Harl was actively involved in advising state and federal policy-makers on the nature and severity of the crisis. Here he identifies contributing economic forces; describes efforts to deal with the problem; recounts experiences in dealing with politicians, bureaucrats and others; and identifies 12 lessons that should have been learned from the farm debt crisis. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

With a new foreword by Willie Nelson "An exquisitely written American saga." --Sarah Smarsh The "remarkably well told and heartfelt" (John Grisham) story of a young lawyer's impossible legal battle to stop the federal government from foreclosing on thousands of family farmers. In the early 1980s, farmers were suffering through the worst economic crisis to hit rural America since the Great Depression. Land prices were down, operating costs and interest rates were up, and severe weather devastated crops. Instead of receiving assistance from the government as they had in the 1930s, these hardworking family farmers were threatened with foreclosure by the very agency that Franklin Delano Roosevelt created to help them. Desperate, they called Sarah Vogel in North Dakota. Sarah, a young lawyer and single mother, listened to farmers who were on the verge of losing everything and, inspired by the politicians who had helped farmers in the '30s, she naively built a solo practice of clients who couldn't afford to pay her. Sarah began drowning in debt and soon her own home was facing foreclosure. In a David and Goliath legal battle reminiscent of A Civil Action or Erin Brockovich, Sarah brought a national class action lawsuit, which pitted her against the Reagan administration's Department of Justice, in her fight for family farmers' Constitutional rights. It was her first case. A courageous American story about justice and holding the powerful to account, The Farmer's Lawyer shows how the farm economy we all depend on for our daily bread almost fell apart due to the willful neglect of those charged to protect it, and what we can learn from Sarah's battle as a similar calamity looms large on our horizon once again.

Explores the social impact of the farm debt crisis of the 1980's through interviews with members of an agricultural community.

Americans decry the decline of family farming but stand by helplessly as industrial agribusiness takes over. The prevailing sentiment is that family farms should survive for important social, ethical, and economic reasons. But will they? This timely book exposes the biases in American farm policies that irrationally encourage expansion, biases evident in federal commodity programs, income tax provisions, and subsidized credit services. Family Farming also exposes internal conflicts, particularly the conflict between the private interests of individual farmers and the public interest in family farming as a whole. It challenges the assumption that bigger is better, critiques the technological basis of modern agriculture, and calls for farming practices that are ethical, economical, and ecologically sound. The alternative policies discussed in this book could yet save the family farm, and the ways and means of saving it are argued here with special urgency. ø This Bison Books edition includes a new introduction by the author providing a more national perspective, underscoring the repetitive cycles of American agriculture over the decade, and assessing the major policy issues that have dominated agriculture in recent years.

In the early eighties, the unthinkable began to happen to the farm sector and its financial institutions. The outlook for commodity prices and farm income worsened abruptly as an export boom collapsed with little warning. Most farmers had just experienced their most prosperous decade ever and were relying heavily on credit to continue the rapid growth of their income and wealth. As it became increasingly hard for farmers to repay their debts, the financial trouble spread to financial intermediaries with significant involvement in farm lending: commercial banks, some of the larger life insurance companies, and the Farm Credit System. It turned out that the downward spiral of the farm credit crisis had reached bottom in 1986, as judged from farm loan delinquency rates and farmland prices. A remarkable recovery ensued, based in large part on huge government income payments to farmers and further aided by the restoration of order to the operations and viability of the Farm Credit System. The story of these tumultuous years of boom and bust is vividly presented in this book, by analysts and administrators who were immersed in the unfolding events and engaged in studying, devising, or administering governmental policies and actions.