NFO-245 (AV10748): US Farm Report: Farming: North by Northwest

[music] hi everybody and welcome to us farm report my special guest today really needs little introduction to the US farm report audience DeVon woodland has been on our show a number of times and it's always a pleasure to welcome him back Devon good to see you Thank You DeVon by the way is executive assistant to the field staff Department of the national farmers organization and comes from the Great Northwest the state of Idaho how many states are you covering up there now for NFO I'm covering a five states bill there's Idaho Utah Montana Oregon Washington and parts of Wyoming as most of our viewers realize Devon our US farm report crew made a field trip up into your northwestern territory unfortunately you were gone at least our paths did not cross while we were there but up in your country and in the state of California we saw some evidence of the tremendous efficiency in big farming and yet at the same time everywhere we went the farmers seemed to say five times nothing is still nothing 20 times nothing is still nothing efficiency just isn't the whole answer isn't it certainly isn't bill and those who think that it is I'm these figures that you have mentioned have simply forgotten their grade school arithmetic the the cry has been uttered by those who are unrelated to agriculture that this is the solution efficiency which is untrue it just simply isn't regardless of how big an operation you get and many of the people have tried this as a solution if you continue to sell below cost it doesn't matter how much you have the more you have the faster you're gonna go broke that seems to be it it's just this common yeah DeVon in the northwest in what crop categories do you find the biggest farming the biggest efficiency I think that we could probably confine this to the two crops particularly the wheat because this has been a tremendous squeeze on the week producers and then also in the potatoes because they have been forced to improve their efficiency and they've been successful in this and we must always encourage our people to be efficient to use the latest land practices and farming methods we would be unwise to to think otherwise but still this just simply doesn't doesn't solve the problem bill well when you speak these days and farming of efficiency you actually are talking in terms in most instances of modern equipment aren't you this is right this is the way you get efficiency through the use of modern equipment to eliminate manpower yes and so this efficiency thing becomes a very costly thing this is true now I know that on our trip to the northwest some of the equipment being used in the harvesting of potatoes for example was was very expensive equipment and these potato farmers really had a tremendous investment in it and yet they had no price for the potatoes this is true it isn't unusual for these fellows to get 200 to 150 thousand dollars invested in just harvesting equipment mm-hmm this is very common and out on the big dry farms why they've got these a mammoth of tractors they will hook their equipment together and trying to become more efficient and this has had to be done out of necessity as I would presume that the irrigation has to be considered an effort toward more efficiency - oh yes oh yes and of course through your part of the country there's a great deal of irrigation this is right in our area this is nearly exclusive of course then up in the outlying areas well then it moves into the dry farm type of thing but the farmer bill has actually become the victim of his own efficiency he has increased his efficiency his output per man-hour and he's become the victim of it mm-hmm it's it's sad thing that he's been moved or pushed into this direction to where he's actually created a very unfavorable situation for himself he's been able to produce now perhaps 300 percent more than he did 20 years ago he was providing for about seven people twenty years ago per man on the farm and today he's up to as high as 2021 and so he has become efficient perhaps twice as efficient as any other industry that we know and still they're saying produce more for less in other words they've got us on this treadmill like the squirrel that you see in the museum the faster he runs he just sits right there and so there must be another solution and we think that we have found it and it must come through the collective bargaining program that we we endorsed encourage well one of the things that impressed me is I have had the opportunity of going in and visiting with many of the the large processors who not only process but they also produce and nearly invariably they will tell me that their ability to market they have the ability to search out the markets to place their commodity is where they can excel over above the individual now they tell me that their ability to produce or being efficient is no greater than the individual but their ability to market is where they have the margin and because of this now you can see how insignificant variability as a processor will be to market when we are successful in our marketing program right we ran into an outstanding example of farming efficiency in the Chandon California area I know this is not in your territory that you work but I'm sure you're acquainted with that area of rolling hill country so at this time I'd like for you to join me and we'll invite our audience to do the same to the Miriam white ranch near Chandon California the farmland Rose gently from the Sierras down toward the sea this is big farm country where single pieces of property are measured in thousands of acres but where high efficiency hasn't yet brought a fair price to the farmer last fall our US farm report crews stopped at Chandon to visit the farm of two brothers NFO members George and Marion White I talked with Marion about the special equipment he needs and the special problems he faces on a large farm Marion would appear to me seeing these rolling hills as your ranching terrain that the equipment that you use to farm here must be if not specially manufactured it must be very sharply modified after you buy it that's certainly true due to the the hilly terrain and rough areas that we farm steep some up to maybe more than 42 percent grades we do have to have specialty equipment it's just to be extra strength in hitches and other pieces that show a tremendous strain and this type of an operation now this is a this particular piece of equipment here as a as a press grain drill and it's probably we feel it's one of the best investments we've made in recent years because of the fact that it has increased our production due to the facts of dropping the seed in with the fertilizer and it also is a tool we'll do some color vaiting if it comes necessary that we're seeding after rain what do you pull this with how big a tractor is this this there's 42 feet of drill here three 14s and it's full of the 13AD8 it's rated at a hundred and fifty horsepower this tractor was purchased in 1954 and you can see that we were thinking of bigger hitches in years back now this hitch on which we're sitting is what the largest commercially manufactured hitch yes to my knowledge this a hitch it's about the limit a 42-foot implement and it's it's called a multi hitch and it's designed with hinges on the wings for uneven terrain what kind of an investment in terms of replacement do you feel you have here well this particular drill right today I wouldn't be sure of the price but at the time we purchased it in 1963 was at a cost of twelve thousand dollars ready to go as you see it today then you add tractor cost well the tractor is an old machine and we got it of a bargain and we only paid twenty one thousand seven hundred and ninety five dollars for it so at least you have quite an investment that's true and today the tractor if you found the right fellow it might be worth eight or ten thousand in a trade-in now you have a new truck that's a brand new truck that is specially built for your operation here would you describe this truck to us well this truck will just purchase this year and it's a it's in our operation it can be used as a truck to service a harvesters haul grain from the fields to our own ranch storage and then it's a specially truck to haul fertilizer to these big hitch drills and load the drills as fast as possible now you see that it has a dogger in the bottom and then it has another auger up the side in the rear that has been designed to fill these drills as you drive along the back yeah dude in this operation it's a quite important to keep the tractor rolling you have a bigger best investment and you have to have components to go with this type of a deal well you combine marryin this truck this fertilizer truck with another truck carrying seed to to help in the operation that's right we actually are putting more pounds per acre of fertilizer than we are seed we don't are quite a larger truck this truck is operated from a auger in the rear we raised the dump bed and the auger is run by a hydraulic motor that runs from our hydraulic hoist pump you were mentioning a little while ago some interesting comments about what you've learned in terms of planting this seed dry you don't wait for the rains you plant dries and that is yes we've increased our production considerable I think from probably an average prior to 1960 a 1,500 pound average of barley including last year's or this last year's harvest the 1969 crop we brought it up to a twenty four hundred and eighty pound average so you see we've we can really produce but we need price now and that's where NFO comes in for many years Cal Poly agriculture classes have visited the white farm to study their equipment and their methods now Marian White's son Ken is himself a student at Cal Poly while we were in Chandon I talked with Ken about his studies and about the future but Ken where are you in school I'm a senior at Cal Poly located down here in San Luis Obispo right now and what are you majoring in in school I might major is mechanized agriculture I'm kind of fitting it in with a production aspect and I'm trying to plan my curriculum so I'll geared towards coming back into our own operation and my electives I'm filling it with an agriculture business management classes and animal husbandry also since our operation involves grain and cattle yes we're standing ladies and gentlemen in front of a large combine that the whites call a pusher the cab of which was designed by Ken as a project in school tell us about that well we had to the class was in a major class which is AG project was the name of it and we had to initiate a project of our own designer or a practical purpose in industry or in a branch or farming operation and so I chose this because I was a combine operator I'd reap most advanced comforts out of it so I initiated a project designed that and then assembled it in the class itself and it involved a one-hour lecture in three or six hours of laboratory awake working in the shop but the major portion of the work was to shop work and it fed had been real well and we brought it back and installed it here at the ranch and I have gone to air conditioning school to learn installation and servicing of air conditioning units so all of our we have trucks here around the shop that have air conditioning units in them they've learned how to service them and it works out real well with our a whole total operation well now in your classes in mechanization I understand that these classes have come out here to the ranch to get some practical looks at mechanization in large-scale farming that's correct we've last I believe it's been 15 years since we've been having classes coming out field trips involved in the production aspects of agriculture mostly looking over equipment our operations involved here and the time of year that we carry them out and do the basics of production and whatnot mostly yeah most mmm the mechanized part of our operation yes and the basic varieties such as crops and whatnot in contrast to the gigantic farming operation of Marian Wyatt in the Chandon California area here is an interview at Moses Lake Washington with NFO member Dave Stephens well Dave I must declare that this is a beautiful day in Washington State oh he arranged it just for you glad you did that's most hospitable you know it got down below freezing last night didn't know I got up about the 6:00 this morning it's 25 degrees 25 at that time but boy it's clear now and and warm and it's a beautiful day it's kind of typical this time of year it gets pretty cold here doesn't it Dave I mean through the wintertime do you have snow and launchers we have our cold times but generally our winters are quite mild fairly mild we're how about summertime extreme or are they comfortable they're comfortably extreme well that we get some very hot days on on the average in the low 90s I think but this is dry country and it's dry heat and dry cold and very pleasant and that's pleasant heat and cold if we have to have it Dave how many acres do you farm here I farm about 900 acres and what are your main crops well sugar beets potatoes some sweet corn corn for silage for feeding stock it's peas for freezing for human consumption tweet just about cover at all we're unfortunately here sort of between harvests you've just completed one harvest and now you're into the beet harvest and that's about over isn't it well not for us we're just beginning there are some that are on the ending up phase but we're just getting started we have 400 acres to harvest what kind of a beet quality do you have this year you have good sugar content yes it's normally the sugar content increases a little as the season goes on the longer the beets are in the ground this generally seems to be the case and I think it's adequate now they're not unhappy with it however I think it has it hasn't proved to be as high as the last year's average was now you're doing some expanding in your cattle operation tell us about this well we have a small herd of registered cows the Macdonald breeding it's an excellent type I think it's the kind that's really the coming thing in the hold and the Hereford breeding about 65 70 four or five of excellent Bulls we intend to expand this to where we have 150 to 200 cows in addition to this we winter calves will have up to about a thousand head of cows we they do a little foraging in the fields but mainly we dry lot them and carry the feed to now well what sort of expansion is going on over here and you're in your feedlot well we are increasing the capacity of the Krell's themselves somewhat but this is primarily for housing the taking care of the registered cattle we're just really getting a start in that we'll have our bullpens and separate pens for the heifer calves we know there's some new construction over here at the end of the Pens and that's the makings of a scale yes yes we're installing a scale for weighing cattle what kind of a skill what capacity scale will that be it'll be a 30-30 ton capacity 12 feet by 26 feet and it'll have it'll be enclosed so we can run cattle in it it'll be when the construction is completed there will be alleyways leading right to the scale so we just walk them on and off yeah this is irrigation country here yes where we are this is all irrigated man where do you get your water out of Moses Lake of course well my property happens to be a part of it just on the perimeter of the Columbia basin irrigation project I have about 400 acres that's irrigator a little less than that irrigated from the water that comes from that's has previously been impounded behind the Grand Coulee Dam it's brought here through a series of canals equalizing reservoirs and laterals and smaller ditches how many miles is that water travel when it gets to you well we're 80 miles from the dam here goes on farther does yes it does it goes on about another 30 miles south of us a lot [unclear] oh go ahead I'm just gonna say the balance of our property we irrigate from Moses Lake we're part of an irrigation district formed for this purpose how many acres in that lake there well I think six to ten thousand acres through the years give or take yeah you know through the years most of the farmers in this area have taken water from the lake right well initially this is where most of the irrigation took place there and in the vicinity near to the lake shallow wells when I first came here 23 years ago we dug wells on some property on the west side of the lake and they were shallow wells and good water you know Bund insolvent wherever we go we like to pick up the local paper see what's going on you know and in Moses Lake we notice in the paper that that the level of the lake is to be lowered but we also noticed as a part of the story that the people in charge of such activity have asked anybody in the area who has any objection to the lowering of that level to stand up and be counted what's that all about well of course there are other users of the water besides farmers who utilize it for irrigation principally for recreational purposes and many of the residents of our area of built along the lake they have their boat docks and I suppose they require a occasional maintenance and repair and so it facilitates this if they can lower the water level mm-hmm there's a small dam with some gates on it at the one end of the lake and they just toward the end of the season they lower the lake level and actually I think they did this a little prematurely this year because they lured the water to where we suddenly found that we had nothing in our channel coming out of the lake to boost up the hill to water with huh but they've advertised now this was made known to them that this precluded our continuing with the irrigation for the season and I think they hope I know they hope that they can let the level obtain at least up nearly its previous levels where we can still get water is you've been here on this particular farm farming this land owning this land since the mid 50's what was it like when you first came here Dave and how did you come by it well as I say I've been here for several years prior to that this particular unit where our home stands farm unit is in the Columbia Basin irrigation project the law required that any farm unit be properly conformed in one ownership one person would be the owner and for several years after water was available and being delivered to the surrounding farms this this particular farm stood undeveloped in sagebrush and the reason for it I there had been those who had tried to acquire it it's in a good area of close to close to town he's very good soil type productive ground but there were about 13 different owners of this in small parcel sum of two and a half acres and five acres and I'm here a twenty and they're attend one of them one of the owners was in Egypt I think one of the others was in Iran all the rest were just scattered but we happened long at a convenient time and these people had been required by the law to pay for the water and yet the water wasn't deliverable to them because they haven't completely complied with the law so they were ready to sell we were ready to buy and we put it together and worked out nice develop the grounds you were sort of a charter member of the national farmers organization in the state of Washington as I understand well I tell people I was the first one in the state of Washington I think I was at the first organizational meeting held and I was the I was the first one to sign up I don't know for sure that I was the first in the state when was that day well that was in January two years ago now NFO is very strong through this county isn't it yes it is it's a it's grown rapidly and there's some energetic dedicated people in it how many of the farmers what percentage do you feel belong to NFO well at one time this summer that I became aware that there were over 600 members in the county and you know off the top of my head I'd say that's probably half or maybe more than half how much of the production of the county do you think those members represent after well I was assumed that be a probable what first what first attracted you to NFO I'd say curiosity I had heard of their activities in the Midwest and I was anxious to know more about it get a little first-hand information I'm sure that what I had heard wasn't all NFO holds a side of their controversial picture so when a meeting was called here a membership meeting I attended as the first one held in the state and I had previously been impressed with their the aims of the organization and the methods that they'd used to are intended to use to obtain their goals and so I just wanted to hear more know more about it and now as to your production here on your acreage do you sell it all through NFO well not exactly now of course you'd understand that we're only two years organized here I probably would offer just quickly have answered yes but we we raised quite a lot of sugar beets here we have an organization that does market them where you see the factory just in a distance there are you sure I didn't sugar factory with the exception of sugar beets I have signed all of my crops into the NFO and now as soon as something is arranged where they can represent the farmer that would be my intention to do likewise with the sugar beets they've on out of deference to you we did include somebody on our show today from your area they appreciate events of Moses Lake Washington a very fine man and a great NFO member by the way we think so bill a you and president Oren Lee Staley I understand we're at Moses Lake just recently yes we were you had a meeting there about a thousand people in the meeting bill sounds like great enthusiasm in that area for the organization successful LaVon thank you for being my guest today and on your next trip let's do it again pleasures been mine my special guest on us farm report mr. DeVon Woodland of Idaho DeVon is executive assistant to the field staff Department of NFO us farm report is seen each week on this station until we meet again so long everybody