![]() After boom years in the beginning of the 21st century, prices for commodities like corn, soybeans, milk, and meat started falling in 2013. Now they’re less focused on their legacy than about making it through the week.Ī perfect storm of factors has led to the recent crisis in the farm industry. Mary, 79, and John, 80, had hoped to leave the farm to their two sons, age 55 and 50, who still live with them and run the farm. “What do you do when you you’re up against the wall and you just don’t know which way to turn?” Rieckmann says, as her ancient fridge begins to hum. Two bill collectors have taken out liens against the farm. There are weeks where the entire milk check goes towards the $2,100 monthly mortgage payment. The Rieckmanns receive about $16 for every 100 pounds of milk they sell, a 40 percent decrease from six years back. But it’s harder than ever to make any money, much less pay the debt, Mary Rieckmann says, in the yellow-wallpapered kitchen of the sagging farmhouse where she lives with her husband, John, and two of their seven children. The Rieckmanns are about $300,000 in debt, and bill collectors are hounding them about the feed bill and a repayment for a used tractor they bought to keep the farm going. ![]() But they’ve never seen a crisis quite like this one. Mary and John Rieckmann, who now run the farm and its 45 cows, have seen all manners of ups and downs - droughts, floods, oversupplies of milk that sent prices tumbling. For nearly two centuries, the Rieckmann family has raised cows for milk in this muddy patch of land in the middle of Wisconsin.
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