WEBVTT

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

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It's to imagine
that your audience is naked.

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(Laughter)

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Well, I'm doing a different trick tonight,

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

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and well, it's not so much different.

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

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(Laughter)

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And our farmers do so much more for us

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

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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,

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90 percent of that dollar
stays in our state,

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

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What that means is a lot.

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That 90 percent means local jobs.

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It means tax revenue
for better schools and roads.

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

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

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And they're our best stewards of the land.

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

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in stewarding our shared
natural resources.

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

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

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

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

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However,

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the trends in agriculture today are dire.

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The average age of a farmer in America,

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according to the latest
agricultural census --

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58.3.

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Of all the farmers,

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33 percent are 65 plus.

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That's a little caricature of my grandpa.

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(Laughter)

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He's still farming,

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and he's much older than 65.

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But to put that in perspective,

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another important
public service job, teaching,

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average age of teachers is 42.

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Our farmers are pretty old
in this country.

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And unfortunately,

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when they retire, if they retire,

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we're not really replacing them.

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Of all the farmers
that we added in this country

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between 2008 and 2012,

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across the entire United States --

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see if you can catch this difference --

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we added 2,000 under the age of 30.

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I'm one of those.

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

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(Laughter)

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But, you know, our farmers
are getting older

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and we're not replacing them --

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what's going on here?

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What are we going to do?

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

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and that's prices.

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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.

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Four dollars forty-nine cents.

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How much do you think the farmer gets?

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Dollar thirty-two.

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We'll try again with bread.

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

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Farmer gets ...

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Twelve cents.

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Audience: Oh!

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And so how are we supposed to have
strong local farms

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in this scenario?

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

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And this isn't just a farmer problem,

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

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This is an all-of-us problem.

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

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So what do we do about it?

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I'll tell you that.

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But first, a story.

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

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started in the '60s, planting trees.

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And now we've come such a long way.

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

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

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It's the subject
of international treaties,

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the subject of presidential debates.

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You and I, we switch our light bulbs,

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we use reusable bags.

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We participate in the green movement
each and every day.

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Yet ...

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and this is how we get to the idea --

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the food movement,

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relatively younger,
but also somewhat familiar, I imagine.

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You go to the grocery store,

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you see a sign that says "Buy local,"

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

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you read books by prominent authors.

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The food movement to date

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could be summarized
as voting with your fork.

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

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how you spend that dollar
affects the food system.

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It supports farmers close to home.

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

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How do we get to our
renewable-energy moment

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like the green movement did?

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

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Just voting with our fork
is not solving the issues

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that our farmers are facing.

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And so we need to do more than that.

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

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to voting with our vote.

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We need to take our dollars

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and continue to spend them locally.

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

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This is bigger than just
buying local strawberries

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once a year at a pick-your-own.

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

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to make the change we need.

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Changes like fair pricing for farmers.

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That's quotas, supply management,

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guaranteed prices.

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Changes like fair and open trade.

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That means ending trade wars.

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And yeah, of course it means voting.

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Now we all knew that one already, though.

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For example, it's working.

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Hey, who's that?

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(Laughter)

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Just this year in Minnesota,

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

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The Beginning Farmer Tax Credit.

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It incentivizes our transition of land

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from the existing generation
to the next generation.

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

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

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We don't have political experience.

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

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

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we got something incredible done
here in this state.

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If we can do it, anybody can do it.

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

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Skeptics in the audience, you're here.

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That would be me, if I were here.

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Skeptics are thinking,

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

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Farmers are great.

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

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isn't that great?

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Well, unfortunately,

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

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

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

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while minimizing costs.

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On its face value,
that sounds pretty simple.

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However, that shift turned
our farmers from a venerated class

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and a valued class in our society

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into a cost to be minimized.

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That shift made it
so that my great-grandfather,

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who supported the family with six cows,

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that same dairy,

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

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Six-thousand-cow dairies
are not unheard of.

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What happens when
there's this one dairy farm

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in an entire county,

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where there used to be hundreds?

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

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

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When it used to only take 40.

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

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Broadly determined, rural decline,

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but schools close, schools consolidate,

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post offices close, grocery stores close.

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People leave,

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the community suffers and goes away.

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

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know this story well.

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

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We have to do more for our farmers.

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Policy got us into this mess,

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and policy can get us out.

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American farmers are only getting
older, fewer and poorer,

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yet they are crucial to our state.

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They're the vibrancy
in our rural communities.

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They're the drivers
of economic growth and stability,

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and they are our best protectors
of our shared resources

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of land, water and air.

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So we have to do better for them.

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So join me, would you?

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Let's fight for our farmers.

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You can see it,

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

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And together, we can do even more.

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And we must.

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So we were voting with our fork before,

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and we want to keep doing that.

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

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it's vote with your vote.

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And so to that end,

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

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Are you ready?

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OK, one,

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two,

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three.

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Audience: Vote with your vote.

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Very nice, thank you.

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I think you got it.

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(Applause)