Historian Jim Roe interviewed those with first-hand accounts of the farm crisis of the 1980s. Area counties were a central stage for much of the crisis.
Historian Jim Roe is developing a presentation on west central Minnesota's role in the eventful period surrounding the Farm Crisis of the 1980s for the West Central Historical Association.
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.
Minnesota farm leader Anne Kanten dies Randy Furst, Star Tribune
Anne Kanten fought bank foreclosures, organized tractorcades to Washington, D.C., and mobilized support for state and federal policy reforms to protect small farmers both in Minnesota and around the world.
Kanten, along with her husband, Chuck, was one of the founders of the American Agriculture Movement, a grassroots organization that built a powerful following nationwide.
She was later appointed an assistant commissioner of agriculture in Minnesota, implementing programs to protect farmers that endure to this day. She was such a fierce advocate for farmers, said Thom Petersen, now the state s Commissioner of Agriculture. She invested a lot of time in me to pass that passion along.