Without farmers, you'd be hungry, naked and sober

Farmers keep us fed and our economies stable, but in the US they're retiring faster than they're being replaced. Take a crash course in agricultural policy with Eric Sannerud to see why this problem can't be solved by simply buying from your local farmer's market -- and learn how you can use your vote to create a better future for farmers.

So what do people usually say
when you're about to give a public talk?

It's to imagine
that your audience is naked.

(Laughter)

Well, I'm doing a different trick tonight,

and I'm going to imagine
all of us without farmers,

and well, it's not so much different.

[Without farmers you'd be hungry,
naked and sober]

(Laughter)

And our farmers do so much more for us

than simply feed and clothe
and provide us excellent things to drink.

Our farmers are an important part
of all of our communities,

particularly our rural communities.

And more than that,

they're a strong driver
of resilient economics.

Think about it this way:

When a brewer buys hops from me,
grown here in Minnesota,

90 percent of that dollar
stays in our state,

compared to just 10 percent
when they buy it from somewhere else.

What that means is a lot.

That 90 percent means local jobs.

It means tax revenue
for better schools and roads.

It means support
for the co-ops, the mechanics,

all the support staff that are needed
for a farm to thrive.

And they're our best stewards of the land.

This quote, I think, exemplifies
what our family farmers do for us

in stewarding our shared
natural resources.

"That land is a community
is the basic concept of ecology,

but that land is to be loved and respected
as an extension of ethics."

Now, they sure do
a lot of good stuff for us.

And our family farmers
are great, we'd all agree.

However,

the trends in agriculture today are dire.

The average age of a farmer in America,

according to the latest
agricultural census --

58.3.

Of all the farmers,

33 percent are 65 plus.

That's a little caricature of my grandpa.

(Laughter)

He's still farming,

and he's much older than 65.

But to put that in perspective,

another important
public service job, teaching,

average age of teachers is 42.

Our farmers are pretty old
in this country.

And unfortunately,

when they retire, if they retire,

we're not really replacing them.

Of all the farmers
that we added in this country

between 2008 and 2012,

across the entire United States --

see if you can catch this difference --

we added 2,000 under the age of 30.

I'm one of those.

I'll be around to autograph
some photos later, if you'd like.

(Laughter)

But, you know, our farmers
are getting older

and we're not replacing them --

what's going on here?

What are we going to do?

And I think there's a reason
folks aren't coming into it,

and that's prices.

We're going to go through
a couple of slides like this.

Milk: This is the average retail price
of a gallon of milk in the United States.

Four dollars forty-nine cents.

How much do you think the farmer gets?

Dollar thirty-two.

We'll try again with bread.

Average retail price of bread
in America, three forty-nine.

Farmer gets ...

Twelve cents.

Audience: Oh!

And so how are we supposed to have
strong local farms

in this scenario?

What are we supposed to do
if there aren't any local farmers left?

And this isn't just a farmer problem,

it's not just something
for the few of us farmers to sort out.

This is an all-of-us problem.

This is rural and it's urban
and it's statewide and it's nationwide.

So what do we do about it?

I'll tell you that.

But first, a story.

The green movement,
we're all kind of familiar,

started in the '60s, planting trees.

And now we've come such a long way.

Green is part of our day-to-day lives.

It's part of the day-to-day lives
of Fortune 500 businesses.

It's the subject
of international treaties,

the subject of presidential debates.

You and I, we switch our light bulbs,

we use reusable bags.

We participate in the green movement
each and every day.

Yet ...

and this is how we get to the idea --

the food movement,

relatively younger,
but also somewhat familiar, I imagine.

You go to the grocery store,

you see a sign that says "Buy local,"

you go to the farmers market,
you go to the co-op,

you read books by prominent authors.

The food movement to date

could be summarized
as voting with your fork.

The idea is: you pull a dollar
out of your wallet --

how you spend that dollar
affects the food system.

It supports farmers close to home.

And that's all well and good,
but where are we going?

How do we get to our
renewable-energy moment

like the green movement did?

And this, I think, is what we need to do.

Just voting with our fork
is not solving the issues

that our farmers are facing.

And so we need to do more than that.

I believe we must move on
from just voting with our fork

to voting with our vote.

We need to take our dollars

and continue to spend them locally.

We also need to show up
at the ballot box for our farmers.

This is bigger than just
buying local strawberries

once a year at a pick-your-own.

This is a year-round effort
that we must make together

to make the change we need.

Changes like fair pricing for farmers.

That's quotas, supply management,

guaranteed prices.

Changes like fair and open trade.

That means ending trade wars.

And yeah, of course it means voting.

Now we all knew that one already, though.

For example, it's working.

Hey, who's that?

(Laughter)

Just this year in Minnesota,

we've passed a historic,
first-in-the-country tax credit.

The Beginning Farmer Tax Credit.

It incentivizes our transition of land

from the existing generation
to the next generation.

That was done by a handful
of us young farmers --

we certainly don't have money,
you saw that earlier.

We don't have political experience.

But we showed up,
and we made our voices heard.

And thanks to the support
of farmers and non-farmers alike,

we got something incredible done
here in this state.

If we can do it, anybody can do it.

Now, that was all light and fuzzy
and feels pretty happy.

Skeptics in the audience, you're here.

That would be me, if I were here.

Skeptics are thinking,

"Wow, what do we need to change
about our food system?"

Farmers are great.

We have unlimited food,
and it's real cheap, too,

isn't that great?

Well, unfortunately,

in the '80s and the '90s in this country,
we went down a path of policy

that could be described
as "get big or get out."

And what "get big or get out" means
is you maximize production

while minimizing costs.

On its face value,
that sounds pretty simple.

However, that shift turned
our farmers from a venerated class

and a valued class in our society

into a cost to be minimized.

That shift made it
so that my great-grandfather,

who supported the family with six cows,

that same dairy,

trying to support their family,
has to be 600 cows today.

Six-thousand-cow dairies
are not unheard of.

What happens when
there's this one dairy farm

in an entire county,

where there used to be hundreds?

The same could be said
with corn or beans or field crops.

What happens when it takes 10,000 acres
for one person to support themselves?

When it used to only take 40.

We know what happens,
we read about it in the news.

Broadly determined, rural decline,

but schools close, schools consolidate,

post offices close, grocery stores close.

People leave,

the community suffers and goes away.

I believe all of us in this audience
with ties to rural Minnesota

know this story well.

This is not a problem that we can solve
with farmers markets and good intentions.

We have to do more for our farmers.

Policy got us into this mess,

and policy can get us out.

American farmers are only getting
older, fewer and poorer,

yet they are crucial to our state.

They're the vibrancy
in our rural communities.

They're the drivers
of economic growth and stability,

and they are our best protectors
of our shared resources

of land, water and air.

So we have to do better for them.

So join me, would you?

Let's fight for our farmers.

You can see it,

we're already doing it in Minnesota,
having great success.

And together, we can do even more.

And we must.

So we were voting with our fork before,

and we want to keep doing that.

But if I could have one idea
for you to go home with today,

it's vote with your vote.

And so to that end,

on the count of three,
I'd like all of us to say it together.

Are you ready?

OK, one,

two,

three.

Audience: Vote with your vote.

Very nice, thank you.

I think you got it.

(Applause)