Commentary
Everywhere I go, people ask me: What can we do about all the farms we’re losing?
The truth is, our local farms cannot survive without us. Supporting them isn’t optional—it’s essential. Go to farm-to-table dinners. Visit your farmers’ market. Buy a meat box or a CSA (community supported agriculture) share. Drive out to the farm. Use farms as venues for weddings, baby showers, or birthday parties. Every single action matters.
But let me be honest: individual support alone, while necessary, is not enough. Please don’t take that as an excuse not to support—that is still the most critical piece of the puzzle. But without systemic change, our support can only go so far.
This is a matter of national security. Farmers are aging out, and young families who want to farm simply can’t access land. Why? Because banks currently require 30 percent down on farmland loans. Let’s do the math: in Central Texas, farmland averages $14,000 an acre. For 200 acres, that’s nearly $840,000 cash up front, with a monthly mortgage of $14,000. No crop, no herd, no vegetable operation can sustain that. The numbers don’t work.
And here’s the kicker—those of us who understand how the money system works know that new loans don’t come from a pile of savings in a vault. They are created out of thin air and placed on a bank’s books.
Economist Richard Werner, famous for coining the term “quantitative easing” and for his groundbreaking studies in Japan, showed that it isn’t consumer spending or government policy alone that drives inflation—it’s how banks create and direct credit. When credit flows mostly into real estate speculation, it inflates bubbles and destabilizes economies. But when banks direct new money into productive sectors such as small businesses—or in this case, farms—communities thrive.
Werner demonstrated that economies that support credit creation for productive use consistently outperform those that allow credit to be swallowed up by property speculation. Imagine if we applied that same principle to agriculture: instead of fueling housing bubbles, our banking system could be fueling a generation of new farmers growing nutrient-dense food for our communities.
I am convinced that if most people actually understood how credit and money creation work, they would revolt against the system tomorrow. But since this is the structure we live under—and since nearly identical banking products already exist to support other sectors of society—we must demand that farmland be included.
Other than water and air, there is nothing more important to human survival than food. If we as a society can justify special banking products for homes, veterans, or small businesses, why not for farming?
I want to be clear: I am not a fan of government subsidies. But the truth is, the entire farming economy is already propped up by subsidies and federally backed crop insurance. That’s the system we have now, and it is failing us. It even feels suspicious that while the government props up commodities, it offers no meaningful banking product to help farmers actually get on the land and grow food. The result is an economy where corporations and investors profit, while independent family farms continue to disappear.
Other countries already use this exact banking tool to back small businesses—and their economies are stronger for it. We could do the same with farms. It wouldn’t just be “helping farmers,” it would be creating millions of new agricultural entrepreneurs. The bank would still have the hard asset of the land as collateral, while the economy would gain families producing nutrient-dense food right here in our own communities.
And let’s dispel one myth: “You can’t feed the world on small farms.” That’s simply not true.
According to the FAO, farms under 2 hectares make up only about 24 percent of the world’s farmland, yet they produce roughly 30 to 34 percent of the world’s food supply. In other words, they actually produce more food per acre than larger operations, making them more efficient in many respects.
Now, I am not opposed to large-scale farming—many of the innovations that make farming more efficient have helped feed billions of people. But efficiency has come at a cost: we’ve lost diversity in crops and resiliency in our food system. Too many farmers are locked into growing corn and soy, not because that’s what the world most needs, but because that’s what their equipment, subsidies, and crop insurance are set up for. The result is an abundance of calories but a scarcity of nutrients. We have enough food for everybody, but we don’t have enough nutrition, minerals, and health for everybody. That is why we must disrupt the current system.
We already have models. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac allow first-time home buyers to purchase homes with as little as 3 percent down. Veterans can access zero percent down, no mortgage insurance, and low interest rates. As a society, we’ve decided that helping families and veterans is worth supporting with government-backed loans. So why don’t we have a product like this for farmland?
We don’t need handouts. Farmers aren’t asking for free land. We need low interest rates and accessible down-payments so new families can step onto farmland. Without this, only corporations and wealthy investors can buy land—and when that happens, we lose our food system.
I still believe that we the people—our individual support of farms—is the most important part. But if we are to replace the 170,000 farms lost in just the last eight years, we also need a banking product that makes it possible for the next generation to get onto the land. Without it, the collapse continues.
