1
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So what do people usually say
when you're about to give a public talk?

2
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It's to imagine
that your audience is naked.

3
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(Laughter)

4
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Well, I'm doing a different trick tonight,

5
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and I'm going to imagine
all of us without farmers

6
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and well, it's not so much different.

7
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[Without farmers,
you'd be hungry, naked and sober]

8
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(Laughter)

9
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And our farmers do so much more for us

10
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than simply feed and clothe
and provide us excellent things to drink.

11
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Our farmers are an important part
of all of our communities,

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particularly our rural communities.

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And more than that,

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they're a strong driver
of resilient economics.

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Think about it this way:

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

17
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90 percent of that dollar
stays in our state,

18
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compared to just 10 percent
when they buy it from somewhere else.

19
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What that means is a lot.

20
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That 90 percent means local jobs.

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It means tax revenue
for better schools and roads.

22
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It means support
for the co-ops, the mechanics,

23
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all the support staff that are needed
for a farm to thrive.

24
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And they are our best
stewards of the land.

25
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This quote I think exemplifies
what our family farmers do for us

26
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in stewarding our shared
natural resources.

27
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"That land is a community

28
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is the basic concept of ecology,

29
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but that land is to be loved and respected

30
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as an extension of ethics."

31
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Now, they sure do
a lot of good stuff for us.

32
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And our family farmers
are great, we'd all agree.

33
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However,

34
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the trends in agriculture today are dire.

35
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The average age of a farmer in America,

36
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according to the latest
agricultural census --

37
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58.3

38
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Of all the farmers,

39
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33 percent are 65 plus.

40
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That's a little caricature of my grandpa.

41
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(Laughter)

42
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He's still farming,

43
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and he's much older than 65.

44
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But to put that in perspective

45
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another important
public service job, teaching,

46
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average age of teachers is 42.

47
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Farmers are pretty old in this country.

48
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And unfortunately,

49
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when they retire, if they retire,

50
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we're not really replacing them.

51
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Of all the farmers
that we added in this country

52
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between 2008 and 2012,

53
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across the entire United States,

54
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see if you can catch this difference,

55
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we added 2,000 under the age of 30.

56
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I'm one of those.

57
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I'll be around to autograph
some photos later, if you'd like.

58
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(Laughter)

59
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You know, our farmers are getting older

60
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and we're not replacing them,

61
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what's going on here?

62
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What are we going to do?

63
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And I think there's a reason
folks aren't coming into it,

64
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and that's prices.

65
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We're going to go through
a couple of slides like this.

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

67
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Four dollars 49 cents.

68
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How much do you think the farmer gets?

69
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Dollar thirty-two.

70
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Dollar thirty-two.

71
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We'll try again with bread.

72
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Average retail price of bread
in America, three forty-nine.

73
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Farmer gets 12 cents.

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Audience: Oh!

75
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And so how are we supposed to have
strong local farms

76
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in this scenario?

77
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What are we supposed to do
if there aren't any local farmers left?

78
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And this isn't just a farmer problem,

79
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it's not just something
for the few of us farmers to sort out.

80
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This is an all-of-us problem.

81
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This is rural and it's urban
and it's state-wide and it's nation-wide.

82
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So what do we do about it?

83
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I'll tell you that.

84
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But first, a story.

85
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The green movement,
we're all kind of familiar,

86
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started in the '60s, planting trees.

87
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And now we've come such a long way.

88
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Green is part of our day-to-day lives.

89
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It's part of the day-to-day lives
of Fortune 500 businesses.

90
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It's a subject of international treaties,

91
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the subject of presidential debates.

92
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You and I, we switch our light bulbs,

93
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we use reusable bags.

94
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We participate in the green movement
each and every day.

95
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Yet --

96
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and this is how we get to the idea --

97
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the food movement,

98
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relatively younger,

99
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but also somewhat familiar, I imagine.

100
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You go to the grocery store,

101
00:04:04,498 --> 00:04:06,307
you see a sign that says "Buy local,"

102
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you go to the farmers market,
you go to the co-op,

103
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you read books by prominent authors.

104
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The food movement to date

105
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could be summarized
as voting with your fork.

106
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The idea is you pull a dollar
out of your wallet.

107
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How you spend that dollar
affects the food system.

108
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It supports farmers close to home.

109
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And that's all well and good,
but where are we going?

110
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How do we get to our
renewable-energy moment

111
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like the green movement did?

112
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And this, I think, is what we need to do.

113
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Just voting with out fork
is not solving the issues

114
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that our farmers are facing.

115
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And so we need to do more than that.

116
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I believe we must move on
from just voting with our fork

117
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to voting with our vote.

118
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We need to take our dollars

119
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and continue to spend them locally.

120
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We also need to show up
at the ballot box for our farmers.

121
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This is bigger than just
buying local strawberries

122
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once a year at Pick your own.

123
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This is a year-round effort
that we must make together

124
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to make the change we need.

125
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Changes like fair pricing for farmers.

126
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That's quotas, supply management,

127
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guaranteed prices.

128
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Changes like fair and open trade.

129
00:05:09,221 --> 00:05:11,155
That means ending trade wars.

130
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And yeah, of course it means voting.

131
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Now we all knew that one already though.

132
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For example, it's working.

133
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Hey, who's that?

134
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(Laughter)

135
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Just this year in Minnesota,

136
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we've passed a historic,
first-in-the-country tax credit.

137
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The Beginning Farmer Tax Credit.

138
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It incentivizes our transition of land

139
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from the existing generation
to the next generation.

140
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That was done by a handful
of us young farmers,

141
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We certainly don't have money,
you saw that earlier.

142
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We don't have political experience.

143
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But we showed up
and we made our voices heard.

144
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And thanks to the support
of farmers and non-farmers alike,

145
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we got something incredible done
here in this state.

146
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If we can do it, anybody can do it.

147
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Now, that was all light and fuzzy

148
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and feels pretty happy.

149
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Skeptics in the audience, you're here.

150
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That would be me if I were here.

151
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Skeptics are thinking,

152
00:06:01,007 --> 00:06:03,988
"Wow, what do we need to change
about our food system?"

153
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Farmers are great.

154
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We have unlimited food
and it's real cheap too,

155
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isn't that great?

156
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Well unfortunately,

157
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in the '80s and the '90s in this country

158
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we went down a path of policy

159
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that could be described as
"get big or get out."

160
00:06:19,926 --> 00:06:23,696
And what "get big or get out" means
is you maximize production

161
00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:25,254
while minimizing costs.

162
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On its face value,
that sounds pretty simple.

163
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However, that shift

164
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turned our farmers from a venerated class

165
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and a valued class in our society

166
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into a cost to be minimized.

167
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That shift made it
so that my great grandfather,

168
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who supported the family with six cows,

169
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that same dairy,

170
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trying to support their family,
has to be 600 cows today.

171
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Six thousand-cow dairies
are not unheard of.

172
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What happens when
there's this one dairy farm

173
00:06:57,573 --> 00:06:58,748
in an entire county,

174
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where there used to be hundreds?

175
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The same could be said
with corn or beans or field crops.

176
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What happens when it takes 10,000 acres
for one person to support themselves?

177
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When it used to only take 40.

178
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We know what happens,

179
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we read about it in the news.

180
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[unclear] rural decline,

181
00:07:18,092 --> 00:07:19,983
but schools close, schools consolidate,

182
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post offices close, grocery stores close.

183
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People leave,

184
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the community suffers and goes away.

185
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I believe all of us in this audience
with ties to rural Minnesota

186
00:07:31,228 --> 00:07:32,628
know this story well.

187
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This is not a problem that we can solve

188
00:07:36,618 --> 00:07:38,998
with farmers markets and good intentions.

189
00:07:39,022 --> 00:07:41,608
We have to do more for our farmers.

190
00:07:41,632 --> 00:07:43,895
Policy got us into this mess,

191
00:07:43,919 --> 00:07:45,652
and policy can get us out.

192
00:07:47,109 --> 00:07:51,781
American farmers are only getting
older, fewer and poorer.

193
00:07:52,163 --> 00:07:54,430
Yet they are crucial to our state.

194
00:07:54,782 --> 00:07:57,186
They are the vibrancy
in our rural communities.

195
00:07:57,210 --> 00:08:00,139
They are the drivers
of the economic growth and stability.

196
00:08:00,576 --> 00:08:04,354
And they are our best protectors
of our shared resources

197
00:08:04,378 --> 00:08:05,911
of land, water and air.

198
00:08:06,268 --> 00:08:08,307
So we have to do better for them.

199
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So join me, would you?

200
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Let's fight for our farmers.

201
00:08:11,752 --> 00:08:12,903
You can see it,

202
00:08:12,927 --> 00:08:14,658
we're already doing it in Minnesota,

203
00:08:14,682 --> 00:08:16,082
having great success.

204
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And together, we can do even more.

205
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And we must.

206
00:08:19,839 --> 00:08:23,154
So we were voting with our fork before,

207
00:08:23,178 --> 00:08:24,970
and we want to keep doing that.

208
00:08:24,994 --> 00:08:27,877
But if I could have one idea
for you to go home with today,

209
00:08:27,901 --> 00:08:29,702
it's vote with your vote.

210
00:08:29,726 --> 00:08:30,996
And so to that end,

211
00:08:31,020 --> 00:08:34,094
on the count of three,
I'd like all of us to say it together.

212
00:08:34,118 --> 00:08:35,268
Are you ready?

213
00:08:36,477 --> 00:08:38,445
OK, one,

214
00:08:38,469 --> 00:08:39,865
two,

215
00:08:39,889 --> 00:08:41,052
three.

216
00:08:41,076 --> 00:08:43,301
Audience: Vote with your vote.

217
00:08:43,325 --> 00:08:44,492
Very nice, thank you.

218
00:08:44,516 --> 00:08:45,786
I think you got it.

219
00:08:45,810 --> 00:08:48,337
(Applause)