Midwest Farmers Fight for U.S. Agricultural Policy Reform, 1980-1987

United States Midwest farmers fought for agricultural policy reform that would ensure economic stability and sustainable financial support for small-scale farms. A number of rural grassroots organizations, including the Iowa Farm Unity Coalition (IFUC), Citizens Organizing Acting Together (COACT), and the United States Farmers’ Association (USFA) led the family farm crisis movement of the 1980s that demanded federal policy reforms to prevent unfair foreclosures and to secure economic stability for Midwest non-corporate farmers. This movement involved a large number of scattered, mini campaigns and direct actions. Each contributed to the broader goal of rural policy reform. The movement can be understood as a series of geographically scattered, but interwoven campaigns throughout the Midwest over 10 years, catalyzed by the 1980 Soviet Grain embargo, and culminating with the passage of the Agricultural Credit Act in 1987.

The Carter presidential administration’s Soviet Union grain embargo in 1980 caused an economic crisis in rural America by significantly reducing exports that had a lasting negative effect on United States farmers, including small-scale farms in the Midwest (Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota)

On 4 January 1980, Jimmy Carter imposed an embargo which prohibited the sale and shipment of grain to the Soviet Union. Three days later, the Carter administration reversed the embargo, seeing that they had disadvantaged the economies of rural America. Moreover, the government offered to buy corn from farms across the United States at higher-than-market prices in an attempt to re-stabilize the economy. Farmers across the 19 states submitted 5,000 bids to the government at extremely high prices – offering up over 1 million tons of corn. The government ultimately bought only 7,000 of the 1 million tons of corn, as a result of the high prices, frustrating farmers across rural America even more.

A group called Minnesota Farm Advocates declared 4 July 1980 “Farmers’ Independence Day” to raise awareness of farmers’ issues. Minnesota Farm Advocates and their supporters planned to plow under one acre of small grain every day for a week to demonstrate the cost of plowing the small grain under, as making the grain into fertilizer was cheaper than harvesting it. While over twenty farmers had agreed to partake in this demonstration, only 3 farmers actually plowed under their crops, but the action set the stage for larger groups, like the United States Farmers’ Association and the Iowa Farm Unity Coalition, to begin to organize other actions and mini-campaigns. 

In the summer of 1981, a longstanding rural liberal advocacy group called Rural America opened an office in Des Moines, Iowa to expand the organization’s reach. They appointed Minister David Ostenorf as lead coordinator. Shortly thereafter, another group emerged – in fall 1981, the United States Farmers’ Association (USFA) held their first official meeting, electing Mark Ritchie as the group’s head and forming a plan to push back against unfair governmental treatment of rural farms. USFA’s primary movement goal in this meeting was to form and initiate relationships with other rural activist groups. 

By the end of 1981, another group emerged – the Iowa Farm Unity Coalition – inspired and composed of attendees from the USFA’s first meetings. This group emerged as one of the largest presences throughout the many agricultural rights campaigns of the 1980s. In their first meeting, in mid-1982, they prepared a press release on the state of the rural agricultural economy. The Iowa Farm Unity Coalition also formed an action plan to protest newly elected Ronald Reagan’s July 1982 visit to Des Moines, Iowa, and made tentative plans to run as a member of the coalition for the position of Iowa State Secretary of Agriculture.

In a different part of the Midwest, the movement was also growing. On 26 August 1982, Citizens Organized Acting Together (COACT) organized the first penny auction in Westbrook Minnesota to protest unfair foreclosures against small farms. “Penny auctions” were a common nonviolent action method in successful 1930s agricultural protests, and the group who organized the penny auction, COACT sought to use these historical methods of protest to mobilize Minnesotan farmers. Other activist groups also took part in this protest, including the American Agriculture Movement (AAM), National Farmers Organization (NFO), and National Farmers Union (NFU). 

Farmers throughout the Midwest continued to mobilize, and on 9 April 1983 the North American Farm Alliance formed, with help from Merle Hansen, Dixon Terry, George Naylor, Mark Ritchie, and Dale Wiehoff.

In 1983 raising awareness and building solidarity also took a slightly different shape in comparison to the Farmers’ Rebellions of the 1930s – through the media. Jim Gambone of Minnesota produced a film re-enacting a 1930s penny auction, titled “Foreclosure.” Nebraska Public Television made and broadcast a television program on the history of rural and Midwest activism. Both Gambone’s film and NPM’s program was shown at movement and direct-action campaign meetings throughout the 1980s. These media efforts proved an effective way to communicate the shared goals of the Midwest Farmers’ Protests and connected individuals all across the Midwest, who often were secluded on their farms or in rural farm towns.

To support farmers and connect activist groups, counseling and individual support networks began to emerge. Around 1983, Nebraska Rural Response Hotline and Iowa Concern Rural Hotline established phone hotlines, starting in Nebraska and spreading to Iowa to provide mental health support, listen to concerns, assist in legal counsel, and address high rates of suicide during the crisis. The hotlines also united many different activist groups and supported rural farmers individually.

Organizations within the movement also took legal action. In May of 1983, a lawsuit filed by Sarah Vogel of North Dakota sought to impose requirements on the FmHA, once the “last resort lender,” as they were unfairly foreclosing on hundreds of loans. Vogel’s important lawsuit (Coleman vs. Block) set the precedence that required the FmHA to  grant loanees procedural rights prior to starting any foreclosure process.

1983 was also the year of the Democratic Convention. In the 1980s, rural activists supported the ideology of the Democratic party. Rural activists supported Jesse Jackson’s 1984 platform, which brought attention to agricultural issues. Though Jesse Jackson lost the 1984 election, both he and Merle Hansen, a prominent leader in the farm crisis movement and the cofounder of the North American Farm Alliance, who delivered a seconding speech following Jackson’s nomination, used the platform as a way to bring national attention to the Midwest farmers’ plight. 

In the spring of 1984, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture launched the Farm Advocate Program, which provided pro bono financial and legal counsel to debt-ridden farmers, alongside resources to support families in crisis.

In August 1984, two years after Minnesota’s first penny auction, over one hundred protesters organized by COACT filled the bank that had pressed on with unfair family farm foreclosures. The bank protest led to massive media coverage, 37 arrests by the county police, and renegotiation of some of the bank’s foreclosures.

In November 1984, locals in Emerson, Nebraska formed the Farm Crisis Committee, led by Tim Wrage. The Farm Crisis committee provided economic support for movement organizations through gathering donations from public and private donors to fund rallies and to provide educational and informational advertisements on the radio. They also led advocacy letter writing campaigns and legislative outreach reformation. The organization’s four main goals were to: lower interest rates on farmers’ loans, improve crop prices or set a price ceiling for agricultural production, enforce export standards, and close tax loopholes for agricultural investors.

By 21 January 1985, groups across the Midwest, totalling 17,000 protesters, gathered in front of the capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota in support of a Farm Policy Reformation bill. The National Crisis Action Rally on 27 February Iowa in Ames Iowa echoed the demands of the St. Paul rally, with protestors calling for state-guaranteed operating loans, a 120-day grace period on farm foreclosures, and sustainable prices for farm products. These large-scale direct actions mirrored the farmers’ movement’s cohesive goal: ensuring economic stability for small farmers.

Following the rallies, the United States Congress budgeted money for assistance programs such as farm business education and it ordered a report from the USDA on nationwide farm finances in 1984. On 15 March 1985 however, Ronald Reagan vetoed the Farm Reform Bill.

In response, around July 1985, Groundswell, a rapidly growing protest organization, mobilized  over 15,000 protesters before Congress in Washington D.C. in support of the Farm Policy Reform Bill. Groundswell’s efforts included engaging in lobbying practices within the Minnesota legislature, organizing No Sale rallies (uniting farmers to refuse to sell their grains), raising money to provide direct relief to farmers’ medical and hospital bills, and publishing a newsletter advocating for rural farmers’ rights.

In the summer of 1985, PrairieFire, a grassroots advocacy organization based in Des Moines, Iowa,organized an Iowa county courthouse protest during which 50 crosses were driven into the ground in front of the courthouse, twenty-five white crosses symbolizing “dead farms” and twenty-five red symbolizing “bleeding out farms in that county.” This visual protest brought yet more attention to the effects of the agricultural crisis.

Willie Nelson and 53 other acts performed on 22 September at “Farm Aid,” a festival held in Champaign, Illinois,. Soon after, the USA Today issue, released on 4 October 1985, looked different than the usual daily issue. The musician Neil Young had bought a full page advertisement sharing an open letter to President Ronald Reagan, asking, “Will the family farm in America die as a result of your administration?” John Mellencamp joined the Missouri Rural Crisis Center in a protest to blockade a USDA Farmers Home Administration Office in May 1986.

In 1987, the National Save the Family Farm Coalition brought together 37 organizations across 22 states, including key players of the earlier parts of the movement, such as COACT, IFUC, USFA, and MFA. In the same year, FmHA policymakers wrote off $7 billion in farm debt, forgiving debt for 100,000 farmers, and Congress passed the Agriculture Credit Act on 18 December 1987 authorizing a $4 billion dollar financial assistance package for vulnerable farms.

The larger farm crisis movement, stretching from the Soviet grain embargo to the passage of the Agricultural Credit Act, represents one of the most sustained efforts for rural policy reform since the 1930s.