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[MUSIC PLAYING] RACHEL REABE: Good afternoon, and welcome to this Main Street special. Live from the Minnesota State Fair, I'm Rachel Reabe. We're broadcasting today from the Minnesota Public Radio booth, just across the street from the dairy building.

The 1980s will be remembered as one of the more difficult decades for Minnesota farmers. Land prices dropped, interest rates went up, and farmers were caught in the middle. Back in 1986, Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Steil interviewed seven farmers.

They were neighbors living in Chanarambie Township, a farming community in southwestern Minnesota's Murray County. Some raised corn and soybeans, others were dairy farmers. One raised sheep. They talked in a very personal way about the farm crisis, and how it was affecting their farms and their families.

Today, we're going back to the farmers of Chanarambie Township to see how they're doing 15 years later. Marly Bootsma was the local farmer who suggested that we interview him and his neighbors. He served as narrator and tour guide for the 1986 documentary, which ended with Bootsma describing one of the farms in his Township.

[BELL DINGING]

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I'm looking at a place where a guy moved on to this place. And he took and he fixed it up, and he worked real hard on this place. He took and-- he moved an old barn in, and he tried not to spend too much money on it. He's got the bottom half painted.

He ran out of money, so he didn't get the peak painted, but the bottom's white. The top don't have any paint. But one of these days, he'll get that done. I know he will. And over there is a gestation house.

And I know for a fact that it was 16 degrees below zero when he tinned that gestation house, and he got that fixed up pretty decent. Over to the south here, there's a farrowing house. He spent one winter of his spare time working in there, and he fixed that up the best he could.

Straight ahead, there's a little-- well, it's a shop now. It used to be a little barn. And he took that and he drug it over on a bunch of telephone poles. And he sat it on a cement slab, and he threw his-- the roof's got holes in it. You can-- looks like when it was a barn, the squirrels must have chewed holes in the shingles. But I know the guy pretty good, and he's going to get that shingled someday.

And to the north here, there's a house. And it needs paint bad, but it's got a new shingle job on it. Him and the neighbors and his brother in law, they shingled that so it didn't leak so bad. But it's got good shingles, but it sure could use a paint job.

That old barn I was telling you about, that was kind of a neighborhood project when he moved that in there. The neighbors all came down. And the cows were sitting in the yard and horse trailers, and he didn't even have the stanchions in the barn yet. But the neighbors all came down and pitched in. And they put the stanchions in the barn, and they was milking on one side and still building stanchions on the other side.

And this guy here, I know him real good because this is me. And I look at this, and I see six years of my life invested. And I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know whether I'll be here in a year. I don't know if I'll be here in two years. And I look back, and I see the memories of all the work I've done. And I guess it makes me feel kind of bad because of the fact that my life don't hold no certainty to it whatsoever.

RACHEL REABE: Marly Bootsma, how do you feel listening to that assessment of yourself in 1986?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Well, if I look back, I guess I think I really worked hard back then. I'm getting a lot lazier, I guess.

RACHEL REABE: When you talked about when you pulled up with Mark Steil in front of that farm and started describing it, did you see it through fresh eyes the way you described it?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Well, you know, we went there. And you have to understand that was 15 years ago. And that was still when even in uncertainty, you thought that there was really a bright hope. You just had to make it through the-- you had to make it through the mud. And when you got through the mud, there would be dry spot on the other side.

And if I look now, boy, I'll tell you what. I think there's going to be a lake out there. I'm beginning to think once we make it through the mud, it might get worse or deeper. And that's really what the other panelists said-- the uncertainty. And there was uncertainty 15 years ago, and I really don't think that's changed any at all.

RACHEL REABE: But when we first recorded you in 1986, it sounded like you didn't know if you'd be there farming six months from then or a year from then. Now it's 2001, 15 years later. Tell us where you're at now. Are you still on that piece of land? Have you got your house painted?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I probably went through-- and pride makes it hurt to say this. But I went broke. I mean, I can say what I want, but I actually went flat broke. I took and looked at it and said, am I going to quit and go to town or am I going to try again?

And I decided that I'd never really failed at too much in my life, so that I didn't want to quit as a farmer failing. So I thought I'd better give it one more shot. And trust me, the trying to start over again was twice as hard as it was the first time. Eddie Joe's here today, also. He can probably remember that.

When he was milking cows, I went down and borrowed his wagons so that I could combine corn and beans while he was-- he has a tremendous lot of chores. I borrowed his wagons and a couple of the other neighbor's wagons and hauled corn and beans. I didn't even have wagons, you know. I mean, I-- talk about went to zero. I went to zero. And I chose that to keep trying, and I did. And that was one thing that I will say. I--

RACHEL REABE: You didn't give up.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I did not give up.

RACHEL REABE: Let's hear another piece of tape from that 1986 documentary when you describe one of the lowest points of your farm career.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Our pride is getting pretty well shot. Well for myself, personally, I was terrible proud. You know, when I had a farm sale-- I had a farm sale June 14th-- that's when your pride's got to stop. My wife was crying. And I guess I had to sit there and watch how sad she was. And in myself, I was terrible sad.

And that was hard because I stood on my farm place and I watched the equipment that I had paid-- been paying on and working to get for 10 years, I watched it all go down the driveway. And I watched other people hook onto it and put a pin in it, knowing that it was going to go to all different parts of the country. And I guess from that day on, I figured my pride was pretty well gone because it was stripped from me.

Maybe it was evil that a man had pride in the thing that he worked for. But we had goals and things that we worked for. And through no choice of our own, we got them taken away from us.

RACHEL REABE: Marly, at that point, what options were available to you? You had a farm sale. You sold the equipment. Did you hang on to the land or some of the land?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I have to be honest. I deeded back my farm because there was no way I could pay for it. I had bought it at the peak. I bought it in 1979. And that had to have been, at that time, the high point. Now land, of course, is higher.

And Federal Land Bank kind of says to me that they would sell me 180 back. And I guess maybe I did that a little bit. I suggested to them that I had five children, a wife, and no house. And so they put it on a contract for deed, and I did purchase an 80 acres back. And that's what I went down to was an 80 acres.

So with that in mind, I did keep in farming so that I could kind of keep chiseling it back. And I had a couple other deals where I was able to rent some land. And so I worked my way back out of it.

Now, I had an uncle out of Iowa that was at the same point I was, a generation older, and he quit. He said, I'm too old to do it again, and he stopped. So, I mean, it's just at that point, there's a turning point of how old are you, how much steam do you have left, and that's where you go from.

RACHEL REABE: How old are you now?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I'm going to be 50 years old in November.

RACHEL REABE: So 15 years ago, you were in your mid 30s.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Yes.

RACHEL REABE: Raising five kids.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Yep.

RACHEL REABE: You had to make a living. This wasn't trying to move into a-- retirement wasn't an option for you at 35, was it?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: No.

RACHEL REABE: So you're down to this-- just small fraction of your original land. You've sold the equipment. You're borrowing Ed's wagon when he's sleeping. How do you get it going again? Did you get another job?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Basically, what really helped me and would probably-- off farm income did get me going. And there for a while, things got really tough. We took in-- my wife and children did the chores. I bought a truck, and I farmed and trucked for three years.

And I averaged about 144,000 miles out on the road. Which, if anybody knows trucking, that's a full time job for anybody. And we farmed with that. And that basically, I would have to say, probably helped me with some outside income get going again.

RACHEL REABE: But Marly, once you got into that trucking business, did you ever think-- goodbye farming, hello, trucking? Or was trucking always that means to get back to where you wanted to be?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I guess I-- my banker asked me one day. He said, the land that we have now, he says, I have a question for you. Why do you work so hard and don't just rent it out? Because I think your rent would make the payments. You wouldn't have to work so hard.

And I heard him talking about Jackpot Junction. And I said to the banker, it's kind of like blackjack. You sit there and the people are all at the table. The chairs are full. And you're hoping this guy loses his last $5 so you can have the chair and lose your money, too.

And that's how farming seems to be. You want the chair. You want to be out there. You want to do it. And going there thinking you're going to make money, I don't even-- when I go to a casino, I don't think I'm going to make money. And when I farm, I'm beginning to think I'm not going to make money.

I don't know. It's in your blood. I heard the other gentleman say it, too. It just-- it gets in your blood. It's what we're good at. And that's one point I want to make, too. They made some statements that-- like, the farmers, they were weaning out the poor ones and all.

We do not have any poor farmers left. They cannot be there. The farmers that we have are top notch, sharp. They know-- they're well educated in everything because they have to be to survive.

RACHEL REABE: But they would have been gone?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Right. To understand the government programs, and the new chemicals, and the seeds and stuff. We are, I think, labeled as a bunch of people who can't do other things once in a while. And I have news for, I guess, the people who are listening is I think we basically can do anything.

I know that Eddie Joe here could wire a house, and he probably did his. And I know he could plumb and do plumbing. He could do anything about. But we are in a business where we've done it for ourselves. We've worked for ourselves.

We haven't had a boss other than the bank, probably. But I think that's the independence is kind of like we're the old cowboy, you know? We got the independence of doing it, and we like to keep it.

RACHEL REABE: Ed, is that how it's like for you? You M it because you want to keep doing it?

ED HEARD: Pretty much.

RACHEL REABE: And so you'll stay on the farm?

ED HEARD: I will. If everybody's wife tried to get their husband to quit, there would be a lot of us, you know, couldn't stay.

RACHEL REABE: Uh huh. But your wife stood there by you?

ED HEARD: Pretty much.

RACHEL REABE: Let's talk a little bit about your situation. 15 years ago-- so we're back to 1986 when the documentary was put together-- you and your wife were milking 50 cows on your 400 acre farm. You were in your early 30s too, so you're about the same age as Marly.

You were raising three children. You told us were struggling to pay the interest on your farm debt and keep up with the massive workload. And we are going to go to you because we have on a piece of tape, and we're just waiting for that to happen.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Land at that time-- this was in 1979 when I bought-- land was going extremely high. So we went out and bought it. And it's-- I'll tell you, in 1980, everything changed. It was like a 180 degree turn. It's-- the hogs got cheap, and the grain got cheap.

And some of it's timing, I'll have to say that. The biggest mistake, I would have to say, is the fact that in trying to be modern, maybe that I did-- that I-- and I will say this, that I spent money. I invested it. I invested in a finishing house. There was no place to finish hogs on that place, so I invested in a finishing house.

And the farrowing house, I remodeled. The gestation house, I remodeled. I moved the nursery in to my place. We put a furnace in the house because it's a large, old house, and it's quite cold. And we put new shingles on the house because the roof leaks so bad. So we did do that. And I really think that I pretty well was pretty practical with my investments. I didn't overdo it. I tried to do it right without spending very much money.

I used to believe that in America, this was the land of opportunity, that the government kept their nose clean, and they were honest and fair. And now I believe that you can work as hard as you want to or do whatever you want to. And if the government decides to ball it up, it'll get balled up and you're going to take it on the chin, and it does not matter what you do.

And now I look back and you say, what would I have done different? I think a guy could have sat in the house and looked out the window and made just about as much money as we did, working hard.

RACHEL REABE: And Ed, that wasn't your piece of tape. That was Marly's. But let's go with that. Marly. That frustration of you work hard, you work unbelievably hard, and you don't get ahead. That's where you're at 15 years ago. Do you feel that way now?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I would have to say yes, that I do. The difference probably is that I will say one thing. We decided to discontinue livestock. And Ed still-- I couldn't follow Ed around for a day and keep up. I couldn't.

I'll admit that in modesty because Ed probably works harder than he did before because of the fact that he had three kids home helping him, and I pretty much think they're all gone. Him and Brenda are home by themselves, and they're still doing the same workload as they did before. The thing that changed is we went to grain farming. We've increased in acres quite a little bit. But the machinery that we have is large, still.

RACHEL REABE: So less labor intensive?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Exactly. We have a small trucking firm. I have really good drivers who are, you know, helped me well with that. They pick their own loads and do some of this stuff to share some of that with me. So that is a real plus for me. And the thing I have to say, I don't think farming is any more profitable, but I do a lot less labor in it.

RACHEL REABE: We have an audience here watching our Main Street show from the Minnesota State Fair, and Kate Smith is in the midst of them. Kate?

KATE SMITH: Well, Rachel, I was watching Kathy Bootsma as she was listening to Marly talk. And early on, I asked her whether or not there was any way that they discussed this on the way here to the State Fair. You know, talked about what it's been like for the last 15 years. She said, no, not really. And I thought, oh, that's interesting. But you were listening to that tape and things were hitting you a little differently, weren't they?

KATHY BOOTSMA: Yeah, I guess I really never looked back at it. We had the tape at home, and I guess I didn't listen to it. But tears come to your eyes because I guess I really didn't remember what Marly had on that tape. Excuse me.

KATE SMITH: No, it's OK.

RACHEL REABE: And it just brings it back to you, doesn't it?

KATHY BOOTSMA: Yeah, it does. There were a lot of hard times, but we made it. We raised our five kids. We raised them well. And we're still here.

RACHEL REABE: Did you make the right decision to stay on the farm? At some point, were you and Marly always in agreement on this? Or sometimes were you let's go and he was let's stay? And the next day, you were let's stay and he was let's go?

KATHY BOOTSMA: Most of the time, I was let's go. I have to say that he was the one that wanted to stay. And I said, let's just go. And he says, no. Some day we'll have this ground. We'll be able to keep it, and we'll be able to retire on this ground.

And there's one thing about it. We kept the ground for 29 years. I stayed home with my kids. I was very, very lucky. I raised my five kids. I went back-- I went to work three years ago. It was the first job I ever had. Well, I guess off the farm job. I guess--

RACHEL REABE: You've been working like a maniac.

KATHY BOOTSMA: Right. I raised five kids. I milked 100 cows. I farrowed to finish 240 sows. So I did work, but that always kind of amazed me when people says to me, you don't have a job. I had a job. I raised five kids. And for 29 years, I was on the farm. So we did have a job. But I'm glad we were there. Raised my five kids and had a good time doing it.

RACHEL REABE: And Mrs. Bootsma, are your kids in farming? Did you want your kids to stay in farming?

KATHY BOOTSMA: That was a big-- last May, my son graduated from college with a degree in agronomy. He's got a five year degree in agronomy. Marly wanted him to come home and farm. I said, no, let him go get a job. Let him make a living.

But he's at home with us, and he's still in our house. He gets married next July. He's still in our house. I love my kids at home. He is farming with us because Marly can't do it by himself. And I now have a full time job. I work off the farm just to get our insurance, health insurance, and that type of thing because it's tough when you're on the farm to get health insurance.

And so I do work off the farm. And Marly is-- Ryan is there to help Marly. He's 23 years old with a five year agronomy degree. And it probably will be some day where an agronomy degree is going to be very, very helpful for a farmer just to stay alive.

RACHEL REABE: And your other kids?

KATHY BOOTSMA: My oldest son works down in Iowa with his uncle. He is-- a manure-hauling business, so he's related with farming. My second son repairs all kinds of trailers, like wreck trailers, like grain trailers, livestock trailers, that type of thing. So he is hooked a little bit with farming.

My third son manages the-- he has a maintenance degree. He manages the maintenance of a great big hog confinement in Pipestone County. My fourth son has the agronomy degree, and my fifth child is a girl. And she is a nursing major at Mankato State University.

RACHEL REABE: So you're grateful you raised those kids on the farm?

KATHY BOOTSMA: Yes, I am.

RACHEL REABE: Marly, as you hear your wife talk, do you feel that emotional about back in 1986, or do you just go forward and not look back much?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I guess I kind of do the go forward. She's the one that was practical. The one that-- I always kind of thought I was like the speedboat that would have ran into the rocks. And she was kind of like the anchor that slowed me down a little bit.

And between the two of us, we kind of maintained about the right pace because I was always-- sometimes didn't think stuff out. I was just going to go, go, go. And she was, now we're going to better think this over. And between the two of us, that worked out well.

RACHEL REABE: Ed, let's go back now and listen to your piece of tape. Again, this is 15 years ago. You're in your 30s. You and your wife are raising three kids, milking 50 cows on your 400 acre farm.

ED HEARD: There isn't a woman in town that would live under the circumstances my wife does. If the chief of staff-- Don Regan-- came out here, he'd have to bring, I think, three Marines-- the best Marines he's got-- to get my work done because I know he couldn't do it Just to do chores, it takes about 10 hours a day.

Now, that's not figuring any time for the guy that-- during the time of year that we spend in the field, time that you would spend grinding feed or other odd chores. I'm just talking about just the milking, the feeding, things we do every day that we have to do. If we get a couple of hours off on a Sunday afternoon, that's considered a vacation.

[LAUGHING]

It's been three years, four years since we had a vacation, I think. And that would be a two day trip up to visit a friend of ours.

RACHEL REABE: Ed, that's where you were at 15 years ago. Do you remember how hard a life that was?

ED HEARD: Yep. Too much borrowed money.

RACHEL REABE: Could you sleep at night?

ED HEARD: Yeah.

RACHEL REABE: You were so tired.

ED HEARD: Right.

RACHEL REABE: You had to sleep at night.

ED HEARD: Yep.

RACHEL REABE: Has it gotten any easier?

ED HEARD: Yeah. You decide you're going to pay off your debts and only buy things that increase your income because you don't realize when you buy something, what a load that puts on your income.

RACHEL REABE: Mm-hmm.

ED HEARD: The biggest difference-- people ask why this farmer is making money and this other farmer isn't, and it's because of what his money is costing him. You know, if he's got a dad that's got machinery and land, there's a net worth tied up in there that the boy uses, but the IRS never sees the money. It's a big push for the kid.

And some of the people that were lucky enough to buy land when it was $200 an acre, and now it's worth $1,500 or $2000 an acre, that's an inflated net worth that they can borrow against. And if they turn around and borrow, right away, it's costing them 10%. So any time you see a farmer that expands his operation, he's sticking his foot in the trap because he's going to have to make more to pay that 10% interest as he goes.

RACHEL REABE: Now, Marly talked about getting out of livestock because it was so labor intensive, he couldn't do it anymore. You're still there milking those dairy cows. Your wife couldn't come because she's home milking the dairy cows. Were you just not willing to give up that part of farming? Is that the part that you love?

ED HEARD: Well, I like cows. But if you want to make money, you have to stay with something that's labor intensive, like farrowing sows or milking cows. Old land, just-- you only take one crop a year off. It's like stock cow. If you lose the calf, you've lost your whole crop.

Whereas the milk cow, you dig in and you at least get the milk, the calf, everything else that goes with it, you know? You've got a steady job. I guess the other thing is when you're home working, you aren't out spending any money. You know? Like--

RACHEL REABE: You don't have time to spend any money.

ED HEARD: You go out for supper and drop $50 on a steak for you and your wife. That-- people don't realize what some of us have to do to make that 50 bucks back.

RACHEL REABE: I'm Rachel Reabe, and we're catching up on some farmers from Chanarambie Township who we interviewed 15 years ago during the farm crisis. We are live at the Minnesota State Fair, NPR shirts, hats, mugs, CDs and more. It's all available at this Minnesota Public Radio booth at the State Fair.

Stop by and pick up your favorite Public Radio merchandise, including tempting items from A Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk, Saint Paul Sunday, and All Things Considered. And don't forget to sign up for our Toro Mower Blower Thrower giveaway. Look for a complete schedule of live events on our website at minnesotapublicradio.org. We'll be back with more of Main Street after news and weather.

STEVEN JOHN: Thank you, Rachel. Good morning-- or good afternoon, I'm Steven John. Orders to US factories were slightly higher in July. The commerce department says orders rose 1/10 of 1%, led by increases in demand for transportation products, as well as in furniture, household appliances, and communications equipment.

Economists had expected a decline. The report helped stock prices move higher as Wall Street tries to recover lost ground after four straight days of declines. The Dow is up almost 50 points. The NASDAQ is up 11.

The justice department is urging the Supreme Court to reject Microsoft's request for a review of the antitrust case against it. The justice department filing disputes the software giant's claim that the case is ripe for the high court's review.

The Dominican government says little league star pitcher Danny Almonte is 14 years old, a finding that could strip his Bronx team of its third place World Series title. The little league is expected to issue a statement sometime today.

The police chief in Sioux City, Iowa, says officers have arrested a suspect in the slayings of seven people, including a mother and five children. Authorities had been looking for a 23-year-old man who they say knew all seven of the victims. They described him as armed and dangerous.

A Stearns County district judge has ruled against a St. Cloud man who claimed officers kept stopping him because he is Black. Judge Paul [? Wittich ?] ruled today that there was no discrimination. He said officers were only doing random license checks of vehicles when they happened to catch Emmanuel Mathews Sr. twice last year.

Minnesota's new welfare system is expected to officially end welfare payments to one state family tomorrow when the family hits the state's 60 month lifetime limit on welfare. The family is expected to be the first removed from the welfare system.

The state forecast, mostly sunny and pleasant-- highs in the low 60's in the far north to mid 70's in the south, continued cool tonight and into Saturday. St. Cloud has 65 degrees, it's 60 in Duluth. Fargo-Moorhead 61 this hour, while in Albert Lea, it's 63. In the Twin Cities-- 66. That's the news update. I'm Steven John.

RACHEL REABE: Welcome back to this Main Street special from the Minnesota Public Radio booth at the Minnesota State Fair. I'm Rachel Reabe. It's not often that we're able to go back and revisit people we've interviewed, but that's what we're doing today.

15 years ago, we aired a documentary on the farmers of Chanarambie Township-- seven families who live near each other in southwestern Minnesota's Murray County. We've asked them to catch us up on what's happened in their lives since 1986. Two of the farmers, Marlyn Bootsma and Ed Heard, have joined me here at the Minnesota State Fair. Others were trying to catch up by telephone.

Our phone lines are open for your questions and comments as well. If you are in the Twin Cities, you can call us at 651-227-6000. If you're outside the metro area, call us at 1-800-242-2828.

Gentlemen, when I listened to the Chanarambie Township documentary, I was struck by how honest you were, by how much you shared, by how personal you got. Are you sort of surprised? When you listen back to it, are you surprised that you were as vulnerable as you were back then?

ED HEARD: Yeah.

RACHEL REABE: Yeah?

ED HEARD: Yeah, definitely.

RACHEL REABE: Marly, how about you?

ED HEARD: We weren't live then either.

RACHEL REABE: Oh, so that seemed a lot easier when you were just with a reporter in your farmhouse?

ED HEARD: Yeah.

RACHEL REABE: So you had no hesitation about talking and telling him just where things were at with you?

ED HEARD: No problem.

RACHEL REABE: How about you, Marly?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Well, when Mark first came to me to do that, we talked--

RACHEL REABE: And this was your idea, we should say.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Well, he had a different idea-- let's just put it that way-- and we moved to this idea. When we come up with this idea, he had mentioned, you know, what are your neighbors thinking? I mentioned one thing. A farmer should never be put in a deal where this is what my neighbor thinks.

You go ask my neighbor. He will tell you what he thinks. If you asked any of my neighbors today, it's the same thing. You want to know opinion, they will give you their opinion. They are not shy about that because most, like I said earlier, I think that farmers are way more intelligent than we're given credit for. And we know a lot about a lot of things.

RACHEL REABE: Your reaction when you heard the finished documentary?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I took and listened to it and thought, boy, every time I couldn't think of something to say, I said "and, uh" a lot. That's what I thought when I heard that tape.

RACHEL REABE: Did people talk to you about, Ed, hearing you on the air?

ED HEARD: No, not really.

RACHEL REABE: No?

ED HEARD: Everybody else kind of keeps their opinion to theirself, it seems to me. Everybody thinks they're going to be a survivor. And 10% of us went out then. Next time the economy gets tough, another 10% goes out. And pretty soon, you're down to the people that thought they were going to be survivors, and now they're starting to worry, too.

RACHEL REABE: Are you starting to worry?

ED HEARD: No. No, I know what fate is going to bring.

RACHEL REABE: It's going to be there with your wife and your dairy cows.

ED HEARD: No, we're going to go out. None of our kids are going to farm.

RACHEL REABE: Is that hard? You raised three kids on the farm. You've lived on a farm. Is it tough not to see that continue?

ED HEARD: In some ways. But I don't want my kids to have to live like this.

RACHEL REABE: Yeah.

ED HEARD: Not if they can get an education and a good job.

RACHEL REABE: And are your kids grown up now, Ed? Where are your kids at?

ED HEARD: My oldest girl is 24 and massage therapist. My oldest boy is 21 and he's going to medical school. The boy that's 19 is in Marshall for graphic arts. None of them plan on farming.

RACHEL REABE: So are you 50 years old or almost 50 years old?

ED HEARD: 48 in December.

RACHEL REABE: So how much longer will you be doing this? I mean, if you could write your future now, Ed, what do you think it would look like?

ED HEARD: Three years.

RACHEL REABE: You think you'll be out in your early 50s?

ED HEARD: Yeah. I'll be done milking cows.

RACHEL REABE: So then what? Marlyn's already given us your list of job qualifications. It sounds like you can do it all. You can plumb. You can be an electrician. What will you do?

ED HEARD: But I have no degree.

RACHEL REABE: Yeah.

ED HEARD: You know, I can take a diesel engine apart and come back six months later and put it back together by memory.

RACHEL REABE: Mm-hmm.

ED HEARD: And wire a house, plumb, weld-- anything you can think of, I can just about do. But I do not have a degree. So when you go looking for a job, you're going to be shoveling dirt. And a 50-year-old guy has no business, you know, competing with 20-year-old kids.

RACHEL REABE: Not when he's done the work of three Marines for the last 20 years.

[LAUGHING]

So you will-- can you stay on the farm? Can you keep your house and some of the land?

ED HEARD: Yeah. But I mean, like I said, if you want to make money farming, you got to be in something that's labor intensive. And when I turn 50, I think that's probably time to quit milking. And then I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

RACHEL REABE: But it's not going to be easy?

ED HEARD: No.

RACHEL REABE: No. Chanarambie farmer, Merle Heard told us that things were going pretty well for him on the farm until 1982, when interest rates skyrocketed. By 1985, he'd called it quits. He sold most of his farm equipment and turned the operation over to his son. And that's where we were at with him when Mark Steil interviewed him back in 1986 in this piece of tape.

MERLE HEARD: Best decision I made in my life was to quit farming on because I still have the home place which my dad bought in 1938, and that'll still stay in the family this way. Drove truck last year, and then after that, kind of let up. And along in August, why then, I took my old D8 Caterpillar that I still have with the dozer. And I went and done some work in this disaster area where the tornado went through.

After that, the neighbors down here were going to build a new dairy barn. I helped work on that. And then I done their plowing and their-- cutting their silage. And I picked their corn when they ground it in silo. Easiest year I ever had, working for somebody else.

Lots of times, I drove truck clear to Philadelphia and back. But that's easier on the constitution than farming. Get out quick while you got what you got left. If you can salvage anything, get out of it because there's no future in it, the way this new farm program.

RACHEL REABE: We have Merle Heard on the phone with us now from his farmhouse in Chanarambie Township. Mr. Heard, did you have any regrets about getting out of farming when you did?

MERLE HEARD: Not one bit. That's the best thing I ever did.

RACHEL REABE: Should you have done it earlier than you did?

MERLE HEARD: Oh, maybe a year. But up till then, it wasn't too bad. But I have one regret-- that I helped my boy get started farming. Now, that was a disservice to him.

RACHEL REABE: Why do you say that, Mr. Heard?

MERLE HEARD: Well, what future has he got? His kids will never be able to farm. And I tell them right out not to ever even think about it because there's just-- all they're going to do is pay a lot of interest and work their life away.

And when you're a farm like that, well, you don't pay much into Social Security. You build no equity up, you know, in the IRA or something like that. And when it comes to retire, well, then they'll be kind of in the shape that I would have been in if I wouldn't have quit and took another job.

RACHEL REABE: And Mr. Heard, if you had told your son don't do as I'm doing, don't follow in my footsteps, don't go into farming-- would he have listened to you?

MERLE HEARD: Well, he wanted to farm, so he was in partnership with me. So I just sold out and sold him the milk cows, and sold our better machinery off, and he bought some cheaper stuff. And he's got along pretty good.

But you know, now he's probably 40 years old and don't own any land. He's got his cows and his machinery. And they got a pretty good life. They rent some more land besides mine. But good god, when you look at the interest that they pay, why, it's terrible.

RACHEL REABE: Do you help him on the farm still?

MERLE HEARD: No more. As of a few weeks ago, I sold my last piece of farm equipment. I sold my silo filling outfit, and I went around and filled silos for the neighbors. But now that's all gone, too. I'm going to take it easy. I'm 71 years old.

RACHEL REABE: Good for you, Mr. Heard. Thanks for joining us on the phone today.

MERLE HEARD: OK.

RACHEL REABE: Marly, Ed, did your kids listen? Can you tell kids what they're going to do?

ED HEARD: Yeah. I mean, they lived it.

RACHEL REABE: And so how did you go about talking to them, Ed? Or did you never really have to say anything? Did they just see how you struggled?

ED HEARD: No, we always encouraged them to get an education, and do good in school.

RACHEL REABE: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Marly, how about your kids?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Well, Chad was farming with me. And I have to be honest, it didn't work out very well. He paid too much interest-- The same thing that Ed would talk about, Merle was talking about. And he chose to do something different, and I was very glad that he did, in a way.

And yet, when Ryan asked about starting farming, I do believe that it was good that he went to college. This sounds awful, but it's like something to fall back on now. Isn't that terrible that we would go into farming and say, well, he has an education to fall back on, like you already know it might not work. Isn't that a terrible thing?

RACHEL REABE: But it's a tentative step into a career.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Exactly. Kathy's aunt and uncle were down from Michigan. We were eating dinner, and my aunt-- Kathy's aunt-- asked Ryan what he planned on doing. And he had just graduated from college. And Ryan said, I'm going to come home, farm with dad.

And she said, what? You're going to waste your education? And I got so angry. I got angry right at the table. And I said, that's really what you think of farming, isn't it? You think we're all out here just wasting our time. And yet, when you go to a grocery store, the shelves are full. We have the best supply of food in the world. And how does it get there? We do it.

And yet-- kind of a disappointment-- I walked across the deal, bought this bottle of water, and I paid $2 for it. But I'm going to sell $1.70 corn out of the field. I sell a bushel of corn for $1.70, but I'll buy a bottle of water for $2. I mean, we just aren't in-- we're not where we have to be. And I think everybody that farms knows that.

The government program has bailed us out to a degree. And I hope people probably think it was like a welfare program. And I have to be honest, it probably was. But without that program, I ain't sure a lot of us would be here.

RACHEL REABE: OK, now this is a place where I think Ed is going to take some disagreement with you. Ed, what do you have to say about that? Was it a welfare program?

ED HEARD: The farm program used to be called the Food Security Act. And we had a reserve that we built up. The government paid storage on it. If we had a crop failure, at least we had something in storage then. We had butter, cheese-- the government had that all stored away. And we never seen the market go from $10 last summer to $17 this year in a year's time, you know, for dairy products.

The government was doing us a service by storing your future food supply in case of an emergency. Now they just-- they got the idea that we're supposed to raise it, put it on a boat, and somebody will take that boat load of corn. Or, you know, if we give it to them-- whatever.

But the government then turns around and imports pork from anybody that'll put it on a boat. Milk-- if the people knew how much milk comes into this country from places like New Zealand-- It's just a way of keeping labor down.

RACHEL REABE: We're going to the telephone now. We have Leroy from Stearns County patiently standing by. Leroy, good afternoon. Welcome to Main Street.

LEROY: Good afternoon. And you have a very interesting discussion there, and I just thought I'd share my situation a little bit. I'm a dairy farmer. I started farming in 1969. And I, too, have a college degree. And I wanted to get into farming again and the economics of farming.

Of course, I started-- well, in '69, was the same as right now. They told me, you want to go back into farming with my education? And farming was a little difficult in the late '60s. But then we had the good years in the '70s, and it got me well established.

But even today now, of course, milk prices went up again this year. And we are doing pretty good. We have-- I have lighter soil, and I'm only getting a half a crop. But with dairy, you can salvage that, and so forth. But I like to comment on the change in farm program.

I remember so well in the middle '70s, we were running short on food, and we had some weather disasters. And then the government decided we have to increase our reserves so we can withstand crop failures, and so forth. But then the reserves kept building up and became too expensive.

And then with Reagan, we went-- had that Payment-in-Kind deal to get our reserves down. And of course, then that was in '83. We had not the best weather conditions, and we ran short on corn. The prices went up.

But the thing-- problem was who wanted to pay for the storage costs? Government was hard pressed on paying its bills, and that's why they wanted to get out of the reserve system. But the trouble-- I still feel that the government should have some reserves, I think, is a good thing to counter the-- if we get bad weather, and so forth.

But it also will depress prices. And when prices fluctuate, that in itself makes it profitable for farmers to try to pay for their own storage costs, and so forth. And the--

RACHEL REABE: Leroy, let's give our panel members a chance to respond to this. Marly, any comments you have about what he's saying? Do you agree with him?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Well, I think he hit on it a little bit, and Ed both did. You know, we have been blessed in this country with just astronomically good crops. And in return, the government has done a really poor job of it.

I mean, we've had the surpluses, which the gentleman on the phone said. Ed also commented that was what the reserve program was designed for. But, you know, I think we've come to just the thought in life that food will always be here.

But if we had a couple of really good droughts in this country, we would really be punished because of the fact that our government has not covered the food supply at all. And Ed was talking about it. It was kind of cute. I also have trucks.

When butter was at the all time low-- the all time lowest butter ever was-- we were going to Seattle. And we were hauling imported butter out of Seattle to the Midwest, where the butter is. Now--

RACHEL REABE: How does that make you feel, Ed?

ED HEARD: Oh, that really burns me. It doesn't bother me now, when milk is-- say, butter is $2.20 a pound wholesale. If they would import a little butter to, you know, just take the edge off of-- so the consumers get a break. But when milk is $10 a 100, and everybody is on the verge of bankruptcy and they're still importing products from overseas, that really stinks.

RACHEL REABE: Let's talk about some of the other farmers from Chanarambie Township. Catch me up with some of them. Jean Schulte, actually, we were hoping to talk to Jean today. He now works for you, Marly.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Well, I'll tell you what. Jean chose at the same time, probably, that I chose to discontinue-- or continue, excuse me-- Jean chose to quit, and he was going to try something else. And he worked at a [? elevator. ?] And me and Jean have been friends for years.

And he's a hard-working individual. And he wanted to change from agriculture a little bit. And of course, I was looking for some help driving truck. And Jean works with me with the truck. He, again, chooses all the loads, pays attention to all the stuff. So basically, I can continue doing my agriculture because if I had to do the stuff that he does, I wouldn't have time.

RACHEL REABE: Do you think he likes his life driving truck? I called him earlier this week. It was the middle of the morning. And I said, is this a good time to talk? I called him on his cell phone. He said, I'm on the freeway outside of Los Angeles. This would not be a good time for me to talk. But does he like the trucking life?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I think it--

RACHEL REABE: Works for him?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I think he likes it. But it's like any other jobs. It has its ups and downs. You know, he went to LA and went up to pick a load up and it fell apart, and he had to sit a day or two. And I'm sure if you'd have talked to him right at that time, he probably wasn't real--

But I think he likes it. And he gets out, gets to see some country. I do believe-- and I hate speaking for other people. I do believe that-- and he's excellent. I will put it that way. I can't tell you what he thinks, but I can tell you he does an excellent job of it. He does a fantastic job of what he does.

RACHEL REABE: Now, Bob Ossefort was one of the other farmers that we interviewed back in 1986. He was raising sheep. He was the only one of the seven of you that were raising sheeps. He was also milking cows and growing crops on 160 acres of land in Chanarambie Township. In the original documentary, this is what Bob Ossefort had to say.

BOB OSSEFORT: I enjoy it out here. A farming life is the best place I've seen growing up, and best place to raise a family. And I enjoy farming. I always have. Really, the main thing is the birth of life, you know, on the farm. You know, cow, calves, sheep. You know, he has lambs or sow farrows, you know it.

It's always a wonder. You're bringing new life into the world, more or less. Kind of makes you forget what is happening in the world, you know, and sit back and kind of just a smile on your face once again.

I worked in town for several years before I started farming because there was no way that I could get started on my own, you know? And my folks have helped out, and I've watched what I've bought and got good deals. And I'm still surviving so far.

I'd like to continue to keep this, you know, a family farm. You know, my grandfather moved here in 1914. And my dad, he took over in the early '40s. And I've took over now in the early '80s.

And I'm hoping down the road that my son will be able to take over for me here, too, you know, a continuation of keeping the farm in the family. But you hear a lot of family farms that are being lost anyhow. But I'm going to give it my best shot. I'm not going to give up.

RACHEL REABE: So tell us about Bob Ossefort. Is he still farming?

ED HEARD: He's a classic example of a guy that works in town so he can get enough money to afford to farm. There's an amazing number of people that have off farm jobs just so they can afford to farm.

RACHEL REABE: And it's not so they can afford to live on the farm place. They're still working there.

ED HEARD: Yeah. That's part of it, though. I mean, they all got a couple of beef cattle or stock cows or something that they're-- you know, so they're still farming. But they've got this 8:00 to 5:00 job in town that gets their health insurance, pays the bills, the heating bill, all that incidental stuff.

RACHEL REABE: Are benefits a huge issue? You told me, Marly, your wife went to work off the farm. Not because she wanted to or-- she had to do it for health insurance. Is that huge now in farming today?

MARLYN BOOTSMA: I should finish, though. One thing about Bob, he did make the step over to full time farmer. I mean, he worked his way hard. He worked at IBP, worked at a packing house. And like Ed said, you know, you had to work your way to get started into farming. And, you know, he did, too. And he made the step, which is won't you say rare, Ed? I mean, most--

ED HEARD: Very rare.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: Very rare. I mean, he did a pretty good feat. I am also was born and raised in town, and started farming. So that was kind of-- I worked for my uncles, actually. My uncles did help me get farming. I can't say that they didn't.

So I'll tell you what. You know, that's even-- and actually, even Eddie Joe's dad run a milk hauling business and stuff. And did your dad ever farm on the place you live at?

ED HEARD: He was there till '64.

MARLYN BOOTSMA: OK.

ED HEARD: And then we moved to town, and he drove truck. And in '71, when I graduated, I wanted to go to be a veterinarian. And it was just a matter of timing that back then, you could borrow money and buy something, and it inflated.

RACHEL REABE: So things turned out differently for you. We're out of time here today. Marlyn Bootsma and Ed Heard, thank you for being with us today. Thanks for sharing your stories.

This special Main Street radio broadcast is a production of Minnesota Public Radio. Our engineers are Cliff Bentley at the Minnesota State Fair. Our producer is Sara Meyer. The executive producer is Kate Smith.

Minnesota Public Radio reporter Mark Steil produced the original documentary on the Chanarambie Township farmers in 1986, and provided assistance for this broadcast. We'd like to invite you to visit the Main Street website. Go to minnesotapublicradio.org and click on Main Street. You'll be able to hear this broadcast, as well as other Main Street reports. The address again-- minnesotapublicradio.org. Minnesota Public Radio's Main Street team consists of 13 reporters at NPR bureaus across Minnesota. I'm Rachel Reabe.

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DEBORAH BAIER: I'm Deborah Baier. Coming up on Sound Money this week, managing a mutual fund portfolio in these uncertain times. Sound Money-- Saturday morning at 10:00, again Sunday afternoon at 5:00 on Minnesota Public Radio-- KNOW FM 91.1.

SPEAKER: It's 66 degrees at KNOW FM 91.1 Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Twin Cities weather today calls for sunny skies, a high of 74 degrees. Tonight, clear skies and cool temperatures down in the mid 40's. For Saturday, partly cloudy skies, a high of 76 degrees. Currently in the Twin Cities, we have 66 degrees. It's 1 o'clock.