NFO 161 (AV10659) Canadian Farm Union

[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 welcome to another edition of u.s. farm report u.s. farm report is brought to you by the members of the national farmers organization in this TV listing area I'm Ed Shima from Iowa County Iowa and on today's u.s. farming program we have would you mind not at all and I'm delighted to be here I'm from Saskatoon Saskatchewan I almost had a little trouble myself see why I couldn't do it and I'm a grain farmer up there I operate a grain farm we grow all kinds of cereal grain and I'm also president of the National Farmers Union recently mr. Atkinson was to the National Farmers organization convention at Louisville Kentucky where there were over 12,000 delegates he spoke to the convention had some very interesting points to make and we felt that he would be interested in some of these observations of mr. Atkinson being a Canadian farmer what are some of the problems of the Canadian farmers as you state mr. Atkinson you know your organization on our organization defines the problems precisely result of new technology science etc. and there's a a conflict the the real issue is a conflict between the farmer and his farm and the demands of the industrial sector which are manifested by Ralston Karina and others the Canadian farmers of course I assume have a little bit of a problem of pricing just as US farmers do our farm situation inspected there he is currently at about 73% and this is what way too low and you have a comparable sale you based your income on or not yes we do and we're just in the same boat you're in it our prices are way down they've been going down now since 1952 our families in are very difficult income position and those people are there supplying us with goods and services they're making bigger and better profits every year and we think the time has come to bargain collectively with these birds and getting a little of our own back now in part your organization is concerned uh what has been your primary aims up to this point what have you been doing about this well our primary aims to this point have been to alert the farmer as to the nature of this problem to organize him into a a large organization to bargain collectively for him in the legislation legislators of the country to form collective bargaining agencies that will bargain on his behalf but I must confess that we've been like Alice in Wonderland we've been running as fast we can to stay where we are and I think today as a reason for this is that Canadian farmers and American farmers have not been working with one another nearly as closely as they ought to have been and we find ourselves from time to time being undercut by the behavior of those people who buy the products that we produce and then manage the market by dumping products in either down here or up there in other words it's a situation that one country alone possibly can't handle that takes more cooperation than our cooperation between countries almost to do it that is absolutely correct these large scale international corporations know no boundaries they know no state boundaries are the 49th parallel doesn't mean a thing that's the line between your country and mine and we just have to work together and play the game the way they do now I know that President Staley of the national farmers organization went to Canada some time ago and spoke to your groups and in your exchange back and forth what are some of the things that we feel we might have in common or that we could work on together well we discussed and I was very pleased to have President Staley come up to Canada to tell our farmers what you people have been doing down here with regard to bargaining for prices of farm commodities to tell them in a general way what you hope to do and he has made a great impression on our people and I think as a result of that visit Canadian farmers are going to be much more actively engaged in protecting the interests of their own farm business than they have being here too far the you spoke at the recent national farmers Organization Convention in Louisville and certainly my observation of the crowds and people bidding with them after which was nothing but admiration for the Canadian national farmers organization and what they were trying to do now at this point the national farmers organizations been real active in collective bargaining and working out supply contract with the various processors and so on for a better price and at this point what is the Canadian national farmers or well our farmers organization done in- it's Union I should say done along this line I must say that you're much ahead of us in this respect we both operate in a different legislative framework and being a good business operator I'm not prepared to put on the record for a public view the plans that we have were the things that we have done I believe that there's no argument like an accomplished fact ed and we're going to confront our joint opponent with accomplished fact from here on in so you won't mind if I just don't answer that question other words a little bit of strategy this brings up another question that comes up quite often as far as the national farmers organization is concerned how large is your organization well and we're not prepared to tell anyone how large our organization is in terms of its members all I want to say and repeat again is that we put we're responsible for putting 25,000 farmers on the Parliament Hill in Ottawa on the 24th day of May and this is the best kind of language that one can use to demonstrate the power of the organization certainly takes an organization to muster folks like that now going on to the Canadian farmers unions how old an organization is it and so on well at the Farmers Union today is 19 years old mind you we've had a long tradition I suppose 60 years of tradition over which we've changed the name from time to time from the Farmers Union to the United farmers of Canada back to the farmers union but essentially we're 20 years old we're just coming of age yet yeah I don't know if we brought this down before but how long have you been president of the farmer union well I've had the privilege of serving as president of the National Farmers Union of Canada for the past three years and you your organization elected president in each year yes we have to stand each year for election that's one of the criterias of office as far as electing the president each year why do you do this why don't you have a longer term that comes up quite often far as we're concerned what are your reasons well I think it's a very important reason an important reason that sort of the cornerstone of our democracy that every officer should be in a position that he must stand before the bar of justice if you will before the people that he represents and asks them or have been asked him to stand and to be judged on the merits of his performance if an officer is not filling the bill ed then the membership always has the right to change well that is real good in it the result that keeps the control of the organization and the members hands real close and nobody can get a get too far out of line that way they're all that be that's true and that's terribly important now you talk in terms of of the two countries working together and so on we call the initial the National Farmers Organization and I suppose we're talking here eventually in terms of international farming and what are some of the complications that you and Canada see this in terms of getting better prices for our stuff in terms of the world's food situation well Ed first of all major portion of world food production is produced in North America North Americans therefore have the opportunity in the areas in which they market food products that is the industrially developed areas of the world to bargain collectively for a fair prices and in terms of our two organizations let me say this until recently until we have made contact with the National Farmers organization of the United States we knew what to do but until we could see that there was a group somewhere in North America's which felt as we did there wasn't really an opportunity to do it and that is to bargain for all commodities at a proper price a relationship in order that we overcome the problem that we have experienced in the past where our country may dump or move low price commodities into your areas where you're bargaining for prices and break your markets or conversely we're your commodity would move into our areas and break our places for example I'll give you a very vivid description of what just happened recently and very few very small volume of product moving into Canada and that was turkey 8-10,000 turkeys a week moving in from the US just collapsed our turkey market in Canada and our turkey producers are in real difficult circumstances but I want to make this point that the people who supply the feed that fed those turkey they're going to get their bills paid in other words they don't come out and on this and I guess the main reason that they'll come out on this is because they're pretty well organized as far as their pricing structure is concerned and certainly they're not going to stop being good business people they're not gonna sell that feed that low that's right they have lots of security before they take any risk and the farmer takes that security now we've run into this just a little bit in the United States stuff the NFO some time ago had a holding action now on meat products meat animals and and we run into a situation where uh we were doing a good job in areas here at home and United States came in Canadian meat well well ed that's a very serious question that you just raised but I want to again raise this business of international business organization we have a company up there called Swiss Canadian do you have swiss down here yes we do well and are they your friends or do you bargain we are working with which in some areas right I think we'll have to work with them in more areas because I have a hunch that maybe some of that meat was brought in by maybe they are their friends and of course you know what happens these outfits do not bring that meat into your area and for the purposes of losing on on the transaction they bring it in for a margin and they're going to get paid but they really follow up your situation yes now going on to the general agricultural situation as far as our two countries are concerned do you have any specific ideas or how we could improve this that at the moment the long-range picture even well Ed earlier this year I was down to your head office in Corning and talked to president Staley we talked about the grain situation we talked about the drop in the price of specifically wheat where our farmers and your farmers are producing wheat and marking- marketing it to industrially developed countries at low prices which reflects its themselves in the income your farmers get now we can no longer as farmers suffer the luxury of having anyone in the business community or as a result of government policy dump farm products into international markets winch in effects are caused a depression in the price of a commodity which reflects itself not only on American farmers but on Canadian farmers because if we continue this behavior as far as that is concerned either American farmers or Canadian farmers and in this instance Canadian farmers we're not going to be closed out of the market we're going to follow you down and we're not gonna sell anymore grain in that international market and so what we in effect do is submit economic war on one another in other words we cut one another's throats and nobody makes any money that way yes and the problem that we see is that with the current situation, unless we change the situation with better marketing, very small of what some people call a surplus, depresses a market not only on the small farmers but on all the rest of them and this is creating quite a problem that's the key question you've raised there and that is it doesn't take very much product managed into a key area of a market to break the market right across the board and this is what we really have to safeguard and the only way you can do that is when the farmer maintains control of that product and this is of course going to take considerable mount of organization among farmers certainly you mention some of the business groups that have done this in corporations and so on and certainly pricing their products has worked real well for them and it's probably worth it as well or even better for us wouldn't it well I've never saw a machine company put a 100-90 horsepower tractors on a lock and then call in an auctioneer to sell them off and I never saw a storekeeper put a thousand suits on a rack and say to the consumer come on in and give me what you will for that product you know so I think what we're really saying here is that the time has come for farmers whether they live in Canada the United States Mexico Europe to act like the businessman and that only makes sense and in all in the world this amounts to then bargaining together and selling together in groups well I would put it I would put it in a little different way I would put it this way that farmers cannot hope to live off of one another they're going to have to work together and if they work together they're going to have to do that as you have suggested yes now in the United States the court the national farmers organization has been active for some time in tying farmers together in a large enough bargaining group to be effective and you mentioned the situation in Canada where you had Canadians felt you couldn't possibly probably couldn't do this because of outside influence their dens of the NFO here has felt that we couldn't do this on a state basis and so on that we had to do it on a national basis and in the process of things over a period of time where we find that the our outside countries so if you can ruin your markets for various reasons that maybe we should work more closely together well there's no question the beginning of working close together is to talk together yes and initially we are doing we have begun or commenced talking together and again it's good businessmen we're not going to tell everybody what we're going to do we'll toss the cross that bridge when we come to it ed you had will show them rather than talk about it okay that's that is real good and we certainly know that an organization to take this attitude that is going to work aggressively on something is probably going to make quite a few accomplishments and and as a result of it certainly we should be in a position to get better prices not only twelve Canadian too that's right the only through activity can there be learning and we learn as we go there's a great deal of criticism of us for things that we have done but those who never do anything have nothing to criticize and nothing ever happens yes I a long time ago when I was a young person I was job working for county doing road work at that time and I was quite concerned because I was breaking quite a few things we're seeing them so on an old gentleman that was working there said well Ed just don't worry about this at all because this year don't bust anything you're probably not doing anything and so and we don't have an organization that's doing things and trying to accomplish things into things possibly will make the mistake or two along the line but certainly should talk about our mistakes now going on a little farther you were to our national convention recently and what were some of your observations as far as the recent invention Ed I was impressed with the number of Delegates you've had here I was impressed with the manner in which they can address themselves to the problems the way they articulate the the their expressions of opinions I was too impressed with your officers in the way that they spent a great deal of time and energy and making sure that all your delegates have their opportunity to speak on matters of importance to you I think too I was impressed with the messages that came from the various officers the material that they presented probably I was impressed because they are saying the same things that we as farm leaders in Canada in the farmers union had been saying to Canadians we're concerned about the farmer this is true we're concerned about his level of living the opportunities of his family in our society but in addition to that we're also concerned as you are about the state of the nation and as North America goes so goes the world I was I was impressed too with the sort of humanity humanity that seemed to manifest itself through this whole meeting in other words from my point of view I believe what your leaders have been saying that people are important and therefore we rededicate our energies towards serving our fellow man it might be interesting to point out to the listening audience that's the National recent national conventions of national farmers organization now not only did we have Roy Atkins from Canada we also had a Mexican speaker folks come on the farm situation I'm sorry to say he had such an accent I wasn't able to follow him too well but he had basically I made the same point to make I think this just brings into focus another point ed it seems to me that we as farmers will have to learn that a universal language either that or we would have to become linguistic so that we can speak in all kinds of languages and still understand what each one of us was saying but I think more important than that is not notwithstanding the fact that was difficult to follow our friend from Mexico we could follow what the impressions that he was leaving through his voice and I think this is a universal language and we can all feel as farmers for a common cause that's manifested through the sound of voice the as far as the convention was concerned there were a number of occasions made until one and as far as your being a outsider an observer from Canada what were some of the more important things that you observed as far as well I think for example the amendment see constitution which modernizes it gives you gives you the needed flexibility to meet the challenges of the industrial sector or the legislative sectors were terribly important I think the fact that you re-elected a man like Oren Lee Staley was to me a very significant thing also your vice-president and I think in sort of summing the thing up in this situation you need leadership you need discipline in the organization and with the actions that I observed during the last day or two you've got all these things the whole decision of course remains in terms of their farmer in the country their leaders are prepared to do something are you prepared to give equally with them now this is one thing that we're working hard at as far as the national farmers organization is concerned is to build a strong marketing organization and also to to programs like you're watching today to bring to you some of the things that we're trying to do and how we're trying to do this and certainly this is a big job and and regardless of whether you're a farmer in western United States and eastern United States or somewhere in between we certainly think that you should think seriously in terms of doing more about marketing to do a better job of marketing and in terms of not only raising your prices does for your own farming operation but can help out agriculture as a whole in the United States and I guess as we look deeper and deeper into this not only help agriculture in the the United States to help agriculture in Canada and probably throughout the world now looking at the world situation attractive and we have a lot of countries that aren't very developed agriculturally and it seems in looking at this probably one of the prime reasons for this is because the farmers simply aren't paid very much in these countries I think in particularly amusing example certainly there's a demand for food but yet the farmers in a poor situation the view of any particular operations on there well I would say in terms of developing countries and they suffer a number of problems a) they're trying to move into the second half of this one with great handicaps and insufficient time is being spent with the farmers in those countries in transferring our skills from ourselves to them so that they can produce the commodities that will naturally grow in their countries I think the other thing that one must say in terms of my own country and I can only speak for it we have some programs going I don't think sufficient emphasis is being placed upon prices of commodities in the world at levels that do not adversely affect major commodities being produced in such countries as India Ghana Nigeria all other kinds of countries in the world because when we injuriously affect a market situation of major commodities grain for example this immediate injury is reflected into the price of coffee cocoa beans sugar and in as much as it injuriously affects these commodities price wise it also injuriously affects the ability of those developing nations to earn currency with which to a) it reinvest in their country for industrial development or agricultural development or b) buy the products that we have that they so desperately need and what it amounts to then is the United States and Canadian farmers would rate their general price level then you would also help the farmers throughout the world's ready place but that's not even theoretical ed that's a practical proposition and until we possess the wisdom to work together towards this objective to the degree that we undercut these nations in terms of low price commodity we injuriously affect their ability to develop and also we destroy some of the investments are that we have invested by way of capital or other things in their country and indirectly affect that investments ability to earn for those countries and to that effect and that expense we add directly affects rural development now we're going to a little different subject here mr. Atkinson now there's been some concern by some people that if we raise the prices of food in the United States that this would raise the price to the consumer and and so on now we feel that a small rate to the farmers wouldn't raise the price to consumers very much it would a little bit but not very much about being a good businessman they all go to the consumer to get their better income and certainly farmers should do the same thing and if you had any particular problem with this to Canada well this is the sort of thing the establishment tells us and gives us as gratuitous advice but I would hasten to add add that we want to look at the total price of the food package and say that the farm component has a total percentage of food cost is very low as a matter of fact it takes less hours of work today to earn sufficient income to pay the food basket than ever in the history of man and so this is not really a valid objection therefore I see no reason why the farm component ought to be increased and as a matter of fact the farmers being major users of goods and services that are provided by other sectors of our economy to this extent it would add to and aid economic growth in the total economy something that each of the developing nations and the other developed nations are striving for because gross national product determines your standard of living going on to another subject our time is does coming to a close but just briefly in the United States we see a situation that where farmers are squeezed off of the land for the various reasons that we are tending of creating sort of a vacuum here and certainly somebody needs to farm this land to feed the population but it's a situation where farmers can't reinvest in it because of the price situation and you have a situation where you have corporate agriculture coming in you have this problem in Canada very definitely we do and the reason for it is that corporations are making profits of such magnitude they are looking for areas to reinvent these profits and they have a investment advantage that we do not possess but I would like to go further and say that we do have this transmigration of people from the farms to cities in Canada and our projection is that by 1980 80 percent of Canadians will live in cities and 7% of those will live in three major cities which are growing and this transmigration of people is going to create major problems for Canada we have been busy with mr. Roy Atkinson we appreciate your being on the program president of the Canadian National Farmers Union and we would appreciate a few that our farmers that have not yet joined NFO you take farther into the NFO's and market and sell through the NFO and together we can build a strong marketing structure that will benefit all thank you [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]