Farm policy went through a noteworthy change in the 1970s. Rather than managing supply, the focus was put on maximizing productivity and exporting that production around the world. At the USDA Ag Outlook Forum, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack shared a story about former USDA Chief Bob Bergland of Minnesota. When leaving the Agriculture Department in 1981, this Minnesotan voiced concerns about the societal impact of the sole focus on productivity. “He said we may lose farms and when those farms are lost, we lose the farm families and when those farm families are lost we lose young people going to rural schools and perhaps that will have an impact on rural communities.” Bergland’s prediction was realized with the U.S. losing over a half-million farmers since 1981. “You could take every farmer today in South Dakota and North Dakota, add them to every farmer in Minnesota and Wisconsin, every farmer in Illinois and Iowa, every farmer in Nebraska and Oklahoma, every farmer in Missouri and Colorado and you’d have 536,000 farms.” Vilsack said the Biden Administration is focused on more, new and better markets to give the farmer a bigger share of the food dollar.
