NFO-76 (AV10482) US Farm Report: Ministers Discuss Agriculture

and gentlemen it's with a great deal of pleasure that we come into your living rooms afternoon to discuss you a revolution that is taking this in rural America now with me on the panel this afternoon I am hope arish over in Elkton South Dakota to my left is pastor Henrickson who served the parish over at Trent South Dakota and Jasper Minnesota and to his left is pastor Brooke Locker who operates in the wide open spaces up in Florence South Dakota now as a little background for to set the stage for our informal discussion on this rural revolution I would like to present to you a few moments of consideration that is basic to the whole issue number one we in this country don't reflect often enough that we are the inheritors of a family farm system of Agriculture and let me just take you back a little bit in the history of our country because this kind of thing is not taught in our AG colleges it isn't given to our FFA boys our f4h children this appreciation of our heritage isn't brought to their attention so let's go back you remember and the dawn of our history we had of course a whole continent of land that had to be developed we had millions of people over this over the years who came to this country and they wanted land now this land could have been given away you know like it was in South America in huge estates and later on farmed by peons who never had a chance to own instead as a nation we had terminated the desires of the immigrant to settle on a piece of God's good earth and at the time as you know of the colonization of our country there were about 95 percent of our people are on the land and after colonial days when the immigrations increased they spilled over into the Ohio Valley the Indiana Illinois land was given to them almost four the if they would develop it it was theirs we had the Homestead Act in 1862 which parceled out land and in portions of about 160 acres so thereafter after about 100 years we had the makings the basis of a family farm system and then for another hundred years as a nation we supported by national policy we supported and encouraged the living of these people on lands of their own and like Bishop Bartolome said in summarizing this whole thing that he develops in one of his works he says we finally had in the Midwest the greatest concentration of millions of people on land of their own that the world has ever seen it never happened before now one of the points I want you people in the audience to realize is this if we have a family farm system today if we have inherited such a system today it's due to a happy set of circumstances indeed but it's also due to the fact that we had national policy supporting a family farm system now as a Catholic I can simply quote Pope John who had something to say about this he pointed out that when you look at agriculture from a worldwide point of view he said that you will discover that there is a vast diversity and the enterprise involved in the production of food and fiber but he makes this point that he says if we consider this whole matter of Agriculture from the viewpoint of of nature and the family that we should seek to achieve a family farm system of Agriculture wherever possible now in this land of ours we don't have to achieve it we have inherited it and who will say that it has not provided an abundance of food and fiber to the nation at a cost that is better than any other nation in the world now there is another aspect to agriculture you can't use the word agriculture anymore because we have to agriculture in this country and I want to say a word about the other agriculture that not only is coming it's already here now one of its spokesman is a man by the name of Earl Koch he's the vice president of the Bank of America he had a great deal to do about the Eisenhower Benson's farm policy and program he's very influential among agribusiness people and in a talk to an influential group of people in Chicago about I think it was four years ago he made this statement he said there is dawning in America a new dynamic type of Agriculture and then he went on to explain what this new agriculture was and he outlined it under three points he's a number one it'll be an agriculture that will have continuity of operations and by that he meant it'll be a corporate structure number two he said it'll be an agriculture that will not operate on the earnings of the enterprise in other words it'll it'll have its capital or financial resources from the outside it'll be absentee money and then he mentioned also that it will involve the the ownership of vast tracts of land now up to this time you know in this country that has been impossible because we've had about six million back in the thirty we had 6 million squatters out here you know sitting on this land with legal titles to it and big money and corporate structures could not take it over because families were living on that piece of God's good earth now this type of agriculture as contrasted with the family owned family operated and managed unit involves three things outside money corporate structure and hired management now you might say well that's nice theory but what it doesn't have any practical value well you look around today if you have your eyes open at all and you will discover that the family farm enterprise and agriculture is being seriously questioned it is being challenged and many influential people are writing it let me just give you a little some of the propaganda with which you are being brainwashed you read Post magazine a short time ago what does it say goodbye farmer Tuttle goodbye you're gone you read The Reader's Digest what does it say the disappearance of the family farm pick up your boys light Boy Scout magazine of a recent issue the same concentration on the new agriculture now this is what is being predicted they're telling us some influential people that we can still get rid of 2 million more farm family and if that happens my dear people remember that lands still gonna be killed and the financial structures of that of those new or remaining a pieces of enterprise mega ecology Arne Gore are going to involve investments of hundreds of thousands even millions of dollars the millionaires are going to be doing the farming now we have two Agriculture's a family enterprise that we've always had we have the other agriculture the corporate structure outside money and hired management and the question that you people out there in the audience are going to have to decide the farmers can't decide it anymore they're only about 7% of the population and they are politically ineffective but you are going to have to decide what enterprise in agriculture do you want to produce the food and fiber of the nation now we believe is Pergamon here that this social institution of the family on the land is valuable not only to produce your food and fiber we believe it's also a valuable social institution that deserves to be continued as it has been encouraged to continue in the past now with that little background let's just have a little informal discussion pursuing this kind of thing and first of all I like to have pastor Brook Locker kind of addressed himself to this question do you think that this trend must continue that the forebodings about the disappearance of the have to take place well father Miller it wasn't too long ago I think a little over a year ago in my life that the earnest conviction came to me that changes and trends involve the decisions of people and that changes and trends can be faced and that there is something that we can do about it and that we we do not have to let the so-called doctrine of adjustment or the doctrine of adaptation rule the day so that we don't have anything there isn't anything that we can do about it now this this spelled out for me that instead of so much emphasis being placed on adapting to this liking getting rid of more farmers closing our our schools and closing our churches and and subsidizing this and subsidizing that especially in agriculture that there was an area of prevention and that this seemed at least in my mind and in my study lead boiled down to one thing that because we were losing all of these things in the rural area that it could be traced directly to the loss of the farmers income or a fair price paid agriculture and that this was where we ought to begin all right now how are we going to begin in this area in order to stop the trend let's work on that angle well if I would follow closely here again I would say that we must stop attacking the symptoms that manifest themselves and we must begin to deal with the causes and and I think this is here where we can spell out some of these things and one of the things to me is first of all a historical understanding for example the a corporate farming structure of agriculture as over against the family farm system now I think if anyone will honestly study history we'll have to come up with this fact that that where agriculture has been taken over and put into the hands of a few people that this has been toured and down the road of a disintegration of that nation or civilization whereas on the other hand that the family farm system has a proven itself down through history to bring to bring about a effective social structure in which people can live I would like to read from the fifth chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah facing a similar situation over 700 years before Christ had these words which he said are God's words to you people of Israel woe to you who join house to house who had field to field until there is no more room and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land the Lord Hosts has sworn in my hearing surely many houses shall be desolate large and beautiful houses without inhabitants for 10 acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath and a Homer of seed shall yield but an effort now Isaiah is saying here that because of the appropriation of the land from the people of Israel in contrary a contrary to the will and to thee to the word of of your God you are going to bring a destructiveness upon the people it was a law of the Israelites of the Hebrews that every 50 years there would be a year of Jubilee in which the land would go back to the people who had originally owned it to the families that it belonged to we have the same thing happening he in America it's happened in other countries in the world and today we are using the excuse of efficiency and technology we are saying that one man using the tools the machinery that has been developed can produce more than a large number of small farmers that small farming is inefficient modern technology and corporate capital can take care of the agricultural needs of our land and we can move these three and a half million farmers off of the land I will say that probably one man can produce more than a number he can do it with itinerant when exploited with migrant labour with all of the evils connected to that particular system but one man with his machinery cannot make our land produce more and Isaiah said here that your vineyards and your farms are going to begin to produce less because the man who is whose primary obligation is to his corporate bosses he is concerned about profit he is not concerned about people he is not concerned about the world he is not concerned about prices he is or the land God's land but he is concerned only about pleasing those who hire him they tell us that here in South Dakota they expect within a few years that the average farm will have an assessed valuation of about three million dollars now that simply means that no individual farmer or farm family will be able to raise this kind of money to establish this kind of farm today it is becoming more and more difficult for any young farmer to start unless he has a great deal of help from his father there are results you have that quotation of Eric severide I found that very interesting just to indicate how how broad spread this attempt to kind of brainwash the American people against the continuation of a family farm structure he said Eric severide said in a television broadcast in 15 short years nope no more than 5% of our people will make their living directly from the soil they will nearly all of them be connected with big scale big capital mechanized corporate farming this transformation cannot be avoided it can only be made as smooth as possible to reduce human suffering to reduce human suffering now the suffering is going to take place not only on our with our farmers but it's going to take place with every town and every village in every city in the state of South Dakota and in the rest of the Middle West here the loss of services culture we are going to turn our Middle West into a cultural wasteland our schools are going to suffer our businesses are going to suffer our health facilities are going to suffer our recreational facilities are going to suffer I would like no oK we've got the picture I think now let's get down into this area pointed by this question we've been told that these these are the trends you're not going to stop them all right but we feel that they can be stopped because it's my conviction for instance that if farmers continue to act in the way sociologists had observed them acting in the past I have no hesitation to say that all these dire predictions are going to take place now where is this area where the farmer will have the change let's have a few words on that well if I could direct some attention to that I think basically it's my belief here that the farmer basically must make the adjustment and in this case it would be fine from from individual independent action to group action that is well in Genesis the eighth chapter God God promised the farmer or God promised man that as long as the earth remains seedtime and harvest would not fail as far as long as he runs his farm operates his farm and the inside of the fence line he should be able under God to manage it and to to be successful but today we have this this complex marketing structure and and well this is where I found an answer to this question which is lingered with me for for many years from my childhood and that is is farming again with and and this is the conclusion that I've come to that it isn't that farming is a gamble but that farmers are gambling as long as they take their production and market it as individuals in this complex marketing system which we face in other words it comes down to a moral issue the moral issue that farmers are not isolated little units among themselves but they have a moral responsibility to work one with another like we read in the scriptures they are you one another's burdens and so yourselves fulfill the law of Christ in other words the farmer must realize that in this society in which we live one of the expressions of his love for his neighbor is the necessity to operate together with him or the building of structures that will command for himself a decent price and I like to recall the statement that Pope John who got very specific on this issue he pointed out that since partner and family units in land or on the land are so small and scattered the vital necessity the more responsibility that he has to associate with his fellow farmer and also even gets this specific that he must build a structure in society for himself that he can command but just price for the labor of his children himself and his family and it's in this area where well religion must operate in the lives of individual farmers well you want to say another word on that pastor Anderson hey the farmer whether he belongs to a farm organization or not whether he belongs to any one of a number of different harmonic organization and we find that some one belong to three and sometimes four which is good but each one of these has something to contribute to the betterment and the well-being of our rural communities our Midwestern life here but that we cannot he cannot any longer believe that it is only in his way and by himself that he is going to preserve his life too often he figures if I can keep alive I I don't much care what happens to my neighbor it's too bad if he has to leave and it isn't only the farmer it's it's the banker it's the man on Main Street it's the doctor it's the teacher it's the the individual who lives in our towns and our cities who serve as the services these farmers who must be concerned also there must be a collective understanding that it is together that we stand or that we fall in other words the farmer himself is not going to solve their own problem completely is but it involves an ordering of our agricultural sector of our whole economy which is of concern to the whole nation so that the whole nation must be involved in this in this matter but I think we can't say and honest in the light of this particular program that we are going to stop these trends where the farmer is going to begin stopping these trends only when he begins to work together with his neighbor as he has never done before in the marketing area and here I have for all at all with with admiring any group of farmers whether it's nfo or any other group that advocate a putting into practice of the Christian command a man working with a Stella man for his own betterment to build a structure that will command a decent price for agriculture that's why I think whether it's an Anthony farmers union or even Farm Bureau or nfo striving to get a decent price for his products needs to be commended right and I I find this - that farmers with all oppressed actively against them as far as justice for their cause is concerned they need a lot of encouragement in this in this whole effort alright I think that is that's our moral responsibility I like I like the statement that Carl Wilkins has said and he made this in a in a statement and a personal letter to me and in some of his other materials and that is and I think we as all people American people especially need to realize is that that it is a sin for us to permit God's blessings to be undervalued at the marketplace and sometimes a Christian or we ministers may be criticized at this point and say well what business is is this of ours what concern is it and I believe here is a moral responsibility and this is the statement that I that I've come to myself and that as a minister thinking and concern on behalf of the people that I serve and in all other people it is just as much my concern and the Christians concern to see that the farmer and all Labor's are justly rewarded or to help and to encourage them as you mentioned in their labors from the soil to the pocketbook as well as from that offering plate to charity and right here I think that this is this is stewardship and I think a big area Stewart the religious aspect of this farm problem I don't think can be overestimated that's why I think the clergy has a very definite responsibility in this area I remember years ago about 40 years ago reading a quotation of Archbishop O'Hara would help establish the rural life confident many years ago and he made this statement and he said done when the farmer loses his sense of religion that is his love for God and His love and concern for his fellow man including his fall farmer he will lose his land and the more you look at this thing in the light of that teaching the more you realized that it is true because down if he acts like an isolated atom well God didn't make him that way so he's going to suffer by acting in that ungodly manner so I like to just indicate that you farm people this whatever your religious persuasion is you have a moral responsibility to ask yourself what am i doing in this organized society of building a structure so that my children when they labor and when I labor for my family but I can have a just return for the contribution that I make to society yes Father isn't it interesting them I imagine in your ear prayer book you have prayers in this manner also but in our handbook we have a prayer in the front part of our hymn book god grant them the just rewards for their labor and yet many of our Christian people can pray this prayer and then the other six days of the week walk out into society and and even pray for the food on the table and at the same time ignore the undervaluing of God's blessings at the marketplace to me it's a it's a dire inconsistency it's like the old ditty where it said mister business went to mass he never missed a Sunday but mister went to hell for what he did on Monday here again this division between the concern of the farmer most of our farmers are concerned sometimes they're not concerned about their neighbor but that so many of the other segments of our society do not express this same concern for the farmer believing somehow or other that that the city of Sioux Falls or the town of Flandreau or so forth will will will manage to get along no matter what does happen to the farmers the the ministers sometimes feel that their only concern is for the spiritual well-being of their people but the spiritual well-being of their people is very intricately tied up with the financial and the cultural and the social well-being of their people our educators somehow believe that their educational institution is going to continue to exist no matter what happens to the people who in our area are basically responsible for the the maintenance of that system and we aren't here in this we are as it were in the very heart of a family farm system and if we don't become genuinely concerned about it and make every effort that we can to call to the attention of the nation what's involved in the dismantling of a family farm system and in preference for this other agriculture that we spoke about who else is going to do it yeah we and we've got to do it with the United voice we got to do it with the United voice and here we can just touch on it but as you can see folks this is an X might call an ecumenical a group here of different religious persuasions but in this particular area of each one of us making a contribution to rural America for its preservation we all have and can find a genuine responsibility of working together so we have before us what we hope we presented before you the two Agriculture's our traditional heritage of family farming and the other agriculture with its centi capitalism and we hope that you will assist us in making the right choice thank you very much for being with us