Land rich, cash poor : my family's hope and the untold history of the disappearing American farmer / Brian Reisinger.

By:

Reisinger, Brian [author.]

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: New York, NY : Skyhorse Publishing, [2024]Description: 258 pages ; 24 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9781510779983
1510779981

Other title:

My family's hope and the untold history of the disappearing American farmer

Subject(s):

Additional physical formats: Online version:: Land rich, cash poorLOC classification:

HD1476.U5 R45 2024

Contents:

Chapter 1. This land -- Chapter 2. Down in that hole -- Chapter 3. The forgotten depression -- Chapter 4. The tortured path -- Chapter 5. Back-breaking work -- Chapter 6. Deadly weather -- Chapter 7. A tale of two farms kids -- Chapter 8.The century of recessions -- Chapter 9. Holding on -- Chapter 10. COVID crash -- Chapter 11. A once and future family farm: the road to revival.

Summary: "The hidden history of an economic and cultural catastrophe that is threatening our very food supply-the disappearance of the American farmer"-- Provided by publisher.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Adult Book	Phillipsburg Free Public Library	Adult Non-Fiction	New Books	338.10973 REI	Available		36748002577908

Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

2025 Book of the Year Award Winner from the Nonpartisan Farm Foundation
A C-SPAN Author Series Most Important Book of 2024

The award-winning hidden history of an economic and cultural crisis that is threatening our very food supply--the disappearance of the American farmer.

"An anthem to the family farm in America." -- AP News

Taking on this working-class story of heart and hardship, writer and rural policy expert Brian Reisinger weaves forgotten eras of American history with his own family's four-generation fight for survival on their small Midwestern farm. Readers learn the truth about America's most detrimental and unexplained socioeconomic crisis: How the family farms that feed us went from cutting a middle-class path through the Great Depression to barely making ends meet in modern America. Along the way, they'll see what it truly takes to feed our country: accidents that can kill or maim; weather that blesses or threatens; resilience in the face of crushing economic crises, from depressions and recessions to COVID-19; and the tradition that presses down on each generation when you're not just fighting for your job, you're fighting for your heritage.

With newly analyzed data, sharp historical analysis, conversations with some of modern farming's most notable champions and critics alike, honest debate on both sides of the aisle and everywhere in between, and personal storytelling, Reisinger reveals how the hollowing out of rural America is affecting every single American dinner table. Food prices soaring far beyond the rate of inflation, a vulnerable food supply chain, environmental and ecological dilemmas, the security of our farmland from foreign adversaries, a mental health crisis that includes farmer suicides and addictions, a deepening urban-rural divide, and more worries than ever about what's for dinner. These are all becoming the hallmarks of a food system that has long stood as a modern miracle. The critically acclaimed Land Rich, Cash Poor offers the truth and what we can do--before it's too late.

Includes bibliographical references.

"The hidden history of an economic and cultural catastrophe that is threatening our very food supply-the disappearance of the American farmer"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

Introduction: Spring Water (1)
Chapter 1 This Land (13)
Chapter 2 "Down in That Hole" (25)
Chapter 3 The Forgotten Depression (41)
Chapter 4 The Tortured Path (59)
Chapter 5 Back-Breaking Work (77)
Chapter 6 Deadly Weather (99)
Chapter 7 A Tale of Two Farm Kids (121)
Chapter 8 The Century of Recessions (143)
Chapter 9 Holding On (165)
Chapter 10 Covid Crash (187)
Chapter 11 The Road to Revival (209)
Epilogue (237)
Final Note on Mental Health (241)
Acknowledgments (243)
Endnotes (247)

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Copyright © 2024 Brian Reisinger. Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved. Chapter 5 Back-Breaking Work 1950s-60s: Becoming the Little Guy in an Ever-Changing World Only a dark set of curtains separated Jim from his father. Jim was eight years old and had been sent away--to live in town with his aunt, after Albert fell off the corn crib and cracked his back on the frozen ground. They didn't tell Jim why or that anything was wrong, and he got to play with his cousins. However, it wasn't long before he asked to go home, where there were baby calves to play with and clean country air. When they wouldn't take him home, he wondered why. He asked again, over and over, for a time longer than a young child could measure. Finally, one day, they took him home to the white farmhouse on the hill to see the truth. He stood before his parents' bedroom, that set of brown curtains concealing what they'd hidden from him. Jim crept forward and pushed through. What he saw on the other side was a world different from the one he'd left: his father, in bed, flat on his back. Jim stood there and stared. Then his mother grabbed him. "Get outta there." The curtains fell back into place, and Jim could no longer see his father. But the new world on the other side of that curtain remained--a world where his father's back was broken and where his family needed his help; where a little boy would work alongside the uncle and neighbor who came to help with the milking every morning and night, and alongside his fast and fearsome mother; where he'd haul hay bales and scoop corn and oats from a wheelbarrow to feed the cows, scrape the barn's driveway of manure, and struggle now with the rowdy calves he loved, to make them drink milk from a bucket; where the days were so long, Jim would miss too much school to pass out of third grade; where all the while his father laid in bed, shattered somewhere deep inside. It was a world where a boy would learn to do the work of his father, and not stop until he was grown himself, and then continue on. And nothing would be the way it was before. Excerpted from Land Rich, Cash Poor: My Family's Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer by Brian Reisinger All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.