Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

When The Good Times Gave Out: The Community Impacts Of The 1980s Farm Crisis In Central Minnesota, Michelle R. Skroch

SCSU Journal of Student Scholarship

The farms and rural communities of Stearns County Minnesota were not spared from the 1980s farm crisis. People in this region experienced the strain of financial stress and reacted to it in distinct ways. This affected the long-term sentiments and societal functioning of these communities long after the economic numbers improved.

These collective and individual experiences of the farm crisis have been inadequately studied therefore scholars have incorrectly assumed that the effects of the crisis ended in 1986 when the economic market showed an upturn. Instead, the effects continued to cause stagnation and a diminishing of rural communities and people …