In his new book Land Rich, Cash Poor, author and fourth-generation farmer Brian Reisinger sheds light on the harsh realities facing American family farms today. Despite owning land of high value, many farmers struggle to make a living due to skyrocketing costs for essentials like seed, fertilizer, and equipment, while crop prices remain stagnant.
Reisinger explores how this economic pressure is pushing 45,000 farms out of business every year and why younger generations are turning away from farming altogether. With a focus on both national and California-specific challenges—like burdensome regulations and controversial land grabs—he calls for renewed support through entrepreneurial opportunities, market access, and collaboration between farmers and environmental advocates.
Reisinger’s message is clear: without real change, we risk losing the backbone of our food system within a generation. Land Rich, Cash Poor is a call to action for anyone who cares about the future of farming, food security, and rural America.
AgNet West Nick Pagagni, “The Ag Meter”, spoke with Brian Reisinger. Listen to the full intetrview:
Script:
In this book, Brian covers challenges and solutions for farms in California and across the USA.
Nick begins by asking Brian: What made you write this book about farming?
“Well, thanks for having me. It’s good to be with you. You know, that Land Rich, Cash Poor dilemma really speaks to what our farmers are living with here, which is that the land that they’re working is worth so much, but the ability to make a living on it each year gets harder and harder.
And that’s the dilemma that farmers face in California and all across the country. I grew up on a farm of fourth generation, and I grew up working with my dad every time I could walk. And I always remember people coming in the driveway saying, oh, this farm sold, that farm went under.
I had a sense that farms were disappearing, but I didn’t know why. And I pursued a writing career off the farm in public policy and in journalism. And I found an economic system that was leaving our farms behind.
I wanted to know why. What we did with Land Rich, Cash Poor is we dug into those hidden areas of history, driving the disappearance of our family farms, learn what the impact that is. And then we rolled out with our family story from the Great Depression to today to try to show a little bit of the impact of this issue.”
Is it because of the water issues, land’s too expensive, fertilizer? Are all those the big issues?
“That’s absolutely right. You got rising costs, and then you got prices for our farmers that are going up and down, and they’re not keeping pace with those rising costs. So seed, feed, fertilizer, energy, land, taxes, regulations, all these things are on the rise.
And meantime, the farmers getting maybe what they were getting a couple of years ago or even a couple of decades ago in some cases for their prices. And, the reality is, that our farmers need new entrepreneurial opportunity. They need new markets.
They need new places they can sell their crops and products in order to be able to make a living. And this is, in many cases, this is small and medium sized American businesses getting wiped out. It’s actually to the tune of 45,000 farms per year on average for the past century that we’ve been losing.
The kids, are they getting into farming? Are they taking over their parents’ farms? How’s the next generation look?
“I do see the lack of involvement, but I’ll tell you what I think it’s due to. This is my take on the issue, at least on farm families I’ve talked to and young kids I know in farming.
There’s a lot of kids that are in FFA and 4-H passionate about agriculture, but they usually end up going into other parts of agriculture. They go work in the trades or they go off to school or go in the military. Those are all noble things to do.
But the reason they’re doing that is because they don’t necessarily see that bright economic future as our farms are disappearing. They don’t have a whole lot of guidance counselors in high school telling them, hey, you ought to go farm. And so, what I say is, if we could show that there’s a bright economic future for our young kids, if they want to farm, maybe they would stick around and work with dad or grandpa or mom or grandma, or maybe they would try to get a little piece of ground themselves and see if they could pursue something.
That would be a really good thing if there was a brighter economic future in it for all these young peopleWe’re talking about Brian Reisinger, who’s got the book Land, Rich, Cash, Poor. And I think it’s probably a better chance of winning the lottery than a kid saying, you know what, I want to own a farm because it’s got to be old money, right? It’s very daunting.
“It’s very daunting to get started. Land is a lot of money. Even if you have land in your family, a lot of times the older generation is selling to the younger generation.
It’s the retirement plan for the older generation. And for the younger generation, it’s something to buy into over-time. It has to be affordable.
Oftentimes the land isn’t affordable. Now, if you don’t have land being bought and sold between generations and passed down through your family, and you got to get ahold of land yourself, it’s even more prohibitive. And then you got, as you said, the cost of equipment and all the other day-to-day inputs people face that farmers face, it’s really, really discouraging.
And so, there are things that we need to try to bring those costs down and things we need to do to try to show young aspiring farmers that they can do it. But again, the economics are so hard that it’s very difficult to persuade people that too.
Brian, how about California? How crazy is it to farm in California?
“There’s always hope and hardship going hand in hand when it comes to our American farmers.
That’s been true through generations, and it’s very true here in California. As you know, the land is plentiful and fertile. There’s incredible industry, a lot of hardworking people working at it.
There has been a change where even more and more farms in California are disappearing. And government and some folks who have other issues in mind don’t make it easier. The reality is that our farmers, nobody cares more about healthy soil and clean abundant water than a good farmer.
But many folks who are focused on our environment or other issues have government regulations that are making it more costly, more difficult to farm. I always say to people, we can get people working on our family farms and people who care about the environment working together on soil, working together on water. There’s a lot of room for that.
It’s a divisive time in our country. And so unfortunately, you’ve got a lot of farmers whose livelihoods are being made more expensive by people who are focused on these other issues rather than working together.
There are huge issues up at Point Reyes right now, and I’m going to fight like heck for it.
There’re 10 or 12 farms the environmentalists are trying to take away. It’s simply a land grab. These farms have been in business for over 100 years.
I’m going to have Stephanie Moreda-Arend on next week from Moreda Valley Dairy, and we’re going to talk about this because she’s doing everything she can to fight against environmentalists and the land grab. What do you think of something like this? California is tough enough to, now we’ve got environmentalists and land grabbers coming in, trying to take good old-fashioned family farms away from people.
“Well, I’ll tell you, I’m so glad you’re shedding light on that issue.
And the reality is what they’re seeing up there is really a tragic situation. I mean, you have families who’ve been stewards of that land for years. And there is a way that you can do rotational grazing and you can do regenerative practices and you can do cover crops and conservation, working hand-in-hand with farmers.
And instead, what they’re doing up there is they’re driving the farmers out. And, it’s leaving us in a situation where, one, it’s contributing this issue of losing our farms, which affects every single American dinner table. It makes food more expensive when we buy our farms like that.
And it leaves that land in a situation where the people who have loved it and known it and cared for it aren’t working it anymore. And we don’t know necessarily what’s going to happen to it. What could the potential be?
I think there’s a lot of people who don’t understand where food actually comes from. There’re so many people, they just think, well, let’s go to the grocery store and grab some food. Do you think people are waking up to realize that we need to change?
“You know, I sure hope so. I try to approach it with good humor.
I tell people, hey, even I thought when I was a kid that the chocolate milk came from the brown cows, you know? But spending a little bit of time on the farm showed me that wasn’t the case. And I think that’s really the key is help people make the connection between the food and the farmer. And if we can get more and more people understanding what’s going on, on the ground, on our farms, what the challenges are and how that affects the food of everybody, it affects the availability, the security, the health and the affordability of our food.
We keep wiping out farmers like this, food prices are going to continue to go up. And so, I really hope that we can make that connection so that people can understand, hey, we can all work on this together and we can make food more affordable and healthier. But you got to have family farmers working the land to do that.
Brian Reisinger, the author of the book, Disappearing American Farmer. This is a fantastic book. I’m sad that it’s a fantastic book. I wish it wasn’t true, but it’s happening. And explaining what’s going on in the farming world from 30 years ago to now, it’s changed. And I don’t know what it’s going to be the next 30 years.
“Yeah, you know, I don’t either. I know what I hope and I know what I fear. What I hope is that we find a way to have new entrepreneurial opportunity for our farmers.
They can produce in more crops and products that people want and consumers are moving toward the farmer by buying food where they know where it comes from. If we can do more and more of that, we can find our way out of this. There’s a lot of changes we got to make, but that’s my hope.
And the resilience of the farm family is really just a clear American tradition at this point. And I hope we capitalize on it. If we don’t, here’s what the future will look like.
If we keep losing farms at the rate of 45,000 per year, like we have annually for the past century, we’re going to lose most of the rest of our farms in the next 40 years. I’m 40 years old now, my little girl is my age. We’re going to have lost most of the rest of our farms in 40 years if we don’t change direction.
So, I hope we do.
Brian. How do they get this book, this fantastic book, Land Rich, Cash Poor?
Absolutely. Land Rich, Cash Poor is available on Amazon or anywhere else you buy books online. It’s also available in bookstores across California and nationwide.
They’ll have it or they can order it for you. I just appreciate anybody who picks it up and keeps the word out there. But what’s going on with our farm families? What are the challenges? What are the solutions? And what do we all need to know to try to secure our food supply?
Can we win? Can the farmers win at the end of the day?
“I think they can. I think they can. And I’ll tell you why. I think about the resilience of the farm family.
My dad, at the tender age of eight, he had to step up and work the farm. We tell this story in the book. My grandpa slipped off a corn crib and broke his back.
He eventually got on his feet again, but not before my dad started doing the work of a man. And he never quit. And now he’s in his 70s.
And he’s either on the back of a tractor, or he’s rushing to get there if he isn’t. And it’s a kind of work that gets down into your blood and your bones. And I think about my dad’s love for what he does.
And I think, boy, we got farm families out there that are continuing to do this, even though we’ve kind of, in this country, deliberately made it not work economically for them to do it. But imagine what would happen. Imagine what they could accomplish if we made the economic work again.
So, Brian Reisinger, you can go to Amazon, get this book, Land, Rich, Cash, Poor. Where are you going to be speaking at for your book?
“Absolutely. I’m going to be talking about land, rich, cash, poor, and the challenges and solutions facing our family farms on May 31st at the Shepherd Garden and Arts Center in Sacramento.
That’s 3330 McKinley Boulevard in East Sacramento. It’s near McKinley Park. And we’re going to be talking about these issues, getting the word out.
If anybody is able to come down to the Shepherd Garden and Arts Center, we’d love to have them.
Fantastic book. Brian, thanks for hanging out with us today.
“Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
That’s Brian Reisinger, author of Land, Rich, Cash, Poor.
Wisconsin native and Journal Sentinel columnist Brian Reisinger launches his new book at Boswell. Land Rich, Cash Poor is a deep dive into the hidden history of an economic and cultural catastrophe – the disappearance of the American farmer. In conversation with Wisconsin journalist and documentarian Mike Gousha. Purchase a copy of Land Rich, Cash Poor here.