Land Rich, Cash Poor: My Family's Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer

The hidden history of an economic and cultural crisis that is threatening our very food supply—the disappearance of the American farmer.

Taking on this working-class story of heart and hardship, award-winning writer Brian Reisinger weaves forgotten eras of American history with his own family’s four-generation fight for survival in Midwestern farm country. Readers 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: 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 how the hollowing out of rural America is affecting every single American dinner table. Food prices soaring far beyond the rate of inflation, a vulnerable food supply chain, environmental and ecological dilemmas, the security of our farmland from foreign adversaries, a mental health crisis that includes farmer suicides and addictions, a deepening urban-rural divide, and more worries than ever about what’s for dinner. These are all becoming the hallmarks of a food system that has long stood as a modern miracle. Land Rich, Cash Poor offers the honest truth about these issues, and a candid look at what we can do about them—before it’s too late.