NFO-198 (AV10700): Nationwide

welcome to us farm report public relations programs often 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 and seeing 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 presents national farmers organization nationwide with Jack Grimmer from the state of California Dwayne Cardin from Georgia Don Kimball from the state of Texas Dick Mooney from Idaho and Francis Anjer from Vermont here now is Phil Allen farm news commentator hello there we're talking to you from St. Louis at the scene of the National Convention of the NFO as you know these are annual affairs and this brings back to our minds the size of the National Farmers Organization when we met in Louisville Kentucky just about a year ago twenty-nine states were in the NFO at that time delegates are coming this year the St. Louis from 41 states and indeed the National Farmers Organization this coast-to-coast as our guests on the program today will very strongly suggest to you they literally come from states on the eastern seaboard and on the Pacific coast also the NFO now as we meet in St. Louis is ready to expand into five more stages as a rapid growing farm organization we will soon get a hint as to why I'm going to start at the end of the table with mr. grimmer and then move along to mr. Cardin and to Texas mr. Kimble and then dick Mooney from Idaho and sitting next to him Frances and Anjer the state of Vermont so in that order I'm going to give you an idea who these gentlemen are and we'll chat for a few minutes about the agriculture of their state first I'm going to start with mr. Jack Grimmer from Arbuckle California which is in Colusa County Jack Grimmer studied agricultural engineering at California Polytechnic and he also has some interests in agriculture and we'll get to that in just a minute Jack could you tell us something about the agriculture of your region well we have a wide variety of crops there we raised feed grain all vegetable crops fruits and putting they're all the major crops is grown in California yes getting a description of California agriculture is sort of like asking somebody to describe the whole country's agriculture yeah sugar beets in your area right yes tell us about your position in the NFO well I'm vice chairman of the inclusive County Charter and also trimming the feed green committee NFO has been organized just a few months in your area hasn't yes it first come to California at the end of January in 1968 and then we were chartered about the middle of June sitting right next to mr. Grimmer is gentleman from Georgia Dwayne Cardin from Pavo and that's in Brooks County isn't it supposing we started with you by telling about the agriculture of your state well economically speaking Phil agriculture is the dominant sector of a state's economy and as far as the variety of crops that are produced we are well diversified we produce mostly cotton tobacco and peanuts as a cash crop and then we produce quite a bit of corn livestock and watermelons truck crops of all different varieties and economically speaking farmers in Georgia are just as bad off as they are in any other part of the country now the NFO is somewhat in Georgia than it is in California I can recall seeing delegates from your state the past several years at our conventions yes this is right this makes my second year here we had five states organized in Georgia back about three years ago but it was kind of slow moving there because farmers had never heard of a program such as NFO and most of them didn't understand the basic mechanics of our organization and our collective bargaining program but since that time we have moved in rapid momentum and we have chartered about fifty more counties yeah I think it might be interesting to Middle-Western farmers to know that you people are putting together marketing arrangements in corn livestock too aren't you that's right we've got about twelve twelve-fourteen collection points in Georgia now and we completed one about two weeks ago and the first day that we block production together moved it through there we overrun it and had to stop the gas or bringing hogs in one day very good you're all so let's see you have a district position the NFO too don't you master Adam I'm president of Brooks County and president of the second congressional district Georgia and regional supervisor in about a 40 County area sitting next to mr. Cardin is Don Kimball of Amarillo Texas now it may be that some of you are more familiar with the Texas story because we've broadcast this before on NFO programs you're from Amarillo right I can recall I talk to you on a wats line considerably about an experience the two folks had there and blocking some production together if you don't mind the we'll skip that part and get back to it a bit later can you tell us about the NFO coming to your part of Texas yes NFO came to Texas and at least within our area in Texas well in January of this year and I had tremendous amount of response from the farmers as has been known for some time agriculture's in a better condition it may be worse in Texas and anywhere else and the farmers are fella's backs are to the wall they've got to do something and something got to be done immediately about prices and NFO has the answer and by that I mean the collective bargaining through blocking our production together and you know the saying has been for some time that you cannot organize farmers and this is false because I have seen them lined up at meetings organizational meetings once they understand that collective bargaining has worked effectively at every other segment of our economy they are lined up down the line of tables signing membership agreements into NFO so much so that when in a period of six months we managed to block together enough production in the Panhandle area to be effective in the market to the point of 20 cents a hundred or better yes we'll get to that story a minute later that's on grain sorghum isn't yes yes you also have sugar beets in your part of texas don't ya that's true we have a large corporation in our area that has built one of the largest plants in the nation of sugar beets and we it is one of our main cash crops and of course as as a result of past programs has maintained a nice return and we have in that particular area fail we grow grain sorghum wheat sugar beets and cotton and of course we have are now becoming one of the biggest feeding areas in relation which we might tell you people in the television audience that Don Kimball is also a member of the Texas and New Mexico of sugar beet Association board we'll pass along from you Don because we're coming back to you in a few minutes sitting next to me is Dick Mooney who lives for an Idaho you folks who follow football I'm going to make a point here if you remember the 1961 season this is the same Dick Mooney who won the kickoff return record among major colleges when you played for the University of Idaho right another detail on this he was chosen by the Olympic Committee to represent the United States in the Pan-American games at Sao Paulo Brazil so we're glad to have you here as an athlete and as those farming keep you pretty well in shape well as my grandfather used to say the only walking you do here is from the barn to the trail to get on your horse is that the way it's done in Idaho yeah very good and you're also a member of the American National Cattlemen's Association is right and cattle are pretty big in Idaho I can imagine yes I know is a fairly diversified state if you're starting the southern into Idaho you won't come into the potato area which Idaho is well known for and as you're going north you've come into the row crop areas of sugar beets onions potatoes and so on and as you get on north it's the cattle industry on up into the Palouse area which is well known for its wheat in this area is where they have proven yields of over 90 bushels on dry land grain so we're fairly well diversified and that's a pretty high-quality northern pleat too isn't it no this is your gains wheat that's [unclear] wheat which is 80 percent export I see now sitting next to Dick Mooney is a fellow from the opposite end of the country you might say but in another sense I noticed as they were chatting here before we went on the cameras mr. Francis Anjer where are you from in Vermont Francis from the Champlain Valley the western side of the state Madison County and also from the little township of Edison so in a sense the point I was making as you were chatting with mr. Mooney is you're both from mountainous sections and mountain valley agriculture is quite familiar to both of you isn't it that's right even though one is from Vermont and the others from Idaho I tell us a bit about Vermont agriculture well Vermont is predominantly a dairy i like to call it about 110% very because of the support that they have from all of their people they do have some orchards and scattered sections of State and of course a very small maple sugar industry and the kind of farming you do in Vermont tell us about having let's see you have the only corn combine in the state of Vermont right I believe that's right according to the statistics I have been raising corn for some time for grain all of the dairyman up there do produce quantities of corn for silage and and as much as I have discontinued dairying I wanted to keep my land from growing up in the brush so I put it into cash crops we also raised a new variety of wheat York star and we produce this or scene purposes very good I'm going to get back now to mr. Kimball for a few minutes but I want to tell you some more about Francis Anjer he's a member of the extension Advisory Board for the University of Vermont he also was a student at the University of Vermont and you've been a flown your own plane haven't shown that in the past year I've flown for about 30 years welcome to the program as a pilot as well as the farm now back to Texas or meanwhile back at the ranch as we sometimes say can you tell us about what your Texas Panhandle people did in grain sorghum well of course the first thing in in collective bargaining is to block together your production this was completely new to us and as it usually is anywhere that the collective bargaining is instilled into agriculture or any other area but the organization of counties would begin to charter very rapidly and as a result of this membership grew rapidly and it was just prior to harvest I suppose that we begin to sign up our production in in an effort to do block marketing and it has been very very effective and surprisingly so as I mentioned just a few minutes ago this area of Texas within a hundred miles of Amarillo Texas produces a third of the nation's grain sorghum which of course is part of our feed grains program as a result of this with the blessing of climate we have there we have rapidly grown to one of the largest feeding areas in the nation I talked to a fella named [unclear] yesterday in fact it said that he knew of 18 new feed yards on the drawing boards to be completed that would exceed 20,000 head per lot it's growing tremendously so this as a result of this the demand for grain sorghum in feeding the cattle has put us in an advantageous position and remarkably speaking I can amazed at the response we had from the buyers of our commodity it's a known fact that cheap feed that makes cheap cattle yes they were aware of this and as a result they they accept- they they have give us acceptance we have signed supply contracts with local feeders the farmers are realizing what strength they have in collective bargaining and they're being accepted all that well the opportunity that these feeders presented you I think is interesting to all of agriculture that you showed the people who move to your area that they can't take advantage of cheap feed which is something to think about and while we're talking about a subject like that in general wouldn't say Don that collective bargaining which pressures the price up in one commodity has this firming effect on all agriculture yes it very definitely does in fact as a result of the price increase in grain sorghum we began to watch and of course you you've noticed the market on corn has gradually moved of course we're a small part of the grain of the feed grains program but the effect of bargaining in a block in any commodity will have the effect of pressuring the market now in this particular instance county by county we have some large producing counties and for some that aren't as a result of blocking one major County we found that the pressure on the market was tremendous and sometimes exceeded at five cents maybe ten cents per hundredweight we had as I say response we also had good response from the grain trade and it occurs to me done that some of these other fellows here from around the United States who are members of the NFO might want to ask you Texans a few things about how you put it together in your area I think the television audience ought to note that we're talking to not only people from the four corners of the United States they're also rather new members of the NFO for the exception of Dwayne Cardin from Georgia they're all members just within the past few months any of you fellows want to ask Don Kimball anything about their experience in Texas okay Don could you comment just a minute only a situation in Texas as far as that Cotton's concerned we're kind of producing state also and in on behalf of the fellows back home if you could mention about the situation with cutting out there the price range for certain staples and so it come we could compare with our situation in Georgia well Dwayne as you're well-aware Texas his large producer of cotton and it has become a very sad situation than for the price standpoint the last time I checked the market normal grades are running for 15 to 20 cents per pound which is something like 58 percent of what they should be and the farmers in the lower Panhandle area from their own South Texas are dependent immensely upon their cotton crop as we've been organizing in that area the advantage that we have that we have had speaking with these men of course have been on our results of our green circles but the need for our cotton program is is tremendous and it's got to be done and quickly because we have as you know as you have in your area I know as I've spoken with you before we have land values that have reached the point to where it's no longer profitable to operate an economy that's right these people have got to there's got to be something done we're rapidly affecting the national economy well I I would say that anything well you and I need to do is close the gap from Georgia to Texas Alabama Mississippi and here let's get it and combined apart well head on huh Thank You dick did you have something that you wanted to make a comment here on yes Don we also have these large feed\lotsN in our area in the in Idaho and in the last week we have signed some of these supply contracts with this this one area one feedlot and and but basically what brought about our our contract was the potato growers the potato growers went into a and then Eliminator program whereby they did not let any of their cut potatoes go into the processing plants and by doing this this feedlot which also is a potato processor wasn't able to get to the waste potatoes to pedis cattle and this also helped us in getting green contracts for very good Jack did you have a comment down there yeah I want to say that in our area there we blocked our amount together two counties there and we felt we brought to eat but the price up better than any market price has been there and paid more less they remind me Jack what part of California is this is northern part northern about the 50 miles north of Sacramento and this is this is brought to the market up itself but yet we're still above the market in our area we're working with the rest of the counties in our state also heating coordinating the price and I think this is helping all over the nation these areas keep them together and and not cutting each other so to speak so this is what the things that has made NFO so outstanding this is probably the first time that farmers have had an opportunity to belong to an organization that is so well unified nation by nation Dwayne here mentioned a minute ago tying Texas and Alabama together this literally is true you've no longer got state boundaries you no longer got commodity boundaries you've no longer got these things that have been a detriment to a profit to a fair price the thing that Jack mentioned here as far as California that might go a little further if I may just elaborate on that California of course one of our major producers yet the feeding programs there have been tremendous over the years and we have had California as a supply point for our grain sorghum in this area but now with coordinated effort through NFO through each individual county as well as state and national we can know daily if necessary exactly the circumstances and situation is there which means that there will not be tons and tons of excessive feed poured into a market area in Jack's area for example that would depress the process you know and I know that the major businessmen in the nation who are success successful the biggest corporations in the nation they have inventory yes they don't have surpluses and they their market is regional rather than by any sort of artificial boundary they're businessman and they conduct their business accordingly and of course we have a strong economy that we've been able to appreciate in the past and this new vector what we're attempting to do the experience of you people in the Texas Panhandle reminds me of something I'd like to ask mr. Anjer from way over in Vermont now organizing NFO just within what ten or eleven months ago wasn't it yes and how long has NFO been in Vermont since February about the same like the time hasn't right well maybe both you gentlemen can give me a an answer on this and I'm asking and not just for us but for some of the older areas in the NFO where it's been organized well as long ago as when we had to explain not only what NFO meant that what collective bargaining is and the whole idea did it seem to you Francis that the people who joined NFO and Vermont came to it with a pretty good set of convictions about bargaining together and selling together no I don't believe that they did there are very good dairyman up there a second well I think across the country and they're good businessmen and they have done fairly well as much as price wise as much as the market would stand however as good as they are we still lose an awful lot of these people and yes this is a nationwide pattern to is very few of us up there had any idea that we could ever get the farmers to work together I don't believe it was a question of whether it would work if they could do it it was a matter of getting the farmers to work together they're very individualistic yes I've often heard it said that this is the source of the farmers greatest strength but it's a kind of a technical a tactical problem how about in Texas did your people come to it with some already convictions that they already held about bargaining together yes and of course it has to be explained thoroughly and this is good you find among agricultural people as well as long any organization they did but as soon as the program is explained they're aware of what's happened in other industries as far as collective bargaining is concerned NFO will work it is working it will continue to work and we're very pleased of the strides as a result of this the farmers come to it they understand the program and as I say I've seen them lined up very good and this occurs to me that dick Mooney might have a view on a question like this now from your association going back over quite a number of years and the Cattlemen's Association does it seem to you that well a group like that oriented toward a a commodity or a livestock does the NFO experience bring anything would you say to a past experience with producing just one like that yes as such as I mentioned before the period of potato industry where it was helping obtain industry which in turn will help the cattle industry by tying these all these commodities into one organization we were able to do this for about a Cattlemen's Association which is now in a very very good management pro-program with their guidelines advising their members as to weights and such as to their selling this has little bearing on the price and it has little bearing on helping the grain industrial actually in many ways it will take advantage of the other industries but in getting all these commodities into one organization here their health and into this industry and by getting all these states also I think this potato program which was developed through the NFO is a milestone that you might say because here they're these processors now are you trying to use one State against the other yes through the communication system between Oregon Idaho Colorado Maine they have been able to go through the national office and each other and and like last night I heard a couple talking and they said that in Oregon when they told the processor he was wasn't able to get these be potatoes he says that's alright I'll go to Idaho and get them well all we had to do is send a phone call right and Idaho and and they weren't able to move any beat potatoes out Idaho either so it is having a great bearing on our prices you know this is really quite a story that you fellas are telling that as farmers themselves become nationwide and you're out that's the markets and all that then these processors are beginning to have to deal with the nationwide yes and this is a must i might say this too i noticed you mentioned Texas a quite a bit but we had to get to work these fellows these older areas have been waiting on us too long Phil they asked a Mr. Mooney yeah sometimes we have a little petty ani- animosity between our different organizations form organizations and I would like to ask him if the cattle Association members up in his area are pretty well taken to the NFO collective bargaining program and they don't mind being a member of two organizations especially if example oh this is this was one of the ways that it grew so fast in our county areas we have two County Cattlemen's Association there and now 80% of the cattle have in this association is under membership in the NFO in fact you're an official of the Cattlemen's Association this might give me an opportunity to say something to the TV audience we've made this point before but let us emphasize it the NFO really isn't in conflict with any other farm organization or any commodity group you can if you want to stand paying that much do is belong to all of them and I encourage it too it's like the two prisoners who were talking about their building funds for their churches no one could afford to you know I would like to admit to an incident that happened in Georgia that could give a clearer picture to everybody really who is fighting who yeah this implement dealer there were had a salem coming one day and to call on him about buying some [unclear] and while he was in there there was two farmers came in and one of them was a member of one farm organization and the other was an member of this other farm organization he might have to be the referee yeah he almost was in this particular case and they got to argue about the farm organizations or in the name of the farm organization and in the course there they got a little bit rash then I went to fisticuffs battle right then they show room so after this was over this Salesman meets them to the implement dealer he said what's the fight going between these two organizations and he said well he said really there's no fat between the organization's he said those two guys have been fighting over a line of fence for 15 years I think it's numbers I think it really does other organizations have a function to perform don't they this is right and when they're talking about Cattlemen's Association in our own County to County area they're with the Association calls the NFO Moses he's gonna lead us out of the darkness I see great that's great I think go ahead I think we have a few seconds left I think most of the farmers nationwide that have have heard the NFO story have generally they have come see the idea they're gonna have to rely upon their own efforts to adopt a collective bargaining program and it's evident that the NFO is the only organization that does have a definite mechanism that can bring corrected bar and agriculture yes this might be a good point for me to remind the television audience that if you're interested watching this program in joining the NFOyou can write to the Corning headquarters office it's C-O-R-N I-N-G, Iowa Corning Iowa and one other point we're interested in farmers generally because we feel as these gentlemen have pointed out to you that the national farmers organization is organized to perform a service and we also need the ideas and the help of people from all over agriculture and the NFO welcomes you as members we need you not just because you're a person who can join but we need the ideas that you had practically everyone in the NFO belonged to something else first that for today is something to think about us farm report has presented national farmers organization nationwide with Jack Grimmer from California Dwayne Cardin Georgia Don Kimball from Texas Dick Mooney Idaho and Francis Anjer from Vermont members of the national farmers organization invite you to tune in again next week at the same time 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 well the farm income pattern sets the nation's prosperity and the national farmers organization represents new thinking for a new generation of agricultural producers a brighter day for American agriculture