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“Land Rich, Cash Poor” shows national crisis of disappearing American farmer drives up cost of food, impacts environment, national security, mental health
A new book out today reveals the hidden history of an economic and cultural crisis that threatens our very food supply with higher prices, and underlies many of our country’s deepest problems – the disappearance of the American farmer. Land Rich, Cash Poor: My Family’s Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer, written by award-winning writer Brian Reisinger, shows America has lost an average of 45,000 farms per year for a century.
Published today by Skyhorse and distributed by Simon & Schuster, Land Rich, Cash Poor weaves hidden eras of American history with the four-generation fight of Reisinger’s own family on their farm in southern Wisconsin, to tell this unique working-glass story with national implications. Along the way, Reisinger shows how this crisis contributes to food prices that rise far faster than the rate of inflation, a vulnerable food supply chain, and countless other problems – including economic devastation in rural America and beyond, our nation’s mental health crisis, environmental and national security dilemmas, and more.
“The truth is that the hollowing out of rural America is having an impact on every single American dinner table,” Reisinger said. “I couldn’t be more grateful to have the opportunity to share the challenges our farm families are facing, and show how much resilience remains despite decades of untold economic hardship and change. I did my best to tell this story honestly, and offer a candid look at what we can do about it – before it’s too late.”
Readers of Land Rich, Cash Poor will 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, including 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, and personal storytelling, Reisinger reveals a gripping crisis and ways to find solutions.
Land Rich, Cash Poor is available in bookstores nationwide, and online via Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org. More on the book and on the author is also available at www.brian-reisinger.com. Reisinger, who grew up working with his dad from the time he could walk, has had a writing career that’s taken him through the worlds of business journalism and public policy. In addition to his writing, Reisinger also serves as President and Chief Content Officer for Wisconsin-based Platform Communications. (See reviews on next page.)
