Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
In 1900, two out of three Americans farmed. Today, less than two percent of us raise the food, fiber and renewable products that feed, clothe and fuel us.
Approximately 95 percent of today’s American farms are owned and run by families. However, it easily could have been elsewise. A critical turning point came in 1977, with a farm economy crisis brewing, when a small group of farm women gathered in Appleton, among them Anne Kanten, to organize the American Agricultural Movement (AAM). Its one aim: to save the family farming way of life. Tractorcades in Washington, and many other grassroots efforts, great and small, came along in its wake. Today, the value of the family’s role in agriculture continues to be celebrated by many organizations, like CommonGround Minnesota.