Just before the holidays, Congress reached a spending deal to avert a government shutdown with hours to spare.
One major part of that spending package was an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill.
The farm bill is an important piece of food and farm legislation.
It’s supposed to be updated every five years, but the latest one from 2018 just keeps getting extended like it did again in December.
“There's all kinds of things people don't like about our farm programs in this country, and rather than rolling up our sleeves and doing the long-term work figuring out, ‘How do we need to change these programs? How do we need to change government policy to make sure it's working for our family farms and allowing us to have this good family driven source of food for our country?’ Rather than doing that, we're just kind of punting,” said Brian Reisinger.
Reisinger said it’s an example of how legislation, among other things, has hurt family-owned farms over the years and led to their decline.
He’s the author of Land Rich, Cash Poor, My Family's Hope and The Untold History of The Disappearing American Farmer.
“We've got both parties continuing to do what they've been doing for the past several decades, which has failed to find ways to have innovative, new solutions for our farmers, and therefore for everyone who eats in this country,” said Reisinger.
Wisconsin saw a nearly 10% drop in the number of farms between 2017 and 2022.
All of the declines where in farms under 1,000 acres. The number of larger farms increased during that time.
Government policies are just one thing Reisinger pointed to as to why the U.S. has seen a decline in family farms. Misunderstanding economic crises and changing technology are other factors, Reisinger calls the latter a double-edged sword.
“It has helped farming advance, and in certain ways, it has also left many of our farms behind,” said Reisinger.
He encourages people to pay more attention to things like the Farm Bill and the loss of family farms in their communities, saying it can be felt in many aspects of life.
The high price of eggs right now, for example, are made worse because of a lack of family farms, according to Reisinger.
The average price of a dozen eggs in Wisconsin right now is $4.78. Bird flu outbreaks have reduced the number of chickens available for egg production, driving up the cost nationally.
“We have a large integrated food system where the supply chain is very easily disrupted. We saw that during COVID. We see that right now with bird flu,” said Reisinger. “We have such an integrated food system that it's very easy for bird flu to hit a particular part of our supply chain and knock it out, as opposed to having many farms getting food to people in many different ways. It impacts the security of our food, the health of our food.”
The loss of family farms is a personal one for Reisinger who grew up on a family farm in southern Wisconsin that his father and sister run today.
They’re now fourth generation farmers.
“My great grandparents escaped pre-World War I Europe, to find a better living in America. They found it by digging the living out of the dirt in the hills of Wisconsin,” said Reisinger. “My grandparents climbed out of the depression. My parents survived the farm crisis, and my sister and I grew up through globalization and the recession of the 2000s and all these other things.”
In his book, Reisinger dives into the history of farming of America and what’s driving the decline of family farms and weaves his family’s farming history from the Great Depression to now into it.
As much as he details the struggles of farmers, he says they’re also extremely resilient.
“There are so many farm families that have the kind of resilience in the face of weather, and farm accidents, and addiction, and all the challenges that can occur for a family trying to make it as your economics get harder and harder,” said Reisinger. “My hope is that people can take away we can do something about this. We can take steps to have new innovation that can help small farms, as well as farms of larger sizes.”
Reisinger’s book was one of eight featured in C-Span’s 2024 author series about important cultural or political developments in American life.
