a way for land access.

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Speaker 3: What you did there is an example of a way

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Speaker 3: for someone who didn't necessarily have the land to do it,

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Speaker 3: to be able to find a way to do it.

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Speaker 3: That is so hard to do. When we talk about

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Speaker 3: the concept of land rich cash poor. What we're talking

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Speaker 3: about is the fact that farmers who own their land

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Speaker 3: own something that's incredibly valuable, but it is harder and

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Speaker 3: harder to make a living. So each year, because of

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Speaker 3: these economic forces, some of which we've talked about, it

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Speaker 3: gets harder to grind out that living. Every single year,

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Speaker 3: the good years are not as good, and the bad

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Speaker 3: years are a little more devastating each year. That's what

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Speaker 3: it means to be cash poor. You can't really make

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Speaker 3: a living on that land over time, but if you

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Speaker 3: were to turn around and sell the land, you lose

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Speaker 3: everything else. You lose your job, your home, your community,

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Speaker 3: your heritage, it's everything you know. Each generation is raised

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Speaker 3: to hold on to that, and so that's the dilemma

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Speaker 3: that people face. And when you add to that, for

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Speaker 3: a farm family that doesn't own their land, the financial

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Speaker 3: burden of trying to find a way to purchase that

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Speaker 3: land is so incredibly high that it makes it even

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Speaker 3: more difficult for those farms to be profitable. So I'm

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Speaker 3: glad you were able to do that there in Illinois.

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Speaker 3: It also illustrates, you know, how often it is that

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Speaker 3: people aren't able to find fortunate opportunities like that. And

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Speaker 3: it contributes towards just another way that we're not allowing

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Speaker 3: the next generation of farmers to take root.

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Speaker 2: And one of the great feelings in the morning is

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Speaker 2: walking through a field of cornstalks. It's strange, but it's

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Speaker 2: got an eerie grade feeling to it.

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Speaker 3: It really does. Growing up close to the land walking

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Speaker 3: through the fields like that. You know, my Dad and I,

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Speaker 3: one of my best memories is not only the cornfields,

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Speaker 3: but also driving down in our valley where our farm

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Speaker 3: first began, where my great grandpa first found out living

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Speaker 3: here in America, And we would drive my Debt's pick

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Speaker 3: up and we'd rumble up onto the hillside and he'd

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Speaker 3: get out and he'd kneel down and he'd take the

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Speaker 3: hay in his hand. He'd just cut the hay a

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Speaker 3: day or two before. He'd take the hay in his hand,

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Speaker 3: and he'd look up at the sky and he would

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Speaker 3: be feeling whether it was dry enough to bail it

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Speaker 3: or chop it. And he'd be looking at the sky

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Speaker 3: and he'd be trying to figure out whether it was

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Speaker 3: going to be rain or sun that was going to

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Speaker 3: be coming for the next day or two. And being

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Speaker 3: that in close touch with the land and with the

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Speaker 3: atmosphere and trying to make a decision. And you know,

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Speaker 3: as a kid, I thought he could predict the winds

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Speaker 3: of the weather, you know, and he couldn't, of course,

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Speaker 3: but it was something that he almost did need to

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Speaker 3: be able to do to make the right decisions on

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Speaker 3: how to make sure that our friend could make it

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Speaker 3: each year. And is early to your point, it's a

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Speaker 3: magical thing to grow up getting an opportunity to be

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Speaker 3: part of something like that.

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Speaker 2: What do you recommend a parent do to with their

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Speaker 2: little kid where they don't have a farm, but they

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Speaker 2: live in suburbia, but they have a little backyard and

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Speaker 2: they can grow stuff. How do you get the kid

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Speaker 2: involved that way?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. It is an outstanding

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Speaker 3: thing to have a garden in your backyard, whether it's

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Speaker 3: you know, a few vegetables or whether you've got a

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Speaker 3: whole plot back there. That's an outstanding thing. There's also

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Speaker 3: opportunities with urban gardens where because more and more people

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Speaker 3: want to know where their food is coming from, and

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Speaker 3: then unfortunately there's fewer and fewer farms to supply it

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Speaker 3: unless we do something about it. There are urban gardens

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Speaker 3: where people were able to go to community spaces and gardens.

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Speaker 3: You know, the other thing that I think maybe isn't

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Speaker 3: as obvious of a choice, but it's not that far

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Speaker 3: out of people's reach, is to have your kid go

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Speaker 3: work on a farm. The reality is that because we

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Speaker 3: do have two million farms left, even though we've lost

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Speaker 3: seventy percent of them, there are farmers in all corners

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Speaker 3: of this country. And you know, perhaps there's someone in

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Speaker 3: your family that you know, or a friend of the family,

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Speaker 3: or someone you get to know in your community. You

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Speaker 3: want it to be someone that you trust. But boy,

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Speaker 3: sending your kids to summer camp at the farm there

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Speaker 3: couldn't be any more valuable. And you know, my parents,

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Speaker 3: for many years, they weren't able to have a child

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Speaker 3: until I came along and my sister a few years later.

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Speaker 3: For many years when they were struggling to have children,

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Speaker 3: they had a lot of family friends, relatives, cousins of

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Speaker 3: mine who when they were young kids came out to

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Speaker 3: the farm. And there's no better summer camp to learn

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Speaker 3: about work, to learn about values, learn about the circle

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Speaker 3: of life.

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Speaker 2: I used to grow a lot of tomatoes as a kid,

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Speaker 2: and one of the reasons I did. It is because

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Speaker 2: I got a kick kind of looking at those tomato

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Speaker 2: worms that would come by, those big green things.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they are strange creatures, aren't they. You know, tomatoes

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Speaker 3: is a great example.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: You think about a tomato that you buy from the

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Speaker 3: store or that you get in the restaurant, unless they

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Speaker 3: get it from a local farmer, and then you compare

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Speaker 3: that to a tomato that you bite off the vine,

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Speaker 3: and the taste is just it's just a revolution. When

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Speaker 3: it's a tomato that was grown in the ground by

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Speaker 3: someone that you know, the flavor to it is so different.

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Speaker 2: It's a moth, isn't it when it starts?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yes it is. And the transformation those animals go

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Speaker 3: through is an incredible thing. I remember when I was

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Speaker 3: a little kid, I was shorter than the tomato plants

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Speaker 3: and I used to walk up to those things that

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Speaker 3: I level and just be in awe of them.

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Speaker 2: They kind of look right back at you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah they do, Yeah, they do. It feels like they

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Speaker 3: definitely know you're there.

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Speaker 2: What about the suicide rate of farmers, Brian? Why is

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Speaker 2: that so high?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I appreciate you asking about that. Georgia, and it's a

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Speaker 3: very personal issue for so many of us. Farming is

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Speaker 3: consistently ranked as one of the top professions in suicide,

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Speaker 3: and the reason for it is this. The pressures that

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Speaker 3: farm space, where if you keep your land you can't

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Speaker 3: make a living and if you sell it you lose

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Speaker 3: everything else is really an unanswerable choice. And when you

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Speaker 3: combine that with the way farm families are raised, you know,

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Speaker 3: you're raised to get up and get the work done

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Speaker 3: and keep your head down. And it's not a cool upbringing.

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Speaker 3: You know, my dad had us picking rock by hand

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Speaker 3: in the fields because the rocks need to be picked up,

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Speaker 3: because he was cruel. He was a kind, supportive father.

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Speaker 3: But when you're doing that as a kid, you learn

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Speaker 3: to putting rocks in the bucket moving forward, and you

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Speaker 3: don't talk about your problems. And so when you combine

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Speaker 3: the economic devastation going on in that unanswerable choice of

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Speaker 3: you know, continuing to fail to make a living to

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Speaker 3: support your family or selling everything in return, when you

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Speaker 3: face that choice and you're raised to just keep working

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Speaker 3: and not complain, there's an incredible way of failure that

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Speaker 3: people feel. And the reason that I say it's a

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Speaker 3: personal thing. If you don't mind. My saying is, you know,

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Speaker 3: this is actually something my dad talking about in the book.

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Speaker 3: We start the book in the opening pages after we

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Speaker 3: had sold our dairy herd and we're still farming. We

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Speaker 3: changed our farm operation to be able to continue to

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Speaker 3: farm in another fashion, but we sold our dairy herd,

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Speaker 3: and that's like a death in the family for farm families.

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Speaker 3: And my dad was having those dark thoughts, and I'll

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Speaker 3: be so grateful that he came out of that, but

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Speaker 3: we did talk about that, and I could feel that

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Speaker 3: looming over us, and he walked off into the sunlight

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Speaker 3: and he began thinking of his grandkids and the fact

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Speaker 3: that he had teaching things and he repeated him to

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Speaker 3: himself over and over, and it brought him out of

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Speaker 3: that dark place. But I could feel that specter. And

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Speaker 3: we know farmers just right down the road who's succumbed

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Speaker 3: to that. And it's a really tragic thing that's happening

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Speaker 3: in farm country, and it's contributing toward our countries, you know,

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Speaker 3: I think a national mental health epidemic.

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Speaker 2: Really did he pull himself out of it on his

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Speaker 2: own or did he have to seek some professional help.

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Speaker 3: That's a great question in our case, there was a

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Speaker 3: support system that he had. He didn't end up going

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Speaker 3: to counseling, although I always recommend people do it. I

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Speaker 3: myself have gone to counseling and therapy for other issues,

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Speaker 3: and I know many people who have. Unless you start

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Speaker 3: talking about it, you realize how many people are out

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Speaker 3: there who do. In my dad's case, there was an

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Speaker 3: organization called the Farmer Angel Network, and they actually began

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Speaker 3: right down the road from us, because there was a

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Speaker 3: farmer who unfortunately his problems were so deep that he

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Speaker 3: lost hope and he took his own life, and he

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Speaker 3: inspired in his death the formation of the Farmer Angel

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Speaker 3: Network right down the road in Sauf County, Wisconsin, where

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Speaker 3: I'm from, and so rarely we are the epicenter in

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Speaker 3: some ways of the farmer's suicide crisis. Well, we had

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Speaker 3: some family friends who were part of that Farmer Angel Network,

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Speaker 3: and when we were preparing to sell our cows, they

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Speaker 3: were coming out and they were talking to my dad

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Speaker 3: sitting there discussing with them both during and after the

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Speaker 3: sale of the cows, and so my dad had talked

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Speaker 3: with them, felt that peer to peer farmer support it

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Speaker 3: had also helped us and the depth of the farmer

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Speaker 3: down the road helped us understand how important it was

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Speaker 3: that we all talking. And that's why at that moment

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Speaker 3: when he walked up in the site, it was so

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Speaker 3: singular to me.

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