Plight Of North Dakota Farmers

North Dakota farmers are leaving the land in record numbers. In the last two years, some 2,500 out of 30,000 farmers in the state have given up their farms, no longer able to cope with natural disasters, plunging crop prices and an American trade policy that seems to undermine their efforts. CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers went to North Dakota to find out why farmers are leaving and and filed this report:

Click Here To Watch Part I Of This Report

The amber fields sway gently in Pembina County, N.D., near the Canadian border, ripening under warm, blue skies. Farmers here are readying for harvest, just a few weeks away. But these bountiful fields outside their homes belie the desperation within.

"We're holding on. You look around and you see a lot of trouble," says Brett Kiemele, whose family has long had a farm in North Dakota.

The farmers' troubles echo all the way from the Red River Valley to the halls of Washington where North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat, hears about it all day, every day.

"It's a stealth disaster," says Conrad,"because it's an incredible disaster that's occurring. But it's not being seen. It's not as visible. Last year you know we had these incredible floods and fire in North Dakota.

Sen. Kent Conrad

Fred Kiemele grew up on a farm settled by his ancestors more than 100 years ago. Now his only son, Brett, is ready to take on his rich heritage but not without a lot of misgivings.

"It's tough to make ends meet," says Brett Kiemele. "The costs are going sky high. We got chemical, fertilizer and land costs. Everything's going higher but the prices are going lower. I don't know, I don't know how the heck we're going to make it down the road."

Many farmers aren't making it. They are leaving the land in record numbers - more than 2,500 in North Dakota in the last two years alone. In fact, there are currently only 30,000 farmers left in the entire state, the lowest number since World War I. Even the Kiemele family has been affected.

"I had like six uncles that were all farming here and everyone is gone now," says Fred Kiemele. The last of their farms, the one belonging to his uncle, William Dietrich, is being auctioned off in Glasston, N.D.

Click Here To Watch Part II Of This Report

The auctioneer's chant is achingly familiar in the Northern Plains, where lifetimes of hard work fall away one piece at a time, in the course of a single morning.

"I've never seen our farmers so depressed," says Sen. Conrad.

Farmers at an auction in North Dakota

Even if the crop comes in, there are still no guarantees farmers will break even, let alone turn a profit.

Farmers say it costs about $5 to produce a single bushel of wheat but current market prices are only about $3 a bushel, which makes for some awfully tough decisions. Do they go ahead and sell their crop at a loss or do they store their grain and hope prices go up?

"We're losing money on it anyhow," says Brett Kiemele. "We binned it (the grain) hoping the price will come up. Well, that really backfired. Now the price is probably down roughly 40-50 cents. And now we're in a heck of a bind."

Wheat prices are tumbling, due to bumper crops worldwide. Demand is down as well because of the Asian financial crisis. But what's particularly vexing to North Dakotans are American trade policies that seem to undermine their best efforts.

The farmers here see trucks loaded with the same products they're growing, coming across the border from Canada at a lower price.

Canadian farmers get help from their own government, much like the farmers in Europe do. Two years ago, Congress passsed the Freedom To Farm Act. But it also takes away the payments that have served as a safety net since the Great Depression.

Says Brett Kiemele, "It's beyond our control. We can do the best job we can, putting the crops in but then we have to rely on the weather, governments...and it's out of our hands then."

"That's one of the reasons are farmers are so depressed," says Sen. Conrad. "They see what our competitors are doing. The Europeans, who are our major competitors, give their producers ten times the support we give ours. Ten times. So we're saying to our farmers, 'Look, you go out there and compete against the French farmer and the German famers and while you're at it...you take on the French government and the German government as well. That's not a fair fight."

It's not just the farmers that are feeling the effects

George Sinner, a banker, tracks the losses on the streets of towns like Cavalier, N.D.

"We see the implement dealer struggling. We see the local hardware stores struggling. The grocery stores don't have the trade that they've had and everybody suffers. Main Street suffrs. I'm seeing the total dismantling of rural America," he says.

Scott Steffes often auctions off two farms a day. He sees an increasing number of younger farmers who are saying,"That's it."

"We lost a generation in the farm sector... The 50- and 60- and 70-year-old farms, farmers don't have their sons out in the farms anymore because they have other opportunities elsewhere," Steffes says.

The missing generation is searching for a steady paycheck.

Mike Hartge was lucky enough to find a job close to home where he and many others build buses now rather than cultivating crops. But the farm is never far from mind. "I would be farming again, probably if I had the chance," he says.

Sen. Conrad sees it this way: "We've got to make a decision. Do we really want everybody in the cities of America or do we want people out across the land, dotting the landscape with farmsteads?

"In the midst of booming stock marets, booming real estate markets...the little house on the prairie is being auctioned off."