Why You Have Fewer Neighbors Than Your Grandpa
Brian Reisinger grew up working alongside his father on their dairy in Wisconsin. He saw firsthand how rural America changed during the 1980 farm crisis, but more importantly, he saw how their own operation continued to transform with the times. What was once a dairy farm is now a diversified operation consisting of raising dairy heifers, farming and selling beef directly to consumers. Brian is primarily a writer, but he still remains involved on the family farm while his sister takes over day-to-day operations. Brian is passionate about connecting the dots between ranchers and consumers by sharing how economics, policy, technology and population shifts along with a number of other factors have led to the reduction in farm numbers over the past century. He even went so far as to write a book, “Land Rich, Cash Poor” to inform both farmers and city-dwellers about what factors affect the food supply. “The reality is that the things that are happening in rural America affect every single American dinner table,” said Reisinger. He recognizes that the factors driving this change can be viewed as both good and bad and the history of American agriculturists is rich with innovation and resilience which is something to be celebrated. Regardless of the viewpoint, it’s important to understand what impacts how food is raised, and purchased and who can make a living off the process.
Population Shifts
During the Great Depression, family sizes were larger and one farm could not support all the children returning home. This was followed by the industrialization movement that occurred post-World War II. There were lots of people in rural communities but lots of jobs in urban areas. “This shift of rural workforce to the urban workforce was happening at a time when people in both the urban economy and the rural economy were kind of climbing in the middle classes, it was an incredible time in our country's history,” said Reisinger. However, this shift continued which has ultimately led to more people dying than being born in rural communities, fewer volunteers and fewer people starting businesses. This shift has been slightly reversed after remote work became more popular with COVID. More people are moving back, which creates more ideas and more monetary transactions within rural communities. Reisinger notes that this issue is a delicate one because people need to be supported if they are meant to thrive in urban areas, but it’s also important to create thriving rural communities that can support agriculture and a variety of industries.
Technology
With the population shift arose a labor challenge. Family sizes were reduced and fewer people in the community were available for hire. Farmers and ranchers were forced to become more efficient and technology was an avenue to make this happen. Brian said, “Technology made it so that farms could take on more acres and more animals with fewer people breaking their backs to do it. It allowed farms to become a little bigger and a little more profitable.” The downside to the technological expansion is what Reisinger calls the lack of scale-neutral technology. Medium and small-sized farms could not compete in the same manner as large-scale farms because the technology was not affordable. “I really think it's important to say that this is not a large versus small farm thing. This is just saying that technology could have provided innovation for farm businesses and operations of all sizes and types in different markets. Maybe more of our farmers could have survived through other means outside of getting bigger,” said Reisinger. Like most issues he speaks on, it is complex and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
Policy
Government policy is another factor that led to the reduction in the number of farms and ranches. Reisinger doesn’t pinpoint one specific policy he more so looks at the goal of several policies. “What I found as I was looking at the history of ag policies is that time and time again, our government policy was focused around kind of one specific thing – cheap food. It is a worthy goal, but shouldn't have been the whole thing because less thought went into what would help farmers of any size continue to balance guarantying an income and running a smart business,” said Brian. He found that this focus on policies resulted in a system with less options for producers and consumers to buy and sell food and created a vulnerable supply chain as we witnessed during COVID when there was ample supply and high demand but a bottleneck in the middle.
Population shift, technology and policy are only a few of the factors Reisinger evaluated during his research and conversations about the topic. He urges farmers, ranchers and consumers alike to put in the effort to understand not only where their food comes from but what factors change who can afford to raise it, how it is raised and how it is bought. After all, we all need food to survive so we might as well work together.
