Farmers, educators, and advocates talked about how to deal with the situation they say is undermining the foundation of independent farming and the communities it supports, as well as overall stewardship, fairness, and justice.

Issues discussed included high health insurance costs and low farm prices.

According to the LSP, the 2018 median farm income for U.S. farm households was a negative $1,533. For six years, more than half of U.S. farmers and ranchers lost money on their crops and herds. More than two-thirds of total income of farm families comes from off-farm sources.

“It’s getting pretty tough the way things are going,” said Wabasso farmer Leon Plaetz. “If you want only three or four large farms in the county, do nothing. If you want to do something, fill out these surveys, statements, petitions, contact politicians and other officials and go to meetings.”

Staff photo by Fritz Busch Minnesota Department of Agriculture Farm Advocate and farmer Dave Hesse of Comfrey talks about how he can help farmers with financial problems negotiate with lenders and provide them financial information at a difficult time.

He spoke about one neighbor of his who committed suicide.

Morris farmer Matthew Sheets urged farmers to be active about fighting for their livelihood.

“We can’t be isolated anymore in this fight,” Sheets said. “It takes groups of people like this. Join the Land Stewardship Project. It takes everyone. Write about what you’re fighting for on the white board.”

Wabasso farmer and LSP organizer Paul Sobocinski talked about how the organization handled previous challenges.

“We’ve all faced tough times before and people came through,” Sobocinski said. “Not everything got fixed. We did pieces of policy and took a stand for rural communities. Now we have mediation before farm foreclosures. We’ve supported farmers at a most difficult time. We got loan payment deferrals. But we didn’t get prices for farmers and that needs to happen.”

Sobocinski recognized a number of LSP members who helped the organization years ago and still come to meetings.

“This is the opportunity we have before us,” Sobocinski said. “Fill out the surveys and write your stories that we can tell legislators. If you want something fixed, tell us about it, over and over again if you have to. It’s time to fight.”

Minnesota Department of Agriculture Farm Advocate and Comfrey farmer Dave Hesse urged farmers to read the small print when they sign financial documents.

“Most people don’t know what they sign,” Hesse said. He warned farmers of agreeing to cross collateralization, which commonly refers to pledging two or more assets under one loan or using a single asset to secure multiple loans.

“By agreeing to that, if you default on one, you default on all of them,” Hesse said. “Attorneys are a necessary evil.”

Hesse talked about a neighbor who just ne­eded somebody to talk to.

“He told me he was ready to pull the trigger. Talk to your neighbor,” Hesse said.

Dr. Harwood Schaffer of the University of Tennessee Agriculture Policy Analysis Center talked of the virtues of supply management as a way to reach good farm prices and that supplemental farm income programs are not the answer to agriculture’s financial woes.

“For the $28 billion used for Trump farm payments, we could get good farm prices for five years,” said Schaffer. “Talk to your representatives and presidential candidates. We need lobbying.”

The LSP lists five demands from the Minnesota Governor, Attorney General and legislature:

• Strengthen the Minnesota Farm Advocates program so farmers know their rights.

• The Minnesota Attorney General’s office must use its authority to investigate farmer-owned cooperatives that turned their backs on farmers who created them.

• Pass policy that covers origination fees for small and mid-sized farmers’s in financial stress refinancing farm debt and obtaining USDA Farm Service Agency loans.

• Instructing the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to pass a moratorium on dairies with more than 1,000 animal units until the water pollution threat and price-depressing effects of overproduction are addressed.

• Expanding public healthcare coverage for people facing unaffordable costs, poor coverage and high deductibles in the private market.

For federal leaders, the LSP demands:

• Ending corporate mega-mergers.

• Establishing a supply management system for grain with a loan rate of 95% of production costs.

• Implementing short-term daily relief and long-term structural solutions for small and mid-sized dairies.

• Limiting federal farm subsidy payments and tying them to stewardship.

• Enacting County of Origin Labeling.

• Offering Farm Service Agency 40-year fixed farmland loans to beginning farmers at a significant competitive disadvantage for land acquisition.

For more information, visit landstewardshipproject.org.

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com).