Raise More Hell and Less Corn

What’s going on in farm country?

China, which normally buys half of America’s soybean crop, hasn’t bought a bean. Corn prices are dragging below the cost of production. Wheat and hogs? Also in the tank.

Across the Midwest, people are whispering—and in some cases shouting—that we might be headed for another farm crisis, the likes of which Iowa last saw in the 1980s.

To get perspective, I turned to Sarah Vogel. She’s an attorney, advocate, and author of The Farmer’s Lawyer, the memoir that chronicles the landmark Coleman v. Block class action lawsuit. As a young lawyer and single mother in the 1980s, she took on the federal government on behalf of 240,000 farmers facing foreclosure.

Later, she made history again as the first woman ever elected Commissioner of Agriculture in the United States, serving two terms in North Dakota.

After five decades fighting for farmers, Vogel’s perspective on this moment cuts through the noise. We talk about what she’s seeing on the ground, how federal policy is failing rural America, and what it takes to keep fighting for a fair food system.

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Edited by Mallory DeVries.