NFO-253 (AV10756): US Farm Report: Agriculture in the Bootheel

[music] hi everybody and welcome to us farm report this week u.s. farm report concerns itself with agriculture in the Bootheel area of Missouri and in the adjacent area of northern Arkansas now as you know when you talk about agriculture in the Missouri Bootheel you must necessarily talk about cotton because cotton is one of the boot heels leading crops and when this reporter mentions cotton it harkens us back to 1969 the month of December and the NFO National Convention in Louisville Kentucky at that time US farm report cameras and microphones recorded the following interview with a dynamic young man from the Bootheel of Missouri Gideon Missouri Maury Wallace who heads up NFO's rather new cotton program Marie Wallace was there in attendance at the convention with his lovely wife Maury Missouri I don't believe is particularly famous for a cotton but now you tell me that the by golly the cotton production there is sizable right Bill we have seven counties in the booth produce enough kinda made our product number one in the state now we've had some years that we weren't so fortunate but we have a product that has been one in state last what county is your home county worried New Madrid New Madrid County Missouri Maury here at the convention I had the pleasure of hearing you address the convention very briefly I think they gave you all of 60 seconds to announce the cotton meeting that you felt was most important what's the plight of the cotton producer these days and what do you think was accomplished here at the convention in your cotton meeting bill the cotton producer has almost lost the battle we in the south as I said earlier lost the war a little over a hundred years ago this war is an economic war we've almost lost it we're looking to NFO to help us out of this problem we only think that going national through a collective bargaining on a national scale can we get our markets and bargain for cotton we are selling it less than what it cost to produce a bale of cotton yeah right now in 1969 and at this convention I have met delegates from cotton counties from the Carolinas to California who have received this program with two hundred percent enthusiasm not 100 but they say come on down and put us in it well now I know that NFO for quite some time has been working on a cotton program and in fact you're on us farm report had the pleasure of touring some of the cotton areas of your state of California and we interviewed by the way a couple of fellas out there the Waddy brothers and I know that you're acquainted with them are you not yes that is correct they're in Tulare County that's right and they were telling us much the same story you worry about the plight of the cotton farmer for example as I recall it used to be that the gins would gin the cotton just in exchange for the cotton seed but it's a far cry from that today isn't it now I understand that the gins get the cotton seed but in addition to that it costs what seven or eight or nine dollars a bale right there's a debit on it now this your situation in Missouri act like we have a debit side out of the cotton lint the my bar to pay for the cost of ginning because of the low prices that we are now receiving now in all sections of not only Missouri but of all cotton producing states in this country well Murray in the cotton meeting that occurred here in Louisville what are some of the points that were made and what do you think this was really going to mean to the cotton grower to the cotton grow I'm answering your last question first this is means more dollars in his pocket he simply cannot continue to grow and produce a crop that he is selling that alone this program has several point that we're going into the first thing is we're going on selling cotton not disposing of it on a national level no other organization in the cotton belt has tried this we will succeed we have acceptance in all areas we've held meetings not only here in Louisville but in areas from California to Carolinas across the entire south we have a program we know the American housewife that consumer desires cotton yes it is more desirable than synthetics we are going to sell our product and not give it away it has been done over the last few years we have had a decline in a market price of almost 33 percent in the last 18 months our US farm report true flew into the airport at Gideon Missouri in the Bootheel area of Missouri to be met by farmer businessman NFO leader Arthur Duncan there follows now for you the Arthur Duncan story Arthur how many acres are you farming here with farming approximately 1150 acres and what are you growing on this land well we're growing a wheat as you can see here in the background and we're growing cotton soybeans and corn this wheat looks wonderful it looks real good considering the kind of winter we've had and look you've had a bad winter for this part of Missouri and we've had an exceptionally wet winter and we've had believe 16 snows which is very unusual for our area they haven't been large snows but it's been very unusual you know let's talk a little bit about your your cotton this is cotton country down here is it depressed well is it depressed I should say it is we actually have always thought of in Missouri Bootheel of Missouri cotton was king that this is no longer so cotton has lost its place in this part of the country as far as being a number one crop it has been so depressed that the cotton no longer can compete with other crops in the amount of income that produces mm-hmm the cost of producing a cotton crop has come to grow so fast through chemicals and we've lost as you know our labor we've got to do it getting bigger this costs more investment we pick all of our cotton bio-mechanical pickers and this machinery is extremely high and we can only use this machine for about six weeks a year it's good for nothing but to pick cotton well you know you've got a lot of dollars invested in a lot of equipment that some forty five forty six weeks out of every year lies idle that's that's true this is the thing that hurts so bad in cotton and if we don't have a price for our cotton we just don't have any way of keep the operating well let's mention one other thing about your production costs in cotton and that's the ginning process now out in Tulare California two or three months ago us farm report did a show on cotton we had some good NFO out there who explained to us that it used to be and not too long ago that they could take their cotton to a gin get a gin in exchange for the cotton seed and in fact they would come out with a few extra dollars that was paid to them by the gin but that's not so anymore is it no it isn't bill here we used to could do this same thing we used to take our cotton to have a gin we would come out with maybe six to eight dollar a bale refund over the price of the cotton seed for the ginning and wrapping of this cotton it has got to the point now that you can hardly find anyone that would even gin the cotton for the seed and then they would charge you extra for wrapping it and I paid in this past year as much as nine dollars a bale above the price of the cotton seed to get my cotton ginned and wrapped well now to indicate with some degree of emphasis I think the depressed area that this is in cotton one of the gins has closed its door so to speak and in fact you've taken it over for storage purposes and so forth yeah this is true there's been many gins have closed many of them many many of them it's ridiculous to think of the investment these people have had that they have actually lost because cotton no longer is leading in agriculture in this area now the gin that I bought was closed the last year at operated was 1965 and because of the cotton problem they were no long longer able to stay in business and they just had to go just almost go into bankruptcy just walk off and leave here operation is now something is being done about it however we're happy to report NFO does have a new cotton program what effect does this new NFO program had well it has had very little effect to this time is it because it's so new that's true this program was only started in our area late in November now many of the farmers including NFO farmers had not even known of this program in November and consequently they sold their cotton for a price of about 35 to 50 points above the government loan now this means to two dollars to two dollars and a half per Bale to the farmer over the government loans right now he has been so depressed and the cotton that he is putting alone in the past he hasn't seen anything done with it so if he could get a couple of dollars a bale more he felt like he just better sell it because that's more than he'd get if he went to the loan however many farmers in this area like myself did not sell their cotton we felt that if there was no placement NFO for it at least we wasn't gonna give it to them we wasn't gonna put it on the market they were gonna have to get it from our government they wasn't gonna get it from us now by not selling this cotton we got a program started late in November we signed up cotton in our county that was in the loan to be sold through NFO and mr. Murray Wallace who is a resident of our County has had he got the cotton commodity program for NFO a fine young man by the way in a very enthusiastic young fella I'll agree 100% we feel like he's doing a wonderful job for us it's brand-new to him he has travelled us you know all across the Cotton Belt holding meetings are telling them about this program how they hope that it will work and how it can work and the big job now is get the participation of the farmers to support it we have made a cotton sale through NFO it has not been a tremendous amount of money more than we could have got anywhere else but it has been a couple of dollars more Bill then I was offered in the fall I'm ten dollars there's two dollars and that's the beginning absolutely yeah the amazing thing Bill about this is the buyer has to pay for the interest on our loan he also has to pay the storage on that cotton since it was harvested last fall and he is still giving us a couple dollars more than he bought cotton for last fall so what time he picks this cotton up out of the warehouse and pays the loan off his interest and his storage plus the additional money we get is costing him proximately $10 a bale more than he bought cotton for last fall now if we can educate the membership in n fo to participate to sign up their cotton to be sold to NFO then there's no reason why we can't get this eight or ten dollars smaller at harvest time rather than to wait this time of the year right and we feel like that this is a tremendous program it's a natural program for us because cotton is stored in federal warehouses we have the government loan to fall back on to just about get our cost for production it's about what it amounts to do then we have something to bargain with yes we still have our cotton well then Arthur you don't even have to touch that cotton again that's true though we only have the warehouse receipt that we get our money on from the ASES office and what we're actually selling is our equities when we bind the bar and by doing this we have a natural because we don't have to touch you all we have to do is have NFO to find a buyer for us to agree to accept the price they bring back to us and when we do this just collect our money in that wonderful program yes I'm sure it is and I think that it'll probably get better as time goes by how much sure as you are Arthur of NFO is making some good accomplishments in this area with soybeans this is true too for an example last week I was trying to bargain for our sale of NFO soybeans and I got a price from one processor who give us a fair bid considering the market however I got a price from another I'm sure this man and realized I was dealing with other people and although the market dropped a half a cent a bushel after he gave me his bed that day and before the market opened the next morning he had done bid two cents a bushel higher but the market had went down so this shows us that they know if they're not going to get the beans they're willing to be it a little higher and try to keep the beans from moving out of their area into someone else's marketing area these beans were stored weren't these were farm stored beans and so here was a perfect example of the NFO philosophy in action of storing together holding together and bargaining together selling together this is true and this is what NFO is all about right and we an NFO our biggest problem now is NFO members are getting the other members to see that until we are willing to block our stuff together and sell it together we can't expect to have any more than we have now I like to think of us as I as farmers are a yo-yo on a string and you see whenever you turn that yo-yo loose it coasts back up away is up that string and back down and every time it gets a little lower and this is the way we've been in agriculture and whenever I'd like to think that whenever our economy sees the danger then they will ease the market up a little bit to give us greater hopes and we think well we've got a pretty fair price for crop this year so next year we might do better and then the yo-yo starts coasting again yeah I like that and I like to think of this way because I feel like that's exactly where we're at we have nothing to say at this time as to what we're going to get for what we produce and we're the only industry in the world that operates this way and we have got to change it without a price tag we cannot exist on the farm and that be an agriculture at all you know speaking of existing on the farm now here is a way of life that you've chosen you want to be a farmer and yet you find yourself having to go into other businesses to generate income in order to maintain your agricultural way of life now what businesses are you n besides farming well I have a heating and air conditioning business and I am in the LP gas business mm-hmm these have been a quite an asset to my operation however I've seen many times when we have to work way into the night on the farm and then go out and work on a job somewhere else and without this other business I wouldn't even have what I've got today there wouldn't have been any way to stay here there are many many farmers that are just as ambitious as I am but they don't have the haven't had the ability or we're not fortunate enough to have other trades that they could fall back on for a extra income and I know we all need to diversify but it seems incredible when we think of the amount of unemployment in the country that a man on a farm would have to work from 16 to 18 hours to make a living that we're used to living with and just because we're farmers you know there's no reason for us to run around in our overalls and our gum boots seven days a week and a lot of people are seem to look at the farmer at this aspect they they like to when they see NFO will go into a holding action or something the first thing they want to look at is how many new cars they've got how nice a home do they live in and we feel like in agriculture we have the right to be on a level with the rest of the economy of our nation and we shouldn't have to live in rundown shacks we should be able to live like anyone else in the world and we have a tremendous investment in agriculture what do you have invested here well approximately I would imagine in a neighborhood of 230,000 dollars are you realizing as much as a 3% return on that investment about what I realized does that include your labor 3% will almost cover the investment handled labor I just made mention a while ago that if we could get for our investment or if we could get on the market what we have invested seven to eight percent would be more than we make including our labor and our investment tremendous amount more after visiting with Arthur Duncan in the Bootheel area of Missouri at Gideon we went aboard our airplane and in less than an hour's flying time at the airport at Wynne, Arkansas here we visited with Bill Owen attorney turned farmer bill I would imagine that this country really gets under your skin perhaps particularly if you get away from it if you go north or you get into the swing of the city it's probably a nice thing to get back isn't it oh it is bill I'll tell you they're not in many places in America today where you can walk out your back door and in ten minutes be at your duck line and that's the position I'm in farming here in Arkansas in the rice belt well now you're a native southerner and native to this part of the country where did you grow up bill well I grew up and got my education to Memphis Tennessee and then went to the University of Michigan the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor have you practiced law no when I got out of law school I didn't practice my family had purchased this farm second-growth timber land as an investment and during the summers I had worked over here for an electric cooperative and became enchanted with the countryside and came on over and decided to give it a whirl as to being a farmer and develop this second-growth timber land I have no idea what these statistics might be applying to your situation but I would venture to say very few farmers today actually have an urban background usually these are our people whose families for maybe three or four generations have been on the farm well this is true very few of us in agriculture and very few people that I've met and and the agricultural field have an urban background but I had I had to learn everything the hard way as far as agriculture was concerned I didn't know the difference between a hex head bolt or cap screw or broad axe or chopping axe it was all strange and new to me how many acres of land do you farm here our 732 in the place and we farm 640 and you're basically Green aren't you right soybeans and rice well how's it been in this area what about your price structure for drain builders have been a pretty tough situation yes as far as rice is concerned we're operating on us relatively speaking the same price structure as we were 20 years ago and we've only been able to maintain any sort of economic position because of our increased production yeah but we've reached a plateau now and we are definitely in a cost price squeeze now has there been much effort through this part of Arkansas toward corporate farming or large farming yes I wouldn't say a large effort but there is has been a some effort we have what we call the Delta farms east of us some miles over here across Crowley's Ridge they have land here in Louisiana in other states and it's a very large corporate operation bill do you have any idea how they're doing well according to Norman Hague their general manager they're in a better position now than they were at first they started trying to farm all the sacred themselves and they found out that it just didn't project in reality as it did on paper now they have innumerable tenants who farm on a share and they are doing better but I frankly wonder at the amount of rent the percentage share that the renter is paying whether they can continue to attract and and hold good tenants how do you feel about this corporate trend in farming bill do you feel that the saving of agriculture really is in the saving of the independent farm yes I do bill I think the family type farm and let me say here that by family type farm as far as acreage is concerned we may be talking about several hundred acres or several thousand acres but this is the most efficient unit production in agriculture today the corporate farming structure as evidenced by the of Delta farms is such that their built-in efficiencies are more than overcome by their in efficiencies and having a hierarchy of personnel managers sub managers foremen and so forth and there's nothing more efficient than the man who is either own who either owns his own land or is buying his own land living and working on it bill when did you first become attracted to NFO oh I don't know bill exactly time subscribe must have been about three years ago under what circumstances you recall one of their local field men called upon me gentleman by the name of Charlie Sisson and interested me and after that he was followed up a man named Ray Heckler and I talked with them and read some of their publications and read very thoroughly and digested their contract and was very much impressed and so you became a member this is right what what do you think about NFO now after having been a member for three years I think that this is the only group organization in agriculture today that can save the family type farmer the farmer in American in the American economy today must be put in a position to price his commodity every other businessman does professional men price their services based upon their cost of production plus a reasonable profit and for the American farmer to be able to do this is the only way that he can stand and be a part the contributing part of the American economic life are you a bit disheartened at this time about the possibility of legislation helping the farmer yes I am bill before we had the one-man one-vote rule and the restructuring of our legislative system the farm people who were a lot more in numbers at that time had great voice in their legislative system but no more we are only 5.4 percent of the population and we have lost our voice and politics is a numbers game indeed you bet it you bet it is well now let's talk a little bit about your other affiliations with agricultural organizations you belong to the Farm Bureau also do you not yes this is true bill year or so ago I was president of the local chapter here in cross county and last fall in December I was a delegate to their National Convention in Washington I still support Farm Bureau I think if Farm Bureau were out of the picture we'd have a void in agriculture however I'm very a strong supporter of NFO and I do not feel that belonging to both organizations is in any way incompatible you can belong and support both organizations I think they're both necessary NFO has the organization the structure but it is a self help organization and the farmers in America today have got to realize that they must participate and they must do the work NFO has the framework the farmer himself must do the work American farmers must grow up they must become businessmen and price their products accordingly and the only way the best way as I see it is through this organization the National Farmers organization and that's our coverage of agriculture in the Missouri Bootheel and the nearby area of northern Arkansas us farm report is seen each week on this station at this same time until we meet again so long everybody [music]