We won’t “Get big or get out”: The farmers who stayed put [Book review]

First paragraph: the U.S., farmland is steadily declining. The number of farms has declined dramatically from a peak of 6.8 million in 1935 to 2.04 million in 2022, and further to 1.88 million according to the 2024 Census of Agriculture (Lacey, 2025). Tennes¬see reflects this trend. The farmers’ persistence in place is a remarkable feat, especially amid long-standing trends in farm loss and consolidation that have reshaped the agricultural landscape. As a boy who grew up on Tennessee farmland and returned to document the stories of those who stayed, Brooks Lamb offers a moving tribute to agricultural resilience. In this review of Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist, I reflect on the importance of these stories and the enduring wisdom they carry. Lamb sets out to preserve the voices of small-scale farmers to reframe persistence as a form of resistance. His goal is not simply to document survival, but to illuminate the emotional, ethical, and imaginative commitments that sustain farmers in the face of erasure. . . .