On Tuesday, March 7 at 7:30pm, the Whallonsburg Grange Hall will present “Raising Less Corn and More Hell: Facing the Crisis in Rural America,” with Siena Chrisman. This is the third lecture in the winter Lyceum series entitled “Living and Farming on This Land,” co-sponsored by the Essex Farm Institute.
During the 1980s, farmers in the United States were confronted by an economic crisis more severe than any since the Great Depression. Many of those who relied on agriculture for their livelihoods faced financial ruin. The epicenter of the downturn was in the Midwest, but the effects quickly rippled to other areas where agriculture played a prominent role in the local economy. The 1980s was when rural America came apart at the seams, but plans were developed decades earlier to move farmers off the land, in the name of economic efficiency. This presentation will look at the roots and reactions in rural communities to the ongoing crisis.
Siena Chrisman is a Brooklyn-based writer and researcher addressing agriculture policy and social justice. Her work has appeared in Modern Farmer, Edible Brooklyn, Grist, and other publications, and she is currently working on a book about the 1980s farm crisis.
General admission is $5 per person, students and farmers are free.
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