NFO-194 (AV10695): US Farm Report: The Big Swing to NFO

by an overwhelming vote more than 90% of the members of the avocado growers bargaining council of Fallbrook California approved a 25 cent for price for avocados with a collective bargaining program the producers last year went from nine cents a pound to twenty five cents a pound under contract and some prices reached a forty cents a pound their president stated that their yardstick of success is what they do together and holding action is what will make this plan work welcome to US farm report a public iNFOrmation program brought to you in interest of Agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation by members of the national farmers organization in this area and others interested in having American agriculture receive cost of production plus a reasonable profit the American farmers and ranchers are building a brighter future for agriculture through the national farmers organization the organization that awoke America and represents the leadership of Agriculture u.s. farm report now features the big swing to NFO with Homer Smothers treasure of the avocado growers bargaining Council of Fallbrook California here now is W.W. Butch Swaim director of NFO iNFOrmation department Thank You Don and Mr. Smothers I want to welcome you to our nationwide US farm report it's certainly a pleasure to have the avocado growers council come all the way from California well thank you mr. Swaim it's a real privilege to be here and I know that about a year ago we might back up for the audience here and review that about a year ago or a little over a year ago in 1967 Mr. smothers here Homer smothers came all the way from California to attend the big NFO meeting for action and to find out all he could about NFO collective bargaining methods and how that avocado growers bargaining council could adapt this to their commodity and get a price for them and he was very much surprised as he told me that welcome him with open arms and and sat down and visited with him and told him about all of our bargaining methods much more than he had hoped for and he thought that we were going to charge him for the iNFOrmation but I would like the audience to realize everyone listening to realize that we're a member or were a group of producers brought together under the Capper-Volstead Act the legal structure that gives the farmers and ranchers a right to bargain for their own production and we're all producers fact is Homer if you if you don't mind here I might touch just a little bit on the capper-volstead Act to set the legal stage where everybody's mind first of all it became law in 1922 February the 18th 1922 and capper-volstead Act give the producers of farm and ranch commodities the legal right to act together in associations corporate or otherwise with or without capital stock in collectively processing preparing for market handling and marketing in interstate and foreign commerce such products of persons so engaged such associations may have marketing agencies in common in other words NFO can be the marketing agency in common with the avocado growers the wheat growers the corn growers the corn growers already realize this and there their president has been an active member of NFO for a long time and more and more groups are joining this big swing to NFO what they can make the necessary contracts and agreements and this is why it's such a tremendous pleasure to have you here because just a little later I'm going to have you tell about the contracts that you already obtained for avocados I'd like to point out one more thing this capper-volstead Act senator tapper made it loud and clear that its purpose is to give the farmers the same legal right to bargain collectively that is already enjoy by corporations and Senator Ballston said that the object of this bill is to modify the laws under which business organizations are now formed so that the farmer may take advantage of the form of organization that is used by business concerns in other words it gives us the legal right to become better businessmen now when we first started working on NFO well there were some that said it was illegal this is why we like to keep repeating this portion of the capper-volstead Act some of them even went so far as to say it was un-American Homer yes indeed people in our country said that right but in a test case in the Supreme Court in the state of California get this one now this has just happened recently in a landmark decision the Supreme Court has ruled that agriculture cooperatives must limit their membership to farmers to be exempt under the antitrust laws and it goes ahead to tell about the case and it says this in conclusion implications of this decision may be far-reaching other well-known coops may be vulnerable if their membership is not limited strictly to the producers well this is the reason I'm happy to see you folks adopt the same rule of producers and producers only to get yourself a price and now Homer I want you to tell this group briefly after you came back here about your experience how you went home and put it to use and the success that you had well but you know after our prices went down to 8 cents a pound and we are producing tonnage in excess of previous years only to realize less money for it we became aroused and we rode off on all direct this is about a year ago last April and not until August so I came back to the NFO Convention did we know there was such a thing as the cap revolts today we knew the NFO had a program they were doing something and had some legal basis but it was here where we learned this and so I carried it back and then we got our show on the road using any pole know-how as you told me you went off in one direction instead of going off and it doesn't right direction of price that is right and furthermore it triggered a cooperation among our membership such as we didn't have before so now we had everybody working for this program price and bargaining our Farm Bureau members our union members our Grange members in fact they're all serving on our board but we're working with the avocado growers bargaining council for price just as NFO is doing and we learn from NFO well we're certainly happy that this work and as I understand it you brought your price up from this low of about 8 cents to over a quarter that in fact is you established a price of 25 cents a pound didn't you tell us about how this how this work well this is very interesting actually we didn't think we'd do anything last year because we thought it would take a whole year to get even enough tonnage and enough acres enough members to do anything but when they price started down as it does every year when the crop comes on we got aroused we had a meeting we discussed this thing and there were those there that felt we had enough to express our will and they voted unanimously for 25 cent price and we went out and signed a contract and some of the handlers were reluctant they paid 22 cents 23 cents but 24 but not 25 well when they found off the avocados were going to the people who sang the contract and they had overhead in meat they began her razor price so at that time brisk competition entered the and we actually moved our crops from 27 to 32 cents in other words when they become determined that you were going to have that price they didn't even fight you they just started giving the rest some handlers even said they welcomed it and didn't the price go quite a little bit above the price that you asked for yeah in order to try to break your efforts yes it did and as a matter of fact the price went up and wound up with the season of 40 cents but this has been established it's this principle that boo redone the job again this year just before I came out here this fall and we left the price of 25 cents just where we'd established last year in other words when the processor's of farm and ranch commodities become convinced that the farmers and ranchers are going to have a price for their production they don't fight anymore they go ahead and pay it that's right they recognize we're just using the same principle that they've been using I think probably Homer that that part of your success might have been the Supreme Court decision they knew that you were all producers that was taking place in California because one of the things you might not have known this trial was going on in about the time you were establishing this avocado price yes and I recall it was announced just before the first of the year yet now I think there's several things that are significant in this and to make the story complete I think the key thing over mister smothers I should say just because you've certainly done a good job and I'd like to point out to the audience that the avocado growers are made up almost entirely of real distinguished American mr. smothers here was counseling psychologist at Drake University and also counseling psychologists at Iowa State University for several years and retired and he went out there and he saw the tremendous cheap price that he had to take for his avocado grower where he bought for a retirement income and so he started to work on this deal and you might tell us Mr. Smothers about some of the other outstanding people and then we'll get into this cooperation is the key yes Butch Swaim actually there are some rather illustrious people in our avocado industry and in the avocado chorus council particularly of course Cliff Dapper and Duke Snider who came out there and established a ranch when I first bought my ranch they've been very prominent in our work and then well-known baseball players yes the Dodgers combination of the key home run King and Cliff was a great catcher voted the most valuable player one year and Henry Henigson now he is a little my senior he was a movie producer he produced Quo Vadis and Ben Hur and other famous and I played with him about once a week and Dolores Paramour Costello also as a member and these people maybe they don't need the money avocado but they just hate to raise something and sell it at a loss in the American enterprise system I think they have one other thing in common that being in the things that they were in before their retirement that they realize more than probably farmers that are farming now realize that cooperation is the key yes for the success everybody yes and I might mention the Stan Clark one of our real wheels pilot for American Airlines and talk about I just like to mention butch that in my 11 years experience out there I have sold to two different coops into one or two independents and this was what we were striving to do to get a price and sometimes we got a cent more a half cent more but we found out when you're raising this that a loss it doesn't make very much difference really whether it's one cent or two cents difference it didn't amount to very much so then we began to get together and find out that we had a commonality we were producers and we were more than just rugged individualists we had an interdependence resource so we had a tap and utilize if we're going to get a profit for avocado so this this graph here shows pretty much what happened to us here we are you might label ever you want we have Farm Bureau members we have union members and we have other coops but we're all on a common level here with the avocados binding Council so then using NFO know-how and utilizing the capper-volstead Act which we knew nothing about we were able to get this price established so cooperation is the key to it and it's interesting how some people that there might be of opposing views on this or that the other thing to a real point of hostility and have got a commonality when it comes to raising their product and marking their profits so that brings them together what you're saying is that as soon as they realize the situation then they all become members and work together correct when these people here join hands the producers of farm and ranch commodities throughout America when they join hands and work together and the legal structure of the capper-volstead Act this is real proof that it can be done indeed it is because they couldn't classify you people as little insignificant rugged individualists farmers that didn't amount to anything anyway and you might be real interested Homer to know that research by several universities throughout the nation have proven that NFO members are the same way that by and large they're bigger better farmers more formal education I think out of an 18-point grade sheets we were clear at the top at 16 of these points they enough whole members yes so then they quit calling us little inefficient farmers that we're going broke anyway well I think cooperation is the real key and I'm certainly glad to have a psychology teacher because he knows what it takes the cooperation that it takes two men to get the job done and we don't know anything about psychology but we do know as individual producers that we must work together we do know that we have the legal right under the capper-volstead Act why should we wait any longer let's get us price the same as everybody else does tell us just a little bit about some of the bargaining efforts and how they lie in front of me that you never would be able to to get the job now well we organized that bargaining committee and Stan Clark the man who belonged to the Union in the American Airlines who had brought their price up he was our one of our main fellows in this and now taken a lad came out in New York City out of Harlem area and so was when we started out on this this price we ourselves didn't know too much about what it should be we began to figure out the cost and we utilized the University of California statistics over a period of years and we found out that it costs so much to raise an avocado then we figured that we ought to be entitled to return it as if we had our investment in an apartment house or something else and they and the boys began to see this so when we established this price with this minimum price and it was a minimum price we felt that it should go above that and it did go above that but when we established that handlers even co-op handlers said there is no such thing as 25cent avocados this year or any other year and actually our experience has proved that very few people know exactly what the farmer can get for his project when he's united well I think this is absolutely true especially most people don't realize either with some others that how very little the farmer does get right very few of them realized when they were paying maybe 49 cents for an avocado that just look wait a few ounces that you were only receiving eight cents a pound for those which would take what two or three avocados to yes to make a pound and incidentally found by research that the retail price of avocados does not vary regardless of what the gorgets form or regardless of the crop is big or small it's an interesting thing well sure it is because we've always said this our research shows this in NFO too that the grocery stores the chain grocery stores are well enough organized that they're going to get all the traffic will bear regardless of what they pay for it yeah I remember when we first started working when over in my area one of the big Packers of the nation pointed out that if the farmers gave the Packers the processors the hogs that meat wouldn't be very much cheaper boy you know from a psychological standpoint this was a dandy yeah you know what I did I got on the television the next day I used the newspaper and quoted that word-for-word as they had put out and I said it by this same summary their same observation if they paid us just a little something for them meat hadn't ought to get much higher and this is true certainly of your avocados that if they pay you a decent price for him they won't get any higher that's right and incidentally on this cooperation we're talking about a moment ago I'd like to just mention one other thing that is leadership now we have leadership in our president Cliff Dapper you used to catch for the Dodgers and I think in any organizations whether it's a local or whether it's your state or whether it's your national all the growers ought to get together and back recognize leadership or this is as soon as another secret to the success of this whole whole group well if they'll get together they'll sort out their leadership and work for a price yeah it won't be long until they don't know which leadership is working for that I say this that in a modern free society the organized or the individual the strength of the individual is the organization by the same token the strength of the organization is the individual member of that organization and it's his job to sort out that good leadership you and put it to work well you've done a terrific job here and we had evidence of this when Ralph Kittleson came down and spoke to our picnic down a far book the 13th of September he gave a masterful address and everybody was there from all segments of the economy in the avocado industry and they were enthusiastic right down to a man and their lives to this is what it takes if you have confidence others can be persuaded and the universities have always taught us that if you're going to have effective community action there's four requirements number one there must be a pressing need number two there must be a plan of action number three there must be confident leadership and number four there must be widespread public acceptance and understanding of your program well most certainly in your avocado group you had the pressing need when they were down to eight cents a pound 1/3 of you want you to produce it which is same through an agriculture you had a plan of action when you adopted the NFO plan of action you had confident leadership so it was just a matter of cashing in on it because they were getting all they could from that avocado anyway regardless of whether they took it from you for nothing so I think that this is proof to everyone that collective bargaining will work we'll get into that tomorrow just a little bit later now Homer we were just discussing about the four requirements of effective community action which is what the avocado growers council accomplished and what the NFO is accomplishing the number two point now nobody will disagree on number one that there's a pressing need nobody ends right that's making a living from agriculture no what would even expections this that's right now number two the plan of action I know that you fellas adopted the real plan of action but I wish you'd tell them just a little bit about it all right after we signed this first contract for $0.25 avocados as I mentioned a moment ago they there was a reluctance to come up to that I want to mention again the the techniques that was used by some of the handlers to to defeat us they started buying a variety of avocados that we don't pick too long about April the Hass we were selling Fuertes at this time so we had a meeting and they wondered how to solve that problem because this would defeat our contact with this person it dragged a price down so the boys voted 100% to put the for price the minimum price for half the 25 cents and to declare a holding action ask for 90 days and and and that did it and we have a letter from one of the co-ops saying that was their most significant thing in this whole battle how many days that you have to hold in this 90 days well within 30 days they're starting to pay 25 cents for Hass if they wanted them and if the Hass was large enough and ready to go something didn't sell but the bulk of the crop was reserved to the normal picking time and I understand that avocados don't get ripe all at once so you're in a real bargaining position in a real bargaining position from another standpoint but it takes several years to grow those avocado trees and they can't go over in some other state and set up a group of farmers over there and take advantage of them the way they have us in the livestock business or in edible bean business or any other commodity that you want to talk about that that is right mr. Swaim but in spite of the fact that only 10% of people in United States know about avocados they still use the supply and demand cliche to well [unclear] other words you're being a psychologist you know that supply and demand doesn't have anything to do it and other food absolutely not now one of the things that I I would like to point out in a recent survey where the [unclear] agriculture surveyed thousands of farmers and I think this is real significant because you you told me just before this program that you realized a tremendous difference in the attitude of the producers throughout the whole nation that there was a year ago when you were back here and I'd like to point this out the most recent survey several thousand producers of whopping and I'm going to hold this up to the camera can see it a whopping ninety six and 5/10 percent of the producers surveyed farmers said that farmers must have favorable bargaining power 96 and 5/10 percent realized let's review for a minute that when we started nobody was talking about bargaining power they said it was illegal they said it was unamerican they said a lot of other things of course your psychologist you know who puts those thoughts in their mind yeah I'd like to to point out one other thing that two-thirds of them they surveyed said that they thought bargaining on price would be possible on corn soybeans wheat cattle and hogs and so forth now this is what we've said all the time also they pointed out that of those thinking this 64 and 110 percent thought that the existing farm organizations should do the bargaining well I'm sure glad they're coming around to our way of thinking because the NFO has the only legal structure let's set up at the present time of producers and producers only as far as a farm organization concern to do this bargaining on all commodities and this is why your group came to our group to get help now let's before our time runs out I see it's getting short and we used avocado green here I noticed that on the tablecloth let's talk a couple of that triggers something in me here's a little recipe book which I gave you copy this the other day this is put out by the gourmet society and it has recipes in it for 141 different ways to use avocado and so many people are uniNFOrmed about the avocado I'm just gonna read a paragraph or so here from this avocados go a long way they can comprise a complete luncheon a light supper a good beginning for dinner also they can around all any meals wherever they are needed as appetizers soups salads side dishes vegetable dishes desserts or as a colorful garnish avocados are thoroughly satisfying with excellent nutrition plus the safety factor that makes them very helpful and low calorie diet low calorie diet this is important to all America nowadays now homer brought me back some avocados and I'm telling you folks they're delicious if you haven't tried avocados go to your store and get some and if you're a member of some other farm organization and you haven't considered collective bargaining for agriculture let's get with it get your organization to do like this organization that's done come back here as producers and producers only let's join the big swing to NFO and I'd like to touch for half a minute here on the fact that all over the country they're beginning to come in editorials and I might say this one here was from Carolina Clinton North Carolina and it says this the title of it was NFO does NFO have the answer NFO might not be the answer for the farmer but at least it is attempting to find the answer and so far has put out more reasonable approach to solving the problem of disappearing American farmers then has the government or any other farm organization terrific and Homer I know that that you want to present me with something here yes butch when I woke up in my Dodge camper this morning I had enough light to fill out partially my membership agreement and I want to be the first person to join the the NFO over the TV and I wish that this would trigger a reaction from many many people over the nation to join NFO and here's my check and would you witness this I most certainly will mr. Smothers with a great pleasure and folks this is what's taking place all over America let's keep the ball rolling here's a good example down in North Carolina one meeting 50 new members fill out a membership application wonderful and I could go on and on telling you about the tremendous success but we have had and are having but I never hoped that it would ever come to the day that it would be this nice and this easy to get new membership it backs up what we've always said that all producers will be members as soon as they understand our program and when we got psychologists like you out there telling the story yes working on all types of people Homer and professors like you professors like me folks it's been a great pleasure go to your NFO meeting fill out your membership application and send it in or better still if you don't have a membership application mail in your check farmers and ranchers throughout the United States are joining the big swing to the national farmers organization as you have just witnessed US farm report has presented the big swing to the National for organization with Homer smothers treasure the avocado growers bargaining counsel from Fallbrook California mr. smothers was formerly with a psychology department at Drake University and from 1960 through 65 counseling psychologist at Iowa State University at Ames Iowa the farm income pattern sets the nation's prosperity and the national farmers organization represents new thinking and a new generation of agricultural producers a brighter day for American agriculture