NFO-58 (AV10465): US Farm Report

welcome to another edition of us farm report brought to you today and each Sunday at the same time by members of the national farmers organization in this TV listing area in the hindrance of agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation during the last few months the national farmers organization has made tremendous progress in its efforts to raise and stabilize livestock prices through its livestock marketing arrangements this same principle of selling together can also be used in daring and grain to rate and stabilize the price for these commodities today's u.s. farm report will go into the details of the new grain marketing program recently unveiled by the national farmers organization on today's program are several farmers from Eastern Iowa that will discuss the grain marketing program leading the discussion will be Ivan Stravinsky from Oxford Iowa Thank You ed certainly is a privilege and a pleasure for me and to be sitting with such qualified farmers to discuss the American farm situation one of its great many problems of course being the problem of bull farm income with us today we have to better explain and also help the American farmer to better understand the aims and goals of the national farmers organization I'd like to introduce to my right mr. cliff Olson from Cedar Falls Iowa Black Hawk County the county chairman will be hearing us details on the grain sales agreement and to my left I would like to introduce my colleagues of mr. Edie Chima from Ringgold Iowa Iowa County will be helping us also explain nfo and its goals to his left is mr. Clarence Schuchman from Hawk Iowa Fayette County who is also the second congressional district of Iowa NFL Chairman and he will be giving us details also of the NFL program to reiterate a bit the largest problem we feel as farmers is the low income what am i speaking of what example of in 1920 farmers were selling corn for a dollar and seventeen cents a bushel in 1965 they're selling it on the average of $1 seven in 1920 farmers were selling a bushel of oats for 68 cents in 1965 they're selling it for an average of 65 cents in what other segments in America industry will you find the producers still selling their commodities for the same prices that they sold them back in the 1920s we realize that's producers that this is a problem we don't ask for assistance other than those of our fellow farmers we feel through the nfo collective bargaining program being a self-help program we can and are increasing farm income basically I think the problem was how will be the most explicitly explained in the March issue of US News and World Report if present conditions continue and farm income remains the same there will be a reduction of sixty five percent of the farmers in the Midwest or eight hundred and sixty thousand this is statistics to most of us however I think we should emphasize here that we realize just how much is eight hundred and sixty thousand farmers too many people with just figures but if we explain it in this way that eight hundred sixty thousand farmers would be equivalent to all of the farmers and I repeat all of the farmers from the following states you would take all the farmers out of Missouri out of the state of South Dakota out of Iowa out of Nebraska out of Minnesota out of Kansas out of North Dakota and Colorado you would wipe out all the farmers in these states this means to the American farmer that three out of five will be starved out of Agriculture to the businessman the economics would mean that there will be eighty six thousand less people in business to do business with these farmers that have gone and to the laboring man yes he comes in two there will be eight hundred and sixty thousand fewer farmers out there farming they'll be in the city looking for work they'll be also competing for your job this is a brief summary of the situation that we as farmers face and this is why we are bringing you the US farm report in order that we can cooperate intergroup actions in peace our income to even a greater extent than we've done up to the present time through marketing arrangements and of course the NFL program first being the membership agreement number two marketing arrangements and number three are the master contracts this is the NFL program now to further explain this we'll have kids if you will please talk a little bit about the membership agreements the marketing raises the master contract well Ivan before I get into the membership agreement I run in this little information the other days that was real interesting for me this is some material from the United Nation it has quite a lot of significance significance I think as far as we as farmers are concerned even the city people I think would have a lot of significance to them now here is what they came up with this their little study hours to earn this basket of groceries and there's bread potatoes milk and lettuce eggs and cheese crackers and meat in the United States it would take 1 and 3/4 hours of labor to earn this basket of groceries in Great Britain three and a half Australia five France eight at least thirteen and a half Mexico fourteen and in Russia a whopping 26% twenty six hours rather now what does this mean I think it means first of all that the American farmer has done a real good job of producing food the American consumer has to spend less time earning their food than in any other of these countries shown in this study almost even Great Britain the closest is almost twice as much time and now this has a lot of significance from this point of view that the farmers doesn't spend too much time in in the consumer I should say doesn't spend too much time in working in order to buy this so then this releases a lot of her income to spend on the various necessities of life also the luxury as an example in the United States it takes about seven tenth of a the living standard in the United States we have one person well I should say one room for every seven tenths of a person in Russia it's one and a half roughly a little over twice as crowded in the United States our phone per person we have one phone for every two and 3/10 people in Russia one for every 54 people yeah our churches per person in the United States we have one church for every 600 people in Russia 20,000 people per church just fantastic daily newspapers per person in United States there's a hundred and ten thousand people for every daily newspaper in Russia eight million three hundred thousand people for each daily newspaper all right private farms our concern we have three million 700 thousand in the United States Russia has none private business in the United States we have four four million seven hundred ninety seven thousand private businesses Russia has done this then points out the fact that because of the the consumer spends a relatively small amount of her time earning the amount of money it takes to buy her food she then has the rest of this income leftover to buy these various luxury and now what does this mean as far as the farmers concerned it means then that he is here you have one in three fourth powers now surprisingly the American farmer gets very little of this one in three quarter hours to be specific reach lady farm has been receiving 38% of the consumer dollar spent for food the middleman has been getting a roughly 62% now what does this figure out to in terms of hours or minutes it figures out to this for a one and three-quarter hours is approximately 105 minutes now of this the farmer gets 39 and 9/10 minutes the middle men get 65 in 1/10 minutes now what if the farmer were to get a higher price for his product of fair price and relationship to the production expenses and so on what would it mount to to the consumer well as far as we're in the NF for concerned of the amount that we would probably be raising the price to our master contract with the various processes would be about 20% to the farmer what would this 20% mean to the consumer it would mean that instead of having to work one of three quarter hours now or one a hundred and five minutes for this basket of groceries that she would have to work a hundred and thirteen minutes for this same amount under program of the nature of the NS Bowl in other words should be working for eight minutes haulers eight minutes longer that's right in other words thirty right now she's working thirty nine and nine-tenths minutes for this basket of groceries and 20 percent of that is just a little less than eight minutes and after the eight to the thirty nine nine ten minutes and you come up with forty seven to nine ten minutes or roughly eight minutes more so then we have ladies and gentlemen a situation where I think it would be not be out of reason at all for the consumer to expect her to pay the farmer a little bit more and him doing this it would help the farm income it would the farm income basically is regenerated to the economy of roughly seven times this is pretty well proven by government statistics and this would do a lot for the economy as a whole all right well thank you ed for those very interesting remarks and certainly the point that you brought out here certainly needs repeating and that at the present day the American consumer is getting is best buy in food ever in other words he's spending something like about 19 percent of his disposable income for food which certainly as a bargain and as that is pointed out she would only have to work eight minutes longer to earn a Market Basket now to talk about the primary purpose of our program the green program grain sales agreements and I know that the farmers during this program certainly have a lot of questions we'll try to cover it generally to help you understand however the details of course will have to be obtained at your local County meeting now the nfo has unveiled a new grain marketing program and to lead the discussion on this we'll have cliff do this for us this how does the present grain sales agreement differ from our previous voluntary sales agreements well I think the main difference in our this new voluntary grain sales agreement that we have at the present time differs in previous ones be in the fact that there are stipulated selling periods in this agreement the first period starts from harvest time through January 15th and the second one second selling period goes from January 16th through March 15th of 1966 and the third one is March 16th through May 15th of 1966 and the fourth period will be May 16th through August 15th of 1966 now in previous voluntary grain sales agreement there was no stipulated time as to when the grain or commodities would be sold we always seem to hold out for that high dollar and we never quite got in the position where we could make this volume feel that we've been speaking on these present grain sales agreements it's stipulated that the grain will definitely be sold within the period in which it has been signed up for and the only time that it would not be sold in this period is in the event that the market price was below the support price then this there is a writer policy that can go along with this which would prevent the NFL from selling this farmers grain we don't anticipate any situation such as this but it is just a little bit insurance that's put in there to protect the man who is eligible to seal these grains can you find cliff and it seems to me another question at this time what comes up is just how many greens does nfo have these sales Beeman's for just the corn or this persuade beans they're old sir just how many are there well well there there are quite a list of greens really in our own local area we possibly refer to maybe three or four different greens but throughout the Midwest here and the great grain producing area that we are in there they include barley oats rye flaxseed millet wheat edible beans in grain sorghum soybeans and both yellow and white corn so there are quite a variety of grains that are included in these voluntary green sales agreements I think that this is very good because in the livestock industry one of the key things is follows the rule of thumb is when you have cheap greens it also follows that you also have cheap livestock in other words the screen isn't bringing what farmer feels a fair price to go into the livestock the first thing we have an overabundance in livestock industry and this in turn will being lower prices so it is very fitting that nfo and it always has is working on all commodities not only async commodity so certainly it goes that this is a good program from the standpoint it's covering very many of the feed grains that in turn determine the livestock producers income now I'm moving on just how does a farmer go about participating in the NF o green sales agreements of course you have to be an NF o-- member of this this is assumed at this point but who do I contact say for example I would like to partake in the green sales agreement how do I go about signing up right green for to participate in this program of NF home well the most important thing and first thing the member should do is attend his County meetings that is the best place to get first-hand information and only by keeping up the date on which elevators in his own County have signed this agreement to cooperate with the NF oh you're talking about in great and sales position that's right we have two types of grain sales agreement in the elevator position and on-farm position now for a long time the NFL has advocated that wheat farmers should use our farm storage whenever possible but since there is at harvest time quite often an overflow of grain for the facilities that the farmer has then he quite normally sells or disposes of some of that grain right at harvest time and this is where by placing it into position in these elevators that are participating with the NF o he can sell his grain in volume simply by you might say pooling it together with every other NFL member in the Midwest here who has grain to sell at harvest time and receive the highest dollar or highest price available for that green on that date and which it is sold and by so doing he has well really he has made his volume much bigger by pulling it together with others in other words you're increasing your price through volume of sales that's right here just one second um and elaborate just a little bit more on placement what cliff said there the other real good source of information that we sometimes overlook is the in fo reporter if you as a member read the initial reporter real well from cover to cover you'll know practically all the activities with this then s o with in NF o this particular issue a recent issue that has the headline in fo brain program ready to operate and if you'll read this article it'll give you a real good rundown on the grain program and what's involved Oh Thank You ed certainly this is true we also shouldn't overlook that the members of NF o in the grain Marketing Committee of each County are also explaining this program up and down the road to the farmers and asking them to participate in this program and certainly we don't have time to go into any great detail however this is the success of the nmos marketing arrangements in the meat industry have been so successful in fact the leading farm publications and leading processes themselves give us credit in the NF o for raising the market for dollars four hundred weight on hogs and two dollars one hundred weight on cattle now certainly this proves to be a tidy sum in the Iowa economy for example I have here before me a copy of livestock slaughter which is a publication from the united states department of agriculture crop reporting board washington d c-- in here they give the live weight of hauless slaughtered in the state of Iowa for the first nine months this will be January through September the total live weight alcoholic slaughtered in Iowa is two million seven hundred and thirty nine thousand pounds multiplying this out by four dollars four hundred weight the nfo marking arrangements have brought in to Iowa 109 million five hundred and eighty five thousand dollars this would be the equivalent of each county in Iowa receiving one industry one new baking industry employing four hundred people at the rate of one hundred dollars per week this certainly needs watching it needs encouragement if we were to include cattle in this amount using the conservative figure that the NFL marketing arrangements have raised the cattle price $2 this would bring in something like sixty million dollars adding these two together for the first nine months we could project it for the year which we will assuming we sell cattle and hogs relatively on the same basis that we have in the past nine months for the next three months this would bring in an income into the state of Iowa alone of two hundred and twelve million dollars and I just read in the newspaper the other day that the federal feed grains program payments to the state of Iowa have been approximately two hundred and fifteen million dollars here are the NFL has brought income into the state of Iowa and not a tax dollar has been spent to explain little all the meat marketing reasons we're going to call on Clarence Shipman to do this for us would you give us some of your experience in the meat marketing arrangements Thank You Ivan unique marketing arrangement in my area which is the Northeast we have been very successful we first we started with the idea that we would see if farmers together to market together we proved to ourselves and to everyone else that we could and in this marketing we got a lot of side benefits which we did not expect it yet we proved to ourselves by weighing our livestock before we shipped it and we could send hogs 300 miles and get about a 3% shrink we were told that we would get much more than this we also checked at our local prices and find it a found out that in doing this we also made money that's the start of this we did not expect to make any money out of this operation in protector but to prove to the processors that we as farmers to market together and over as I have just told you over the whole area it worked very successful and it raised the income of all farmers and if old members and non-members alike so I would say it's been very successful Island Thank You Clarence and to give us a little more background go Clarence's activities in fo I'll call on him again I believe to just give us a brief description of why I belong to any of whole reason I belong to an applause is real real simple we can go about producing all we want to increase our production and things like that and yet there's never been away until the NFL came in system where we as farmers to do something about controlling the price we've seed for our products as a farmer I make my living by producing food for people the only way I can make any money at this is to increase the price of what I sell I can do this through the NFL I'll do other words Clarence is saying that here nfo is operating offering the opportunity to the American farmer to alleviate the age-old problem of low farm income and not have to rely upon tax dollars in solidus while the nfo is interested in supporting stopgap legislation that will help raise farmers income or should we say keeping at the level of it is which is running approximately 77% of parity in other words what parity basically means while it's very confusing at times it does give you some relationship of your going along what's the rest of the industry in other words I'm saying that the farmer is receiving about 77% what he should be for his product in order to relationships to what he buys in other words he's buying in 100% and he's selling at 77 this is something in the American economy like a four-cylinder engine that has one sparkplug missing you may go along for a time however at some later date it will show up we feel very strongly and we all are producers this is one thing unique about the nfo we are all producers and a lot of the time the dispense is by dedicated and devoted people taking of their own free time donating their services right along with full farm operations and they are very dedicated to come up with a equitable income for the American farmer through collective bargaining so in closing our program we'd like to say for those who know ships and go nf old farmers for a healthy and stable farm economy joined the nfo help strengthen farmers bargaining power by marketing your grain and livestock with your neighbors to the new modern nfo marketing arrangements that have been set up in your county tune in again next Sunday at the same time for another edition of us farm report US farmers ports a rural area public relations program is brought to you in the interests of agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation by members of the national farmers organization in this TV listing area and others interested in seeing the farmer receive a fair price for what he produces if you two would like to contribute to this worthwhile cause we would certainly appreciate it then your donations large or small to US farmers for treasure in care of this station for more information on the national farmers organization contact the county chapters in your county or write to manifold Corning Iowa farmers remember collective bargaining is the key to farmer success join the n fo two days