NFO-125 (AV10625): American Farmers Rights

[music] welcome to united states farm report a public information program brought to you in the interest of agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation by members of the national farmers organization in this local area the national farmers organization takes pride in inventing a market system to meet the needs of the 20th century Collective Bargaining for agriculture every American can profit by the successful NFO collective bargaining program for farm income sets the nation's prosperity United States farm report now presents a look at agriculture and its effect on the economy with some of our nation's leaders my name is Monsignor Miller from Elkton South Dakota I've been a rural pastor out here in South Dakota for many many years I'm appreciative of the opportunity afforded by the National Farmers Organization to make a statement as a spokesman of the National Catholic Rural Life conference and its director in South Dakota relative to the recent action of the NFO in dairy our position is simple and straightforward farmers have a legal right to associate together for their own benefit and more than that they have a moral responsibility to cooperate to help build structures that will enable them to command a fair and just wage for their labor and some compensation for the investment in the noble task of providing the food and fiber of the nation now this is the moral right of every farm group the Farm Bureau Farmers Union cooperatives and the NFO and their recent milk holding action to obtain a fair and decent price for their production it is our hope that all good people people of goodwill will lend their understanding to the issues their encouragement and moral support to the efforts of farm people to achieve a semblance of justice in the marketplace for rural America for a period of some years I have spoken to farm groups in six states and have sensed a growing anger and resentment not only over unfair milk prices but over many other issues still unresolved and I would like to discuss a few of them with you today how many times recently have you heard the statement in press and radio farmers out on strike farmers out to force a price hike as if they were some kind of holdup men gouging the general public in some coercive manner now it's far closer to reality to observe that these folks and I know them well are concerned about justice they want to wipe off the face of this land the shame of wages denied for valuable services rendered or I might say they feel that the American housewife is willing to pay her grocery bill and that she wants to feel that a part of that bill is a proper payment a just payment to the farmer for producing the food there was and there still is a deep resentment on the countryside for the charge that was levied against farmers not so long ago that they are out to monopolize the food supply with all the innuendos that goes with that idea of monopoly that of gouging the general public and real good and yet these farmers painfully compare what's done to them by the federal judiciary in imposing an injunction to what's done in other segments of the business world when monopolies may be present for example a few years ago many sensitive and knowledgeable people in our country felt that they observed growing signs of monopoly in the area of the food industry packer feeding chain store buying practices and it's possible destruction of a truly free market did the Justice Department make threatening sounds bring its might to bear upon those who might be involved no the Congress provided funds for a study the food and fiber commission and they've been studying now for a couple of years and even to this day there is still nothing been done about safeguarding the general public against possible food monopoly but when farmers even indicate that they are trying to build a structure of effective bargaining power in a very grassroots sort of way immediately the Justice Department of their government wields a heavy arm of legal threat almost blackmail for just even trying to build a countervailing power to economic forces arrayed against them now it seems to me that a charge of illegality of this kind is something very close to a massive defamation of character of the tens of thousands of ordinary good people on the land in this country they feel that they've been smeared nationally in their character and if they had the resources of some large modern corporations who could charge off a court case in taxes they could sue the government for damages and I believe that they would have a chance of winning now I know that these tens of thousands of farmers who have worked hard with few resources to help solve their own problems instead of calling upon the government for subsidies they have every reason to be mighty angry and they are the way their government has treated them in this matter of the injunction now may I say a word to you housewives did you know that the federal Congress has taken great precautions for your protection against possible agricultural monopolies they have already set up safeguards to keep you from being charged unfairly for your meat poultry milk and many other foodstuffs at the farm level the capper-volstead Act was passed nearly 40 years ago it's the Act which gives farm people the same right nationally to bargain collectively for a price as the Wagner Act gave you city folks the right legally for the first time to bargain collectively for a decent wage with your employer now this same capper-volstead Act you might remember this stipulates that the farmer can be prosecuted and fined if he charges more for his food and fiber than a parity price now the farmer doesn't mind this I don't think he's ever charged for anything more than a charge any more than a just price for his product can you think of any cases in this matter but may I ask you mrs. housewife a very simple question has a law ever been passed for instance that prosecutes and finds the head of a modern corporation if it charges you too much for its services in the book called overcharge I was going to bring it with me this morning but I forgot about it there seems to be well documented evidence that the public electric utilities have done just this but why single out the unorganized farmer for possible prosecution but leave the well organized the adequately financed semi monopoly of the public electric utility to live under a different standard this kind of discrimination by their government rankles in the hearts of many farm people believe me now there is something else that the farmer is sensitive about he sees that civilized man in the urban areas no longer tolerates the Yellow Dog contract of which you union people know very much the farmer knows that the jungle law of tooth and claw is no longer permitted to knock down the wage scale of working people to a subsistence level but why he asks should he the farmer be expected in this civilized age of ours to still operate in that economic jungle of survival of the fittest and the law of survival by cannibalism why should he not try to establish countervailing power and negotiate a price for his food production which is just nutritious one week as it is the next in other words the farmer is trying to develop this civilized procedure into the agricultural economy any discovers that many groups simply refuse to negotiate in fact this is what was behind much of the recent milk holding action but there is something much deeper than that involved in the present unrest across our land and I believe that many of you folks are not aware of it you are not aware of it because the farm papers do not give you the truth about it nor are the news media radio and TV and press too willing to cover this dimension of agricultural journalism let me put it this way the cat is out of the bag and it's a cat you'd better know about it farmers now know and the word is spreading across the length and breadth of the land that as a group of independent operators they have been double-crossed by their own USDA now what do I mean by that there was a time when the USDA research was concerned with agriculture that had a three-fold dimension it was research that dealt with land and its production people and society now this is no longer true let me explain a little over 20 years ago the Bureau of Agricultural Economics made what is now a classic and tremendous study called A Tale of Two Cities the two cities were Arvin and De Nova in the great irrigated Valley of San Joaquin in California it was one of the very few comparative studies of two different enterprises or kinds of agriculture and their relative impact upon people community and land the two areas studied were equal in land fertility Arvin was a corporation farm de nuba was the city in the midst of modest-sized family enterprises the production in family farms of De Nova matched the production of the farms around Arvin the comparisons were dramatic at the social level on the one side housing conditions for hired workers were abominable on the other side nice homes privately owned or rented on the one side there were good churches and school fools a flourishing trade center and community and on the other few churches inadequate schools and hardly any community incidentally you may recall Arvin was the scene of the bitter grape pickers strike that took place last summer now it was a study this tale of two cities that provided and/or pointed out rather dramatically the value of family farming as an adequate business unit as well as a socially valuable contribution to a sound social order but then things began to happen shortly after the publication of this most significant study as to the relative merits of a family farming system against an absentee owned and operated corporate structure the Bureau of Agricultural Economics was severely cut in its budget and personnel and their future research in this type of thing was virtually destroyed in the United States Department of Agriculture in other words there was developing around 1952 a new kind of economic theory and attitude toward farm research and most instrumental in this revolution for that's exactly what it was that is now to take place was a man drawn into the department not from family farm country in the Midwest or the east but from California he was the vice president of the Bank of America he became the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture under Ezra Taft Benson he was in the department only a matter of several months but during that brief period Earl J Koch along with other new theorists succeeded against the vigorous opposition of top economists in the department and many independent thinkers throughout the country to completely fragmentize agricultural research in other words from now on ag research instead of considering land and its production people and social impact as a kind of whole was now directed entirely to production research labor efficiency more that's excluding people ignoring social costs and issues and considering only the narrow concept of volume and price and from the 1952 's until this day agricultural research has involved and you just check this for yourself specialization high-volume huge concentration of animals vast amounts of input capital and developing systems of production that are far beyond the scope of the family enterprise to adopt is for this reason I believe that the USDA must speak with a forked tongue to the American people or it cannot launch a frontal attack on family farm agriculture because too many of the migrants to the city from that agriculture are still living and appreciate its value so it gives lip service to family farming you know the line you'll have to become more efficient you'll have to get bigger or you'll still be a family farm but much larger and scale well at the same time the gut reality that's a nice word these days is that last year nearly half a billion dollars was spent on mere production efficiency 32% of 854 millions of dollars in research was spent on marketing retailing etc 9% for consumer protection and his needs 2 percent for underdeveloped nations and practically nothing was spent to direct the wealth of modern agricultural technology to the several millions of families out there on the land you think I'm talking through my hat well the high finance people and they're good people corporation executives such as in the case Chicago Board of Trade were represented in an agribusiness affair in Fargo North Dakota just several weeks ago and what was the headline in the Fargo Forum March 27 1967 family farm concept has been displaced these people figured the family farm is already dead these people are becoming ever more bold in their funeral services for the family farm concept and they are trying with tremendous success I'm afraid with all the cooperation of news media to brainwash you folks that this is the only way to produce food and fiber with huge capital investment large concentration of animals specialization in short the complete factorization of Agriculture and this it seems to me is the official in side policy of our United States Department of Agriculture this is the deeper reality I spoke of in other words firm people read things too you know and do a little studying they now know that their own government by the continued continuation of the sponsorship of this huge specialized type of research is wittingly or unwittingly scheduling a couple million farm families to be uprooted from the land not with the gun and the sword as they liquidated the kulak in Russia and China but with the same murderous effectiveness a liquidation by allowing naked economic power call the cost price squeezed to keep on in its relentless course until the desired number of agricultural units has been reached what does that number is it 1 million there are more voices being raised to say it's seven hundred thousand six hundred thousand now these people out in the countryside they're not going to be uprooted without putting up a fight and they're not going to die quietly and permit a powerful finance capitalism to take over what generations of marriages between land and people have developed in this country just because finance capitalism now sees the prospect of tremendous profit for investors in the new dynamic agriculture now may I say this to you out there who are not able to be informed in this critical area for many reasons that there is no scientific research that I know of that can prove that this family enterprise at agriculture cannot continue to produce the food and the fiber that this nation needs and produce it more efficiently more securely more cheaply then a corporation capture of agriculture now while this silent call of deadly revolution from a family enterprise system of farming to a corporation agriculture is taking place you folks in the city are not being given a chance or a choice as to whether the traditional set up of independent family farm units should produce your food and fiber or whether some corporation food industry will produce the things you eat the things you wear in closing given the present unjust price structure in the dairy industry and other phases of modern agriculture given the lack of farmer bargaining power in the marketplace and the need for that strength I heartily support the efforts of the National Farmers Organization to organize and of any other farm group to organize to bargain nationwide for a just and decent price for their labor and their investment and I would also hope that you folks in town and many of you farm alumni in the city would support the genuine efforts of farm people to command fair prices because family farm agriculture cannot survive without justice at the marketplace and may I also solicit your prayers for the success of the efforts of foreign people in this area now whether the recent NF all milk holding action achieved all of its objectives or not the issues that are boiling in the hearts of farmers are going to be around for a long long time and I hope you city people can be counted on as friendly allies in the effort to maintain a national farm policy that will recognize that our traditional family farm system has been and continued and can continue to be a system adequate for the production of our food and fiber because let me warn you it is entirely possible that we can drift completely into a factory eyes agriculture controlled by some type of monopolistic food industry even as at the same time that we decimate the countryside of people and send them as your competitors to the city may I thank you for the privilege of discussing these matters with you in your home's copies of this talk may be obtained by writing to the station to which you are listening thank you very much [music] United States Farm report has presented a look at agriculture and its effect on the economy with some of the nation's leaders members of the national farmers organization invite you to tune in again next week for more facts on agriculture and rural America which is the gear wheel in our economy that produces the majority of our nation's new wealth every American can profit by the successful NFO collective bargaining for agriculture the economic keystone of America [music]