In the late 1970s, grain prices had tanked, farm auctions filled newspapers, and people had forgotten that food didn’t grow in grocery stores. So, on February 5, 1979, thousands of tractors from all parts of the USA took to the highways and flooded Washington, DC, in protest. Farmers wanted
fair prices for their products and demanded action from Congress. After police corralled the tractors on the National Mall, the farmers and their tractors stayed through a snowstorm and dug out the city. Americans were now convinced they needed farmers, but the law took longer.
Lindsay H. Metcalf, a journalist who grew up on a family farm, shares this rarely told story of grassroots perseverance and economic justice rooted in the 1980s farm crisis. It is the story of the struggle and triumph of the American farmer that still resonates today.