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tv   Washington Journal Brian Reisinger  CSPAN  September 23, 2024 1:46pm-1:59pm EDT

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intellectual property theft. watch the house ways and means committee hearing tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. c-span now our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry, c-span has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress, from the house and senate floors, to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front row seat to how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely unfiltered. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. joining us now is te author of the recently published land rich, cash poor, my
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families hope in the untold history of the disappearing american farmer. why do you say the american farmer is disappearing? guest: i stayed in part because i grew up with it pray thank you for having me on. i entire childhood i knew farms like ours getting up to work with my dad sunup to sundown we can see the farms going by the wayside around us. what i didn't understand was why. throughout the farm business journals and public policy i want to answer that question and we really try to look at that, tell the story beneath the surface of irr farms disappearing and how does that mirror my family story. it's a very personal issue for me and we have seen we lost nearly 45,000 farms per year annually for the past century. that's not only affecting rural america but it's affecting every american, the price the food and supply, what we eat, it's a very
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serious issue that i hope more people care about. host: what happens to that farmland, what happens to those farmers? guest: one of the things that happens is they go bankrupt. my home state of wisconsin in the years from when my dad took over to an my sisters were coming-of-age, in those years wisconsin went from number one in milk production to number one in bankruptcies for farms so there are farms that are simply going under, families losing everything. their literal loss of farms. there also farms trying to survive in this environment and so this a little bit of industry consolidation there. this development pressure and other things like that as other areas -- urban areas spread it takes pressure for farmers to sell and makes it harder to make a living. and their land becomes more valuable.
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so people are pressured over time by our economy to either grind out a living and maybe face the day where they tell their families they can make ends meet or sell their land and lose everything else because when you grow up on a farm it's not just your dad's job, it's your home, your community and your heritage. host: what's the difference in a big farm and a small farm and decide what to grow and how long it's been around. guest: the big farms trying to keep up with the big companies, and keep up with global trade so it's really difficult dilemma. the big difference is farms like the one i grew up on 50 cows of the time when i was a kid would've been a mid range farm. now at that point it's closer to 1200 cows so it's a massive matter of scale and is also a massive matter of technology change. a lot of technology has left
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smaller and medium farms behind. one of the biggest differences you see is most farmers these days really specialize in one type of crop. that's true of most any form large or small. some larger ones try to diversify and find more ways to make money. one of the big differences is you see the big farms are able to make it, the medium and small farms often aren't. you have guys and women who are pulling construction shifts, working at the factory who are pouring concrete all while also operating a farm. doing those two or three jobs just to keep the supplemental income from the farm going. host: how long has your family farm been in your family? guest: more than a century. it's a proud tradition for us. my great grandma and grandfather founded the farm. my grandpa survived the depression, climbed out of poverty and the middle class. today with my sister we will
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take over the farm from our dad and moving to the fourth generation. host: what was the farm crisis in the 1980's and are we in a current farm crisis? host: we have been in ongoing -- guest: we have been an ongoing farm crisis since the depression in one way or another. the 80's was a time. where farmers had their own dedicated rural suppression. it was something as devastating as any economic recession but it was confined to rural communities and farms. farms were getting bigger, this is under the salomon leadership of both parties. government fuel debt to take on more land and try to feed our country and feed the world abroad. and as they took on that debt, suddenly we were in in -- where inflation was in control. the government also increased interest rates making that data more expensive so you have the
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government encouraging farms to take on large amounts of debt and making that debt overnight expensive. there were a lot of farms that went under with a lot of community that were devastated. my parents came through that time. , they dealt with sickness of the herd during that and they dealt with the economic problems. we were lucky enough through the generosity of neighbors and hard work they were able to wipe out that debt just before that happened with her sony farms that took out jet -- debt just before the crisis. host: brian rising her is the author and he's with us to the end of our program today, phone lines split this way. , kratz, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents 202-748-8002 and
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then setting aside a special line for farmers in this country, would love to hear from you about your farming story, how washington legislation is impacting you. give us a call on 202-748-8003. that's a special line for farmers only on that. as folks are calling in, explain what the farm bill is and what it does every time congress passes it. guest: it's a wide array of government programs that impact pricing that attempt to impact supply and different elements of our farm health. it is also in the much bigger way, the overwhelming majority of the farm bill is actually a wide range of government programs including snap which used to be highly known as food stamps. in any case, every five years
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essentially congress is supposed to pass a bill the generally ends up being bipartisan to establish our foreign cash farm policy and food policy congress is notoriously late on this, it's one of those really important bills that affects so much that is so often put behind the other crises that are government deals with. we just had a funding deal on the government and the farm bill is so often put behind priorities like that. incredibly large piece of policy that often languishes and so over time it doesn't really get reformed, it gets extended or may be tweaked but it is incredibly large piece of policy for farmers to the food people eat across this country. host: what's an example that needs to be reformed in the farm bill right now. guest: simply the structural nature of it. one of the farmers i talked to our kind of like a fragile jango
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tower. whether you agree with each program or not, where the like that placement so to speak can be discussed and debated. we don't necessarily have a farm policy that works for everybody, so for example there's a lot of government subsidies that may or may not be what the consumer needs with the farmer should be pursuing her mantra. standpoint. you can find people on the left and right, outside of farming and within farming or upset about our farm policies because it's this mishmash over time. host: this is from a pew research center report on the urban rural political divide in america. back in april but this is what it had to say about ruralics. in 2000, other public and party
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he a narrow lien identification advantage over the democratic party among rural that grew substantially over the next decade. by 201gop's advantage had widened to 13 percentage pnt and has nearlyoubled since then under public and party now holds a 25 point edge over the democratic party amongst rural voters. why is that, what's happened in the past when he four years? guest: one of the things that happened is rural americans felt left behind in our economy and farmers are not unlike rustbelt workers or coal miners except the problem goes back deeper, goes back a century. so there were some any people in rural left behind, republicans have managed to channel that frustration and that is something that has really changed our electorate. one thing i remind people of, we do see it in the electorate, rural voters are very independent thinking people when
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you're out there on your own, you have a high bs meter and have to figure how do things on your own. it wasn't that long ago to your point it is a large swing and there's a very strong gop support in rural areas but it wasn't all that long ago barack obama was winning some of those areas are leased more competitive in those areas. it's an area that i think is frustrated but i think it's also an area with a lot of independent thinking people and so over time we do see these things change and right now it's moving towards the republicans. host: what scenario barack obama won this likely off the table for rural parts of the country. >> the hills of southern wisconsin. south county is one of the most swing counties in one of most swing states in the country. and you know counties like that, southwest wisconsin that will be
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quite difficult for the democrats to win. i think that county might actually continue to be one of the most swing counties causes a lot of people moving in their so it's remaining swing but a lot of southwestern's constant counties absolutely western and northwestern wisconsin counties but at one time could've been picked up by barack obama or picked up by others have really swung hard for republicans. entire third congressional district used to be held by ron kind in the la crosse area now held by derrick van orden and that whole district swung dramatically. that phone line -- host: holding aside that line for farmers, 202-748-8003. we would love to hear your farm storiesthis is gina in kentuckye for democrats. go ahead. caller: yes. i would like to ask you a question. how much local farmers are
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disadvantaged by large corporations taking over farms? and being able to beat the process that the little farmer cannot. and also, the disadvantage of rural farmers not being able to be connected to the websites with better technology for their farms. it has been an ongoing problem for rural areas. i would just like to know what your thoughts are. guest: absolutely. it is a great question. and something we have in our american economy and the global economy as well but particularly we have industries across the american economy dominated by very few large players. very consolidated in the economy. there are reasons for that that relate to regulations in our country and the issue of global trade. when we

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