Land, The (Part II)

[Music] he fed 11 by 1960 the number of people fed by each farmer had jumped to 26 in 1960 we produced 1 B300 million bushels of wheat 4 B300 million bushels of corn 14 million bales of cotton production on the American Farm has tripled since 1940 but the very productivity of this most efficient farming system in the world has left us floundering like The Sorcerer's Apprentice in a flood of Plenty the man who has suffered most from the over production of the farm is the [Music] farmer 47% of our Farms account for 92% of our farm production these Farms are large mechanized and efficient despite their growth the vast majority remain Family Farms this is one of them the 1,000 Acre Farm of Lloyd sellers in Rice County Kansas sellers with only one Hired Man Farms seven times as much land as his grandfather did under the Homestead Act and in the winter feeds 300 [Music] [Music] cattle over the past 20 years Rice County has lost about 40 Farms a year most of those that go under are small they are taken over by Farmers like la sellers that we now have in this Farmstead that we Farm there used to be three other farmsteads and then over the years they have all been torn off I I helped tear down the buildings on two farmsteads and my father tore down the buildings on one before I can remember on one corner of our home place there used to be a one room Schoolhouse in fact this kids went to the room at one room Schoolhouse but as the schools got bigger and Consolidated and merged then this school ceased to be used as a school so we got one acre more under the plow than used to [Music] be Farmers like Lloyd sers make the most of each acre despite government programs to control production uh farmer on this land has to try to make a living so when his uh allotment is cut down to where he can put can is not allowed to produce as many acres then he tries everything he can think of to increase the production on the Acres he is still make a living so he'll Farm better he'll summer F more sual will really increase production and then he will uh probably use more fertilizer buy more Comm commercial fertilizer which will help keep the production up other words keep about as many bushels as you were eing any wind farmers do not boost production to be contrary they feel they are driven to it by chronically low prices there is little profit on one bushel of wheat or Milo so they try to grow enough to profit from sheer volume this is in direct competition with government efforts to raise prices by reducing acreage because farmers can grow more on each acre attempts to limit production this way have failed now the government would like to control instead the bushels a farmer can Market but what Farmers fear is a disastrous time lag between lower production and the day of higher prices this big plow is one reason Lloyd Sellers and his hired man can Farm a thousand acres the successful Farm today is a big business in acres in machinery and investment contrary to a carefully nurtured stereotype it usually is not a bottomless reservoir of Cadillacs a five bottom plow costs $11,000 the tractor that pulls it cost $7,000 sellers owns three tractors three trucks and a pickup a $99,000 combine and much more his investment in equipment is at least $40,000 this winter he is feeding cattle that cost $20,000 the land is worth at least $150,000 yet over the past 3 years his net income has averaged only $7,500 a year he lives comfortably but he is not rich this kind of farming foreshadows the future and the ranks of economically qualified applicants are thinning out with the the cost of machinery and equipment as it is today if a young boy want start in the farming business and didn't have a father or some relative or somebody that would go with him and give him uh some land to start on and help help him get started with equipment and stock it would be almost impossible for him to [Music] start the most important single factor in the immense productivity of the American Farm is the land grant College a unique American institution this is Kansas State University in Manhattan Kansas it was founded just 100 years [Music] ago Roc training written into the land grant law is still a required course at Kansas State but what was a college is now a university complete with a cyron under construction a few hundred yards from the cyron is an experimental plot of hybrid Milo out of fields like this came the basis for our Agricultural Revolution a current project is hybrid wheat tentative results in the form of a few precious Kernels have already been passed around to interested researchers 25 grains of wheat went to the University of nebr [Music] at the University of Nebraska some research on hybrid wheat was already underway interest there quickened when the top expert at Kansas state was hired Away by a commercial Seed Company space agencies are not the only victims of industry's technological [Music] piracy a hybrid plant is a cross between two varieties they are crossbred to encourage the best qualities of both hybrid corn which boosted production 25% was The Accidental result of basic genetic research plant research consumes time it can be accelerated by what are called growth Chambers a growing day under artificial sunlight is 18 hours set on a timer here scientists can grow four crops of spring wheat a year it took Farmers 20 years to realize the production advantages of hybrid corn now most of our corn is hybrid hybrid Milo which you saw harvested on both the Whitaker and sellers Farms was not introduced until 1957 now just four crops later it comprises 95% of the Milo planted hybrid wheat if it works will catch on even faster at the present time scientists can make hybrid wheat but it will not reproduce itself they are looking for some freak variety of grain that will lend itself to the development of reproduction and they're certain it exists somewhere of course hybrid wheat may be too expensive it may not increase production it may not have the adaptability researchers foresee but on the other hand it may these few plants could foreshadow the bread of the Next [Music] Generation there is at Hutcherson Kansas a grain elevator that stretches across the plane for half a mile each year we produce enough wheat Surplus to fill it four times over year by year the unused Surplus mounts piling up storage charges Surplus the tarnished side of our agricultural Miracle is not a new problem since 1930 in every year we did not have a severe drought a war or a major war relief program we have had surpluses in no one year do they amount to more than 5% of any one crop yet added up the cost of coping with them is 22 billion dollar a year an annual charge about the same as the total spent on development of the Aton I bomb under the Manhattan Project the farmer is the target of constant exhortation not all of it unselfish ambitious politicians editors with axes to grind urge the farmer one day to spurn the federal farm programs and be a free farmer the next day they scream at him to protest to rise up March on Washington about this or that phase of a federal program he is pushed and pulled admonished and hared into schizophrenia offered the best of two incompatible Worlds the no red tape no document no affidavit kind of free economy agriculture on the one hand and the highest price supports guaranteed Market maximum benefit kind of no risk agriculture on the [Music] other surpluses are even stored in military bases left over from World War II they depress Farm prices they cost tax dollars perhaps worst of all they represent the waste of unused food in a world where half the human race is undernourished this is Lions Kansas county seat of Rice [Applause] County Lions is one of those farming communities which has prospered in these years of sweeping agricultural change it has a population of 4,000 it is the kind of town where people go when they bypass the Dunlap in the west Morland Arnold frankhouser who runs a clothing store Knows Why really we have about seven or eight towns that used to be competition here in a sense and sold the same items that we in turn sold here while this town was a little larger uh those towns uh actually did quite a bit of business and uh I don't mean to disg grade them they were more or less Pickle Barrel type stores uh and they couldn't do any better because of their size but actually Lions Kansas was a little larger and uh I would say that the pattern has changed uh in this way uh they like to shop in a little better Town Lions has better stores more of them and good roads leading in from the four points of the compass also it has been the county seat since 187 [Music] 6 farmers in the aggregate are good consumers because of all their equipment they use more petroleum than any other industry in the country and comprise one of the biggest consumers of Steel and rubber this is reflected in the economy of lions Lions has four grocery stores two of them supermarkets the car just pulling into the curb is driven by a farmer's wife she drove 10 miles bypassing two smaller towns closer to home to shop here since fewer Farmers grow a little of everything their wives buy more food in the store including meat milk and eggs this Farm wife's habits are changing and so are those of the store supermarkets have begun to compete with drugstores as as purveyors of everything under the sun since these items go on the grocery bill we tend to think of them as part of the cost of food often they are not since 1949 food has risen less than most other items on the cost of living index and the farmer's share from the cost of food has gone down 12% we asked the Shopper who had come 10 miles to let us read her grocery list we found out two things she spent more money than she meant to and 35% of what she spent was on nonfarm products aluminum foil which costs 35 is a non-farm product about 1/4 of the price of ice cream goes back to the farmer he gets 3.2 cents from a 25 cent loaf of bread the farmer gets back about half the money we spend for bacon about 82 2 cents on a steak costing $141 the return on butter is high 56 cents for a 79 C pound of [Applause] butter soap powder is a non-farm product so are all the paper tissues we buy and most of the Plastics canned corn costs 45 the farmer gets back a grocery stores now sell pingpong balls no sale for the farmer don't the most expensive item of all the impulse purchase of a long playing record corny perhaps but not from the farm overall packaging and middleman costs are up the farmer share has gone down that is Lions Kansas a beneficiary of the Agricultural Revolution yet even here there is a shadow well of course the opportunity for the young people here is not nearly as great as it used to be because our farm population you see is decreasing quite rapidly the larger farmer is taking over what used to be two or three or four farmers and uh the children that are uh coming raised on the farm uh they don't have an opport to go back on the farm and uh in order to keep those people here at home we must have industry here to to attract them if we were wanting to keep up the population or they don't have any other choice after they get out of school but to go to some Factory or get a job elsewhere in some other part of the state or some other part of the nation one lion student who will return is Steven sers you met his father Steven with a degree from Kansas State University is coming back back to farm he wants most a farmer's Independence I'll Be My Own Boss I can do anything I want to do whenever I want to do it however I want to do it I'll have no restrictions I can uh cover the whole half section with feed Lots if I want to or irrigate or raise swine anything I want to do it's going to take a lot of planning and Technology to make a go at farming nowadays if I were going to be an a average farmer I think I'd go back because actually the average farmer has a rough road to hoe but I believe with my training and uh hard work I believe I can make a go of it and that's what I love to do so that's what I'm going to do Steven sers will return to his father's Farm in this he is more fortunate than most the farm by present standards is large the investment in expensive equipment has already been made yet a generation ago this Farm was sufficient to earn a man a good living now 160 Acres will not bring Robert Whitaker enough income to justify the expense of efficient farming which is the only kind with a chance of survival Steven sers will raise his children in this community now Lions is prosperous it has taken over from the smaller Villages that Compass it but Dunlap too was once prosperous stores stayed open until 1:00 on Saturday night until the gasoline engine was harnessed to four [Music] wheels Steven sers is a college man his chance of succeeding appears as good as that of any young farmer but the very College which educated him has unleashed the knowledge of which surpluses are made and these surpluses May Loom Darkly across most of his adult [Music] life change is the constant and the pace is accelerating all the Steven sellers the new generation of farmers must live with it the alternative is this $890 would go $9 $100 go9 9 you all all through all done all through hit again go nine would you go nine would you go nine last call would you go n want to hit him once more one more sold out 890 we City people are selfishly maintaining a vast underappreciate of Plenty at the lowest prices in all history we have him providing for us now at an average rate of 80 cents an hour for his dawn to dusk effort it is not just charity or generosity or fairness which suggests that we might do better for him or by him but plain economic self-interest in common sense a banker has said that there is still enough National investment in the land that a depression could start there again 80 cents an hour for a farmer's labor would appear to be flirting with it in addition to the investment we have observed that the farmer is the Supreme consumer of everything we City people produce he not only consumes in prodigious quantities the groceries clothing and gadgets which the rest of us produce but on top of that is the buyer of farm machinery fencing materials lumber paint tools and chemicals if he goes under soda Machinery companies steel mills truck manufacturers and chemical plants and so do we before the turn of the century American labor began solving its economic problem by collective bargaining Collective marketing is a way out for the farmer it has worked in the production of milk fruits and a few other Commodities but it hasn't yet been applied to grains and other Farm produce because it's complex and unwieldy and because the farmer himself is a rugged individualist a stubborn contrary suspicious and untrusting non-conformist the only instrumentality thus far devised by the minds of men to represent the farmer act as his councel and agent urge him to Collective programs or production control or act as his own policeman is the United States Department of Agriculture the farmer frequently asses it we taxpayers don't like it and the government itself would love nothing more than to hear the last of all such expedient measures as soil Banks price supports and surpluses but thus far the farmer has been unable to bring himself to the final step rationalization and firm control of his own production nor have we City people been of much help to him we now control more power and influence in the Congress a program which will save the farmer will probably originate there when and if it does we might bear in mind that he has been a pretty good provider for us and we might understand that we're all in this together if he is not prosperous we're not going to be either for very long [Music] a [Music]