Fighting to keep the family farm - a conversation with Cynthia Ryan
The common media representation of agriculture is one sentimentality — of bucolic green fields with grazing livestock or amber grain fields being harvested with synchronous combines. In our conversation with Cynthia Ryan we dig deeper. She is a woman who wears many hats; farmer, university professor, caregiver, wife, writer, mother, daughter. Cynthia eschews the sentimentality and strips the varnish off and gives us a true look into the battle to save the family farm.
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SHOW NOTES
Dr Cynthia Ryan
FARMSTEAD: The aerial photograph of the farmstead, beloved by farm families all over the Midwest, hung in the Ryan farmhouse for decades.
When my father passed away in 2018, I took on management of our roughly 700-acre corn and soybean operation in Illinois--from my home in Birmingham, AL. As a fifth-generation farmer, I'm learning how to split my time and attention between my academic duties at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where I am an associate professor specializing in rhetoric and writing, and the Ryan family farm in central Illinois.
In an effort to chronicle some of the challenges I've faced since taking on the role on our family farm, in 2020 I began writing a column for Prairie Farmer magazine called "Farming from Afar." I've also written for numerous academic and public-facing publications including Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Cancer Today, Salon.com, and LA Times. Currently, I'm working on a book, tentatively titled "My Father's Ground: Digging for Roots and Learning to Survive in the Heartland," in which I tell the story of our family's roots in farming since immigrating to the US from Ireland in the 1870s and how this grounding has enabled generations of Ryan's to survive challenges associated with the changing face of agriculture and beyond.
Personal Blog
Farm Progress Column: Farming from Afar
PRODUCTION NOTES
Executive Producer, Host and Writer: Audra Mulkern
Producer: Joe Mulkern
FFP Theme Song: Written and Performed by Joe Mulkern
Episode Song: Calle Osaka
Written By: Roy Mitchell
Performed By: Azteca X