Latest news with #BrianReisinger
Fox News
24-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
From Washington: A Big, Beautiful Victory Lap for House Republicans
After countless meetings, 20 hour markup hearings and several compromises, House Republicans were able to pass President Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill,' this week. They have Memorial Day weekend to take a victory lap, but House Republicans sights will soon be set on how the Senate responds to the bill — and whether they'll make significant changes that reverse their progress. FOX News Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram breaks down how House Republicans were able to unite in the end despite initial disagreements, and how some Senators may push for modifications. Then, Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins discusses the expansion of U.S. farm products into the UK and what the President teased as 'billions of dollars of export opportunities produced by America's great farmers.' Later, farmer and author of 'Land Rich, Cash Poor,' Brian Reisinger, joins to discuss how the deal delivers relief to U.S. farmers after the squeeze of tariffs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Fox News
20-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Growing Hope For American Farmers
The United States and the UK have reached a trade deal that gives the American agriculture industry far greater access to the UK markets. President Trump called the new agreement 'historic,' pledging it will reduce the non-tariff barriers that unfairly discriminate against American products by ensuring American farmers and ranchers can sell their goods to global markets. First, Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins joins the Rundown to discuss the expansion of U.S. farm products into the UK and what the President teased as 'billions of dollars of export opportunities produced by America's great farmers.' Later, farmer and author of 'Land Rich, Cash Poor,' Brian Reisinger, joins to discuss how the deal delivers relief to U.S. farmers after the squeeze of tariffs. Over the weekend, news broke that former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among adult men in the United States and is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Dr. Randall Lee, Assistant Professor in the Department of Urology at the FOX Chase Cancer Center at Temple Health, joins to discuss the former President's diagnosis and offers insights on how to detect and treat prostate cancer. Plus, commentary from FOX News Digital columnist David Marcus. Photo Credit: Matt Griggs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
SoCal officials unleash sterile mosquitoes in bid to curb disease — with promising results
A battle is underway against an invasive mosquito behind a recent surge in the local spread of dengue fever in Southern California — and officials may have unlocked a powerful tool to help win the day. Two vector control districts — local agencies tasked with controlling disease-spreading organisms — released thousands of sterile male mosquitoes in select neighborhoods, with one district starting in 2023 and the other beginning the following year. The idea was to drive down the mosquito population because eggs produced by a female after a romp with a sterile male don't hatch. And only female mosquitoes bite, so unleashing males doesn't lead to transmission of diseases such as dengue, a potentially fatal viral infection. The data so far are encouraging. One agency serving a large swath of Los Angeles County found a nearly 82% reduction in its invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito population in its release area in Sunland-Tujunga last year compared with a control area. Another district, covering the southwestern corner of San Bernardino County, logged an average decrease of 44% across several heavily infested places where it unleashed the sterile males last year, compared with pre-intervention levels. Overall invasive mosquito counts dropped 33% across the district — marking the first time in roughly eight years that the population went down instead of up. 'Not only were we out in the field and actually seeing good reductions, but we were getting a lot less calls — people calling in to complain,' said Brian Reisinger, community outreach coordinator for the Inland Empire's West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District. Read more: Mosquito season is upon us. So why are Southern California officials releasing more of them? But challenges remain. Scaling the intervention to the level needed to make a dent in the vast region served by the L.A. County district won't happen overnight and would potentially require its home owners to pay up to $20 in an annual property tax assessment to make it happen. Climate change is allowing Aedes mosquitoes — and diseases they spread — to move into new areas and go gangbusters in places where they're established. Surging dengue abroad and the widespread presence of Aedes mosquitoes at home is "creating this perfect recipe for local transmission in our region," said Dr. Aiman Halai, director of the vector-borne disease unit at the L.A. County Department of Public Health. Tiny scourge, big threat Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were first detected in California about a decade ago. Originally hailing from Africa, the species can transmit dengue, as well as yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya. Another invasive mosquito, Aedes albopictus, arrived earlier, but its numbers have declined and it is less likely to spread diseases such as dengue. Although the black-and-white striped Aedes aegypti can't fly far — just about 150 to 200 yards — they manage to get around. The low-flying, day-biting mosquitoes are present in more than a third of California's counties, including Shasta County in the far north. Aedes mosquitoes love to bite people — often multiple times in rapid succession. As the insects spread across the state, patios and backyards morphed from respites into risky territories. But tamping down the bugs has proved difficult. They can lay their eggs in tiny water sources. And they might lay a few in a plant tray and others, perhaps, in a drain. Annihilating invaders isn't easy when it can be hard to locate all the reproduction spots — or access all the yards where breeding is rampant. That's one of the reasons why releasing sterilized males is attractive: They're naturally adept at finding their own kind. Mosquito vs. mosquito Releasing sterilized male insects to combat pests is a proven scientific technique that's been around since the 1950s, but using it to control invasive mosquitoes is relatively new. The approach appears to be catching on in Southern California. The West Valley district pioneered the release of sterilized male mosquitoes in California. In 2023, the Ontario-based agency rolled out a pilot program before expanding it the following year. This year it is increasing the number of sites being treated. The Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District launched its own pilot effort in 2024 and plans to target roughly the same area this year — with some improvements in technique and insect-rearing capacity. Starting in late May, an Orange County district will follow suit with the planned release of 100,000 to 200,000 sterile male mosquitoes a week in Mission Viejo through November. A Coachella Valley district is plugging away at developing its own program, which could get off the ground next spring. Vector officials in L.A. and San Bernardino counties said residents are asking them when they can bring a batch of zapped males to their neighborhood. But experts say for large population centers, it's not that easy. "I just responded this morning to one of our residents that says, 'Why can't we have this everywhere this year?' And it's, of course, because Rome wasn't built in a day," said Susanne Kluh, general manager for the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District. Kluh's district has a budget of nearly $24 million and is responsible for nearly 6 million residents across 36 cities and unincorporated areas. West Valley's budget this fiscal year is roughly $4 million, and the district serves roughly 650,000 people in six cities and surrounding county areas. Approaches between the two districts differ, in part due to the scale they're working with. West Valley targets what it calls hot spots — areas with particularly high mosquito counts. Last year, before peak mosquito season, it released about 1,000 sterile males biweekly per site. Then the district bumped it to up to 3,000 for certain sites for the peak period, which runs from August to November. The idea is to outnumber wild males by 100 to 1. Equipment for the program cost about $200,000 and the district hired a full-time staffer to assist with the efforts this year for $65,000. Solomon Birhanie, scientific director for West Valley, said the district doesn't have the resources to attack large tracts of land so it's using the resources it does have efficiently. Focusing on problem sites has shown to be sufficient to affect the whole service area, he said. "Many medium to smaller districts are now interested to use our approach," he said, because there's now evidence that it can be incorporated into abatement programs 'without the need for hiring highly skilled personnel or demanding a larger amount of budget." Solomon Birhanie, scientific director at the West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, views a container of mosquito larvae in the lab in March 2024. The Ontario-based district pioneered the release of sterilized male Aedes mosquitoes in California. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) In its inaugural study last year, the L.A. County district unleashed an average of 30,000 males per week in two Sunland-Tujunga neighborhoods between May and October — seeking to outperform wild males 10 to 1. Kluh anticipates this year's pilot will cost about $350,000. In order to bring the program to a larger area of the district, Kluh said more funding is needed — with officials proposing up to $20 annually per single-family home. That would be in addition to the $18.97 district homeowners now pay for the services the agency already provides. If surveys sent to a sample of property owners favor the new charge, it'll go to a vote in the fall, as required by Proposition 218, Kluh said. There are five vector control districts that cover L.A. County. The Greater L.A. County district is the largest, stretching from San Pedro to Santa Clarita. It covers most of L.A. city except for coastal regions and doesn't serve the San Gabriel or Antelope valleys. Galvanized by disease California last year had 18 locally acquired dengue cases, meaning people were infected with the viral disease in their communities, not while traveling. Fourteen of those cases were in Los Angeles County, including at least seven tied to a small outbreak in Baldwin Park, a city east of L.A. Cases also cropped up in Panorama City, El Monte and the Hollywood Hills. The year before that, the state confirmed its first locally acquired cases, in Long Beach and Pasadena. Read more: Mosquito-borne virus spreads at 'unprecedented' levels in L.A. Climate change may make things worse Although most people with dengue have no symptoms, it can cause severe body aches and fever and, in rare cases, death. Its alias, 'breakbone fever,' provides a grim glimpse into what it can feel like. Over a third of L.A. County's dengue cases last year required hospitalization, according to Halai. Mosquitoes pick up the virus after they bite an infected person, then spread it by biting others. Hope and hard truths Mosquito control experts tout sterilization for being environmentally friendly because it doesn't involve spraying chemicals and officials could potentially use it to target other disease spreaders — such as the region's native Culex mosquito, a carrier of the deadly West Nile virus. New technologies continue to come online. In the summer last year, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation approved the use of male mosquitoes infected with a particular strain of a bacteria called Wolbachia. Eggs fertilized by those males also don't hatch. Despite the promising innovations, some aspects of the scourge defy local control. Since her start in mosquito control in California nearly 26 years ago, Kluh said, the season for the insects has lengthened as winters have become shorter. Back then, officials would get to work in late April or early May and wrap up around early October. Now the native mosquitoes emerge as early as March and the invasive insects can stick around into December. "If things are going the way it is going now, we could just always have some dengue circulating," she said. Last year marked the worst year on record for dengue globally, with more than 13 million cases reported in the Americas and the Caribbean, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Many countries are still reporting higher-than-average dengue numbers, meaning there's more opportunity for travelers to bring it home. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
06-05-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Officials unleash sterile mosquitoes in bid to curb disease — with promising results
A battle is underway against an invasive mosquito behind a recent surge in the local spread of dengue fever in Southern California — and officials may have unlocked a powerful tool to help win the day. Two vector control districts — local agencies tasked with controlling disease-spreading organisms — released thousands of sterile male mosquitoes in select neighborhoods, with one district starting in 2023 and the other beginning the following year. The idea was to drive down the mosquito population because eggs produced by a female after a romp with a sterile male don't hatch. And only female mosquitoes bite, so unleashing males doesn't lead to transmission of diseases such as dengue, a potentially fatal viral infection. The data so far are encouraging. One agency serving a large swath of Los Angeles County found a nearly 82% reduction in its invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito population in its release area in Sunland-Tujunga last year compared with a control area. Another district, covering the southwestern corner of San Bernardino County, logged an average decrease of 44% across several heavily infested places where it unleashed the sterile males last year, compared with pre-intervention levels. Overall invasive mosquito counts dropped 33% across the district — marking the first time in roughly eight years that the population went down instead of up. 'Not only were we out in the field and actually seeing good reductions, but we were getting a lot less calls — people calling in to complain,' said Brian Reisinger, community outreach coordinator for the Inland Empire's West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District. But challenges remain. Scaling the intervention to the level needed to make a dent in the vast region served by the L.A. County district won't happen overnight and would potentially require its home owners to pay up to $20 in an annual charge on their property tax bill to make it happen. Climate change is allowing Aedes mosquitoes — and diseases they spread — to move into new areas and go gangbusters in places where they're established. Surging dengue abroad and the widespread presence of Aedes mosquitoes at home is 'creating this perfect recipe for local transmission in our region,' said Dr. Aiman Halai, director of the vector-borne disease unit at the L.A. County Department of Public Health. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were first detected in California about a decade ago. Originally hailing from Africa, the species can transmit dengue, as well as yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya. Another invasive mosquito, Aedes albopictus, arrived earlier, but its numbers have declined and it is less likely to spread diseases such as dengue. Although the black-and-white striped Aedes aegypti can't fly far — just about 150 to 200 yards — they manage to get around. The low-flying, day-biting mosquitoes are present in more than a third of California's counties, including Shasta County in the far north. An Aedes mosquito, known for nipping ankles, prefers to bite humans over animals. The insects, which arrived in California about a decade ago, can transmit diseases such as dengue and Zika. Aedes mosquitoes love to bite people — often multiple times in rapid succession. As the insects spread across the state, patios and backyards morphed from respites into risky territories. But tamping down the bugs has proved difficult. They can lay their eggs in tiny water sources. And they might lay a few in a plant tray and others, perhaps, in a drain. Annihilating invaders isn't easy when it can be hard to locate all the reproduction spots — or access all the yards where breeding is rampant. That's one of the reasons why releasing sterilized males is attractive: They're naturally adept at finding their own kind. Releasing sterilized male insects to combat pests is a proven scientific technique that's been around since the 1950s, but using it to control invasive mosquitoes is relatively new. The approach appears to be catching on in Southern California. The West Valley district pioneered the release of sterilized male mosquitoes in California. In 2023, the Ontario-based agency rolled out a pilot program before expanding it the following year. This year it is increasing the number of sites being treated. The Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District launched its own pilot effort in 2024 and plans to target roughly the same area this year — with some improvements in technique and insect-rearing capacity. Starting in late May, an Orange County district will follow suit with the planned release of 100,000 to 200,000 sterile male mosquitoes a week in Mission Viejo through November. A Coachella Valley district is plugging away at developing its own program, which could get off the ground next spring. Vector officials in L.A. and San Bernardino counties said residents are asking them when they can bring a batch of zapped males to their neighborhood. But experts say for large population centers, it's not that easy. 'I just responded this morning to one of our residents that says, 'Why can't we have this everywhere this year?' And it's, of course, because Rome wasn't built in a day,' said Susanne Kluh, general manager for the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District. Kluh's district has a budget of nearly $24 million and is responsible for nearly 6 million residents across 36 cities and unincorporated areas. West Valley's budget this fiscal year is roughly $4 million, and the district serves roughly 650,000 people in six cities and surrounding county areas. Approaches between the two districts differ, in part due to the scale they're working with. West Valley targets what it calls hot spots — areas with particularly high mosquito counts. Last year, before peak mosquito season, it released about 1,000 sterile males biweekly per site. Then the district bumped it to up to 3,000 for certain sites for the peak period, which runs from August to November. The idea is to outnumber wild males by 100 to 1. Equipment for the program cost about $200,000 and the district hired a full-time staffer to assist with the efforts this year for $65,000. Solomon Birhanie, scientific director for West Valley, said the district doesn't have the resources to attack large tracts of land so it's using the resources it does have efficiently. Focusing on problem sites has shown to be sufficient to affect the whole service area, he said. 'Many medium to smaller districts are now interested to use our approach,' he said, because there's now evidence that it can be incorporated into abatement programs 'without the need for hiring highly skilled personnel or demanding a larger amount of budget.' Solomon Birhanie, scientific director at the West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, views a container of mosquito larvae in the lab in March 2024. The Ontario-based district pioneered the release of sterilized male Aedes mosquitoes in California. In its inaugural study last year, the L.A. County district unleashed an average of 30,000 males per week in two Sunland-Tujunga neighborhoods between May and October — seeking to outperform wild males 10 to 1. Kluh anticipates this year's pilot will cost about $350,000. In order to bring the program to a larger area of the district, Kluh said more funding is needed — with officials proposing up to $20 annually per single-family home. That would be in addition to the $18.97 district homeowners now pay for the services the agency already provides. If surveys sent to a sample of property owners favor the new charge, it'll go to a vote in the fall, as required by Proposition 218, Kluh said. There are five vector control districts that cover L.A. County. The Greater L.A. County district is the largest, stretching from San Pedro to Santa Clarita. It covers most of L.A. city except for coastal regions and doesn't serve the San Gabriel or Antelope valleys. California last year had 18 locally acquired dengue cases, meaning people were infected with the viral disease in their communities, not while traveling. Fourteen of those cases were in Los Angeles County, including at least seven tied to a small outbreak in Baldwin Park, a city east of L.A. Cases also cropped up in Panorama City, El Monte and the Hollywood Hills. The year before that, the state confirmed its first locally acquired cases, in Long Beach and Pasadena. Although most people with dengue have no symptoms, it can cause severe body aches and fever and, in rare cases, death. Its alias, 'breakbone fever,' provides a grim glimpse into what it can feel like. Over a third of L.A. County's dengue cases last year required hospitalization, according to Halai. Mosquitoes pick up the virus after they bite an infected person, then spread it by biting others. Mosquito control experts tout sterilization for being environmentally friendly because it doesn't involve spraying chemicals and officials could potentially use it to target other disease spreaders — such as the region's native Culex mosquito, a carrier of the deadly West Nile virus. New technologies continue to come online. In the summer last year, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation approved the use of male mosquitoes infected with a particular strain of a bacteria called Wolbachia. Eggs fertilized by those males also don't hatch. Despite the promising innovations, some aspects of the scourge defy local control. Since her start in mosquito control in California nearly 26 years ago, Kluh said, the season for the insects has lengthened as winters have become shorter. Back then, officials would get to work in late April or early May and wrap up around early October. Now the native mosquitoes emerge as early as March and the invasive insects can stick around into December. 'If things are going the way it is going now, we could just always have some dengue circulating,' she said. Last year marked the worst year on record for dengue globally, with more than 13 million cases reported in the Americas and the Caribbean, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Many countries are still reporting higher-than-average dengue numbers, meaning there's more opportunity for travelers to bring it home.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
America's farmland feminism was lost to history. Reviving it would heal country.
The following column is partially adapted, with permission from the publisher, from Brian Reisinger's book 'Land Rich, Cash Poor: My Family's Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer.' My sister didn't have time for any BS. She was a skilled welder by then, one of the many trades a farmer picks up, and had patched and pounded machinery for years to get it going again when breakdowns halted work on the farm. So, when she needed a part that required going to town, she went in herself. Her footsteps were the same as any farmer, that gruff whisper of dirt grating beneath work shoes on a smooth floor. But when she asked a guy for help, she got a response my dad or I never would have. 'Shouldn't a man be getting it?' It was one of countless moments she'd faced being a woman in the 'man's world' of farming. But it was far more than that. The moment demonstrated a deep truth we've lost, especially in the Trump era with much of urban and liberal America believing rural America is backward: For much of our history, rural women led the charge on social progress through many of our country's biggest crises. And now rural women can help save us again, if we let them. We live in a world more deeply divided along rural and urban lines than ever, and our forgotten farmland feminism — lost in part with the decimation of 4.8 million farms as our economy shifted from rural to urban — tears down all our preconceived notions. Resurrecting it can help solve problems like threats to our food supply, and more. For those who believe women's rights can't possibly have much to do with rural America, consider that American farming once boasted nearly 6.8 million farms, nearly all of them small operations often ran by women as much as their husbands in many ways, along with any children who were old enough to gather eggs in the farmyard or walk a field row under the hot sun. My great-grandparents escaped pre-World War I Europe to make a better life in the rolling farmland of southern Wisconsin, and my great-grandma and her daughters did the work of any man. My grandpa's sister, Great-Aunt Helene, remembers carrying 80-pound buckets of milk from the barn to the milkhouse as a young woman, milking cows morning and night, and shocking grain alongside the threshing crews of men who banded together in those days to help each other's farms get through harvest. All the while, she and her mother and sisters did housework on top of fieldwork, and fed the men who were free to drink the day away when the work was done. It began a kind of social progress that was both powerful, and paradoxical. In the country, women did the work of any man in a way the rest of the economy didn't allow in those days, equipping them with a kind of independence that was ahead of its time. And yet, they were also left caring for their families and depending upon the men who often controlled the money. The legacy of independent women doing the work of men – a reality for generations that is still lived out today – has been lost to history. It leaves a much more complicated picture of the values and attitudes of rural America than you'll usually hear about. From the 1920s to the 2020s, rural America lost millions of farms, and people. The numbers tell a story of millions of rural women doing the work of men, only to be forgotten as our economy shifted from rural to urban. Some numbers that illustrate the change: 6.8 million: Farms at America's height in 1935, mostly small family operations where women did the work of men 11.8 million: Men who went off to WWII, leaving behind urban jobs rural women were ready to fill 75 million: Population in rural America in the 1940s, or 57 percent, before dropping to just 14 percent by 2020. 25-29: The key age group rural Wisconsin lost for seven decades, including young women, as America's economy shifted rural to urban By the time of World War II, as more than 12.2 million Americans went to war, there was a legion of rural women moving to the city and handling the industrial jobs of the men who had gone off to war. While Rosie the Riveter is an iconic symbol of early female empowerment in these days, often forgotten is how many of those women came from rural America, ready to do the work because of generations of doing the work of men. Though she was too young to leave the farm during the war, our great-aunt Helene soon after exemplified this: she left shocking grain for sorting meat at the Oscar Mayer plant. This continued on through the generations, from our great-grandma, to our grandma who ran the farm when our grandpa fell 30 feet off a corncrib and broke his back, to our mom who worked alongside our dad through the Farm Crisis of the 1980s that decimated rural America. But somewhere in that time, rural America also fell behind urban America on this front. As America's population went from majority rural in the 1940s to majority urban — including primarily losing its young people who bring economic vitality and passion for change — the country's focus shifted away from its rural roots. Female trailblazers showed what women could do in medicine, corporate America, academia, and more, while rural families were left trying to survive vanishing farms, manufacturing jobs, and more. We lost the fact that there were generations of rural women whose strength and independence might have been celebrated by the feminist movement, if only they had paused in their work long enough to tell their stories. My sister stood in the middle of that contradiction as she stared down the man who thought she couldn't find the right machine part because she was a woman. By then she was the fourth generation of independent women doing the work of any man. But she was living in what had remained a man's world as the advancing urban economy left behind the gradually declining rural economy. It was far from the only time she confronted this challenge, despite the independent women she'd grown up working alongside. Rarely, did she encounter openly hostile sexism; more often it was small indignities that piled up over time — each one trying to tell her she wasn't supposed to be there. There was the salesman who spoke only to our dad. There were the various farmers and farmhands who wouldn't take her phone calls seriously, or joked about her being a girl when the heavy work was underway. She had faced a variation of this for most of her life — the expectation that it wouldn't be her who would farm. Part of that was being the second eldest behind me, a son who confronted the opposite, in the form of an expectation I didn't feel I could meet. (I would go on to pursue a writing career off the farm, and wrestle with the guilt of being the first of four generations of eldest Reisinger sons not to farm.) But part of it was also gender. Nobody in our family ever told Malia that a woman couldn't farm. Our dad was overjoyed when she stepped up. But, as the second eldest she didn't face the same expectation I did early on, and there was no shortage of loved ones and strangers alike surprised that a girl might take over. As my sister got into her 20s and began to take the reins, she saw not everyone was as happy as our dad to see her farming. And it was one of many challenges as she raised her kids, and worked other jobs off the farm—in part because it was unclear whether farming would provide the kind of living it had our parents. Of course, the logic of those doubting her as a woman made little sense, in a world where generations of farm women had done the work of men. But the women of generations past had done it as wives and sisters, less often as lone successors, and had rarely if ever spoken up. Eventually, Malia decided she didn't care what people thought. 'If people can't respect me,' she said, 'I'm not doing business with them.' Her greatest test was yet to come. On a brutal winter day in December of 2020, the cold air became too heavy for our 69-year-old dad to bear. He had to sit on a haybale in the middle of his morning chores, trying to catch his breath. Within hours he was in the back of an ambulance roaring down the highway, a severe case of COVID closing in on his aging lungs. By then we had all experienced the fear, frustration, and — sometimes — family disagreements that came with trying to balance health precautions with being able to go on with life and keep our livelihood. But this kind of COVID blew past debate and forced us to face the possibility he may not return. Now, deciding she didn't give a damn what anyone else thought would do far more than let my sister blaze a career caring for the animals she loved, and working the land we grew up on. It would give her the courage to fight as COVID's disruption's hit farms with falling prices and more. Our dad stayed with me as he fought for his life, and Malia fought for the farm. In today's economy, with farms dealing with the many economic, political, and technological forces that have made it so hard to keep going, a family tragedy — like the owner being laid up for weeks — can cripple a farm's operations and put it under. My sister called on close friends for help, among them women who had also grown up on farms and knew how to work alongside her. It was a circle of support that recalled the olden days, of women working the farm as well as any man, and families banding together to weather economic crisis. But the thing about a farm on the edge is that there's always another challenge piling on. Cows began going down sick, and one winter morning twin calves were born outside in the cold. Malia ran to our skid-steer to help gently move the calves into the warm barn, but a bolt had fallen out of the machine's safety release and it wouldn't move. The cows and the calves and the work were all waiting, and our dad was still sick. She cried out in rage and fear. Then she took a breath, and did what three generations of women before her had done: She got back to work. Finally, the day before Christmas Eve, our dad was well enough to come home. I still think about my sister's resilience, as we confront the national crisis of the disappearing American farmer. The livelihoods of family farms and much of rural America are slipping, our food supply is becoming more vulnerable — and more expensive and less healthy— and we're failing to solve the problem in part because rural and urban America can't agree on the solutions. The lessons of farmland feminism can challenge us to change. With America so divided along rural and urban lines, Democrats are in danger of writing off rural America, and Republicans are in danger of taking rural voters for granted. But if we can force ourselves to stop getting rural voters — and each other — so wrong, we can craft new policies to help solve these problems. There's reason to believe we can do this. We still have nearly 2 million farms in this country, 96 percent of which are family operations. That's nearly 2 million families, searching for a way to survive, led by people like my sister who our policymakers could do so much more to understand. Opinion: On Wisconsin's glacial lakes, wake-enhanced boating damaging and dangerous One day as my dad was still recovering his strength from his severe bout with COVID, a tractor pulling a manure spreader jackknifed on the way into the valley and careened into the ditch — off the same steep road that had imperiled vehicles ever since our family had first settled there more than a century ago. Our dad, usually cheerful in the face of challenge, but still weak, worried aloud now about how they'd ever get it out. 'What are we gonna do?' he said. 'What are we gonna do?' 'You're gonna go home,' Malia said. 'I'm gonna make some calls.' My dad stepped back, his lungs straining in the cold, while Malia called in a truck big enough to pull the manure spreader backward up the hill. Our dad said Malia was the only person he'd trust to steer the tractor, so Malia climbed in and helped jimmy it out of the ditch, then drove it down the ice-laden hill it had failed to make the first time. And the work went on. Brian Reisinger is a writer who grew up on a family farm in Sauk County. He contributes columns and videos for the Ideas Lab at the Journal Sentinel. He works in public affairs consulting for Wisconsin-based Platform Communications. He splits his time between Sacramento, Calif. — America's 'farm-to-fork capital,' near his wife's family — and the family farm in Wisconsin. You can find him on X at @BrianJReisinger This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Women have always been force on American family farms | Opinion
