NFO-246 (AV10749): US Farm Report: Farmers Speak Out

[music] hi everybody and welcome to us farm report as most of you regular viewers to our show know for the past many many weeks we have featured a great deal of film that our us farm report crews shot on a field trip taking us to the states of Texas California Washington Oregon and Idaho accompanying our crew was mr. W W Bush Swaim director of public information for NFO the gentleman on my right who is my special guest today Butch it's only proper I think as we go back out to those areas to revisit some of the people that you be with us that was a great trip wasn't it real fine some great leaders in agriculture we met on that name bet there were you know everybody was so very hospitable to us and I know that you like to talk about the friendliness of NFO members but in addition to being hospitable and friendly it was so evident to me that these people the leaders at the local level were truly outstanding and herein lies in a great part the strength of the organization right right and the friendly attitude you see bill we have a philosophy in the NF whole that there are no strangers in NF oh just friends you haven't met yet yes I think you found that out on this name we have another philosophy that we've lived by and this get acquainted with your neighbor you might like him we like for him to be friendly with everybody mm-hmm we think the farmers are all in this together well now about this leadership we talked a great deal butch about the leadership of NF o at the national level in Corning Iowa and this is vitally important there are some 135 outstanding people at the national level working hard every day a night in behalf of NFO but without the support of the people out at the local level it might not be so easy right right well you have to have top leadership all out through the country we've had enough leadership developed enough leadership in NFO that we can have conduct over 300 meetings at night five nights a week for the past five years and it's much higher than that now that many meetings a week that many meetings per week and it takes a lot of leadership in order to bring this about because in order to get these meetings up you have to have a lot of leaders helping you have to have leadership to conduct the meetings leadership to carry the ball for agriculture well let's meet some of these people through the five states so we visited we perhaps should call today's US. farm report butch a field trip revisited near Arbuckle California we visited with NFO member Charlie Geyer who talked with us about one of California's many many many specialty commodities this particular commodity almonds or as they say it out there "amonds" Charlie you have how many acres in almonds we have 300 acres of fearing almonds here in Arbuckle and you and Chet are combined with a couple of other almond producers here into the Arbuckle almond company and the company here what will your total combined production of almonds be it'll be an in the realm of a half a million pounds of shell dam and meets clean meats mmm this is a with the hole and shell taken off of them well now of course there's more to the almond crop than the nut itself you you get the hull and the shell which is purchased and goes into cattle feed as I understand it yes in a early days of almond raising why they call and shell was burned or discarded any way that they could and in the last 15 years we started selling them for cattle feed we had a good price to start with and then it seemed like all the price got away from us uh I don't know why it just did now last year they bought almonds hulls in in the Arbuckle area for $3 a ton and through NFO this year we've blocked our hulls together and we have sold hulls for a net of $15 a ton to growers in this area we've got a considerable amount of hauls stored and we're planning on selling them to supply contracts this winter how how long have you and the Chet been members of NFO since January of 1968 that Ralph Kittleson come out here and told us NFO's story and we took it right away well it's been a great thing for you you know if nothing else has happened it's been a great thing because of this increase in what you're getting for those almond hulls yes this is right we hope to do something with the almonds it sells the meats but as of yet we haven't really developed any real sound program well let me ask you this Charlie where do you think the expansion potential is in almonds well the biggest market I feel is to people that the almonds aren't available to them they know something about almonds but the almonds you seen here today bill they don't see basically in the middle west east coast this is what we hope to do get these almonds out and in a form of shape that that they're ready for them to cook themselves or process themselves up there are real in in Europe they use them for a staple most of people in California or where they are so domestically they're a luxury item the amount of production that's going to be in the almond crop they're expected maybe 120 million pounds this year maybe in three to four years 150 million to 200 million if we're gonna sell this amount of production we've got to get it out to the people the almonds have been the non-surplus item in the last three or four years we've developed real good export markets Germany West Germany Japan France Great Britain but we can't rely on these markets by ourselves because the Mediterranean produces approximately as many almonds as we do and they're going to take their share of these markets so for us to get rid of these almonds or to sell these almonds in an economic advantageous economically why we we've got to develop markets of our own mmm let me ask you about some of the methods that you're employing here now in the old days as I understand it in order to get these nuts off of the trees it was a hand job it was just plain hard labor wasn't it yeah did you use well we had a sled on two wheels drawn with a horse or a tractor and it had two sheets that went out underneath each tree and the men went knocked him with a mall or pole and they went down on the sheets and then they were rolled into the sled and taken into the holler now we've went to completely mechanized some people as far as even knocking the almonds off the tree we haven't went that far yet but you're picking them up mechanically and we we pick up a wind roll mechanically and pick them up mechanically from there on they're not really touched by a human hand hardly except for maybe minor cleaning well now in years past and as an almond grower you have picked them up and hauled them someplace else for all of the rest of the processing to get them tick to the consumer right yes changing things now aren't you Charlie well yes this is right we form the almond Arbuckle Almond company and we're gonna process these almonds into 100 pound bags clean graded ready- they're not cooked but very eating a fresh produce sort of thing this is relatively different than what we've done or anybody else in this area is doing everybody else selling them to processors who go ahead and do this job we're doing they they go to the extent of canning I mean cooking them and this sort of thing but I'm sure we won't do this well rather quickly can you sort of trace what happens to the almond in your setup here from the time it's picked up here in the orchard well it's picked up here in the orchard and we take it in and it's got dirt and stone sticks and that did we run it through a cleaning mechanism and then through a cracker the cracker takes a hull and the shell off after it comes out of that process why it'll have shell and hull and maybe some gummy or wormy meats in it and then we take it through a cleaner and they're sorted by hand they sorted semi sorted through the cleaner and then they run across a belt and girls pick out any the cleaner doesn't then we'll grade on this to count per ounce your large almonds will go into a large counter out sizes a your small almonds in the small count per ounce we feel that we can get more money out of the big ones and more money out of the small ones and average money out of the mediums this is the reason we do this now you're raising here in your orchards hardshell almonds those with a soft shell and the ones in between how many total varieties are you are you raising well we have eight varieties main one the nonpareil which is your number one almond in the state of California probably 60% our production is nonpareil about 15% is Texas or Mission the old name for the Texas salmon was Texas California almond exchange thought maybe the mission name would be much better well Charlie uh let me see this package down here this happens to be maybe your very first package out of your newfound business here this happens to be a five-pound package of California shelled almonds and you're going to package almonds here what up two hundred pound sacks aren't you yes this is right we feel that we can develop some markets with a five-pound bag or a box and some hundred pound lots and this is where we feel if we're gonna sell these animals we have to have them in this condition well I want to wish you a lot of luck in this new undertaking well it's gonna be a big job and take a lot of work but we'll get the job done well of course Butch we had opportunity on that trip to visit many areas of California and many NFO members in California for example on recent shows ladies and gentlemen I'm sure that you enjoyed Albert and George Watte the cotton growers from Tulare a couple of fine gentlemen and good NFO members and of course butch recently we featured Marion White and his son from the Chandon California area amazing high-efficiency big farming in that area would you agree as I recall it they were so far ahead in mechanized agriculture that the University of California brought the classes out there to study mechanized agriculture right they did that now we even managed to get down through the Great Central Valley of California as you know and will you ever forget that late afternoon that I think I suggested we take a scenic route through the Carmel Valley and it was what 35 miles long and three hours later we completed it that it was dark most of the way right that was that was something to remember I think it's always fun to look back on some of those crazy experiences on a trip but like we took well from the state of California you will recall Butch that we then went northward and we went into Oregon and in fact we're going to revisit at this moment the farm of George and Doug Fernbakker near the town of Prineville Oregon Doug as I understand that your farming operation here near Prineville is a father-son partnership right right right anymore Fernbakkers in this family no no that were just the two of us he's all right ain't he George for an only son there they're supposed to be a little troublesome but I think he's doing okay I'm glad he's here I'll pay you the truth I'll bet you are yeah how many acres do you farm here we farm roughly a thousand with our what we own and what we rent and what is your production on the thousand acres you mean for crop ah yes all we produce about roughly 1800 ton of potatoes and we run about all roughly 1500 head of cattle and then the rest of it goes into feed for these county lines let's get back to your potato production here your highly mechanized I suppose to try to achieve some efficiency in this potato crop correct and what is this done for you price-wise in this area well the price has gone down considerably when we moved to this area in 49 my dad received three dollars a sack for potatoes and at that time we had much more expensive operation because it was all you know hand labor and now 20 years later the price today is two dollars and ten cents a hundredweight and we have cut our costs for harvesting down some but our cost for fertilizer and our land values and everything have gone up so the price is way out of line with what we've actually saved by going mechanization well fellas wherever we go across the country gleaning the agricultural story for us farm report the story remains pretty much the same George I'm sure you've been through it for years efficiency is going up production costs are going up but what's happening to the prices prices going down there you are there you are yeah we just got a tax statement yesterday and for our operation here it's went up over $700 from last year what about the fellows in this area in the potato business have you have you plowed some under oh yes yes we plowed 4% of our our crop under this year mm-hmm what are you gonna do about price George do you have any idea about what to do about it yes just as soon as the good members in this area get their potatoes under storage we're gonna go to fighting and we're gonna get this price up or they're not going to get him this is one of the one of the really great advantages of organizing of getting together of working together and blocking together isn't this an arrow just like I talked to a man in Jefferson County last night and he talked to the people in Klamath and the communication in this thing is the most wonderful thing I've ever got into before the buyers they used to tell us one thing we had to believe it now I just pick up a telephone and we know what's going on back east middle west and any place you want to know it's a greatest group I've ever got into I think the communication probably is the greatest factor in solving so many of these problems that used to be that you guys had to believe just about anything and anybody wanted to tell you and we had no authoritative source for information but now indeed you do have right oh this is wonderful you bet we can get the answers in a matter of minutes mm-hmm you bet let's talk about your cattle operation here how many cattle do you run well we start out buying in the fall and depending on how good a summer we had for feed we normally buy between 1500 and 2500 and we do some custom feeding and then we start as they get up to oh say 750 pounds we start putting them in the feedlot and then those that we don't put in the feedlot in the winter we go to pasture with and what kind of pasture is that is it grass it's all irrigated pasture yes it's a mix of legume and grasses and then in the summer as once again we go through about all once every 30 to 60 days and we cut out the big ones and put them on a finishing feet also now what's your cattle market it's it was real good and now it's slipping very fast we we have a problem out here and that we don't have enough of the feeders NFO yet and so consequently in this area a lot of us are backing up and selling feeders instead of selling finished animals and dad and I are seriously considering doing this with what we have left this year well now with with your fat cattle can't you block them elsewhere in the country and get a price under NFO this is we're trying to work out a deal now we have a little problem with transportation of course doing this and but we've got one packer over in the Willamette Valley that's working with us hundred-percent and he takes our NFO beef and he's paying us more than market but he can only do so much when the big boys keep undercutting it mm-hmm and role dislike dad and I sold a load of heifers yesterday weighing about 900 pounds all choice for 25.50 and this is not a break-even deal now George you made some comments to me a little while ago that I found to be very interesting about the rural businessman in the small community now for example in Prineville which i guess is your community may address the support that you feel is coming from the businessman who is realizing that the strength of your economy out on the farm is indeed the strength of his economy in the town this is right now if if they let corporations take over here our little town of Prineville will be a ghost town because we spend our money here Prineville is a going community I think a real going to what's the population there about seventy seventy to seventy two hundred I believe yeah it looks prosperous it has a good look about it right there's a lot of the lumber industry in the Prineville area too isn't there yes lumber what is it it isn't I think agriculture still leads in Prineville mhmm yeah I don't know the percentage but we have already explained to our audience that this is sportsman's paradise this guy he's that aid I suppose you guys do find a little time to pursue that that hobby don't you yeah we we get to do our share of deer hunting birding right now you're raising grain barley and wheat right you've had no market on that either terrible it's terrible yeah what are you raising how many acres of your land is in grain a lot about a third are you storing George we're storing and and then feed to our fat cattle uh it's no price today it's about 40 bucks a ton it's way below our cost well now and although NFO in this area numerically isn't exactly as strong as we would like right it's coming isn't it's coming fast yes mm-hm and you've been doing a lot of hard work as I understand it we tried half the organization is the influence of NFO felt to a point where you're able to as an individual makes some contracts or gentlemen's agreements with people to whom you sell yes to your advantage would you explain that well yes it's increased well like on cattle we're getting about a half a cent more then the other are and potatoes they're willing to talk to us for a little better price grain hasn't been yet but we feel that it's coming mm-hmm it's gonna take time talking about last year when we got the three dollars and they didn't believe us and taking a dollar eighty five twenty-five miles from us yeah what about that well yeah that the boys here said they wasn't gonna let a potatoes gold less than three dollars a 100 weight net to the grower and the boys 20 25 miles away from us they laughed at it said it can't be done well these boys here are good strong anti Poor's and they just said on him there wasn't a spud left the Prineville Valley under $3 a 100 net to the grower well an fo is being felt here felt advantageously as as I see it although there are no existing contracts at this time you're you're looking for those right and they're going to happen aren't they you bet upon our arrival here we looked up to see Doug and his dad George on horses coming up to greet us and they were accompanied by what looked like a herd of dogs now that isn't so strange to have dogs on a ranch but I am intrigued by the fact that you have two St. Bernard's and another dog that is a really rare breed as far as I'm concerned I've never seen this breed of dog before how come St. Bernard's Doug I've always been in love with 'em since I was a little tiny kid and I built a trailer for a fella that raise 'em and he gave me one and then he gave dad one and then we started raising and I understand it's not a bad crop a lot better paying than any other thing we can raise that I don't know know whether we can do anything about raising prices on St. Bernard's through NFO but i guess we could give her a try couldn't we George you bet we'll give her a try now this other dog that I was talking about what breed of dog is this he's a Norwegian Elkhound and they came from Norway they were used both as a work animal and also to hunt game mm-hmm he's a pretty tough animal he-he's a fairly small dog for a sled dog right there muscular animal dad's border collie thinks he's an awful tough animal yeah well dug in George it's been a real pleasure talking with you all and I want to wish you well lots of good luck and certainly we're hoping that NFO grows as we're anticipating it will grow through this part of Oregon if I say one more thing this is one thing that I have learned and met the nicest people through NFO people with all over the world United States I should say and well they're people you like to be with we have I think concluded on this particular field trip during which time we have covered the states of Texas California Oregon Washington Idaho Colorado that number one progressive farmers belong to n fo and number two and even perhaps more importantly that NFO farmers are the greatest people in the world just from the standpoint of being nice folks being hospitable cooperative and helpful and you two people certainly fall into that category and we thank you and it's been a pleasure having you on US farm report Butch it makes me want to go back it was a great trip and I only wish that on today's show we could revisit all of those fine people we met in Texas California Washington Oregon and Idaho and incidentally as you well know we are planning another field trip for later on this spring and I hope that we get to your area we get all of those people on one show would prove the world that progressive farmers join NFO yes indeed and they're paying off in another way too in the words that we've won in the competition of our television and our advertising why don't you tell the audience here I'd be glad to Butch if you will allow us just a moment of boasting we're really not boasting but we feel so very thrilled about this and we'd like for our audience to share our pleasure with us the national agriculture advertising and marketing Association annually has advertising awards hundreds of farm advertisers compete in these awards for their creative work I am very pleased today to announce that this year NAMA as this organization is called presented a first-place award to NFO for the best single ad two or three color now this first-place award was one out of a field of over 100 entries this is an ad that appeared in the Farm Journal right right butch leading magazine performance yes indeed and we're delighted to receive this award from NAMA the other first-place award from NAMA was awarded to us farm report naturally selfishly I am absolutely thrilled and delighted that we receive this kind of award from this kind of competition the judges ruled that us farm report was the best public relations film that they looked at and as a result NFO was awarded a first-place plaque for this show I want to mention the show that happened to win this first-place award you perhaps will remember a show featuring Gene Potter who is the director of the meat commodities department here at NFO and one of his assistants Andy Nuetzling was in charge of cattle plants this show happened to be shot at a packing company and they've dealt with the quality and yield grading of beef carcasses in case you missed it since it is an award-winning show we're going to repeat that show next week I hope you'll be watching at that time Butch thank you very much it's always a pleasure to have you on our show well I'm glad to be here and I'm looking forward to that next field trip and more footage of outstanding farmers in America and I am too and we'll get it and be back here with it and thanks to all of you or looking in today my special guest mr. W. W. Butch Swaim who is director of public information of the National Farmers Organization u.s. farm report is seen each week on this station until we meet again so long everybody [music]