NFO-88 (AV10495) US Farm Report: Staley & Freeman

welcome to us farm report it is a great pleasure and honor to have as special guest the United States Secretary of Agriculture Oroville Freeman and Oren leis daily president of the National Farmers Organization here is mr. Sayle the members of the nfo sponsored u.s. farm report members of course in the local areas are always interested in performing a public service for the people in the listing area we have had many distinguished guests both political parties on the US farm report today I am pleased to introduce to the audience the distinguished honorable Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman Orville we're very glad to have you with us today so that we may ask some questions to clarify many issues that are a vital important not only to farmers but rural America I'm glad to be with you and I'm here in waiting so you just fire for a fact well I think that as you know and as it's very evident that many times that the nfo has not agreed with you many times we have agreed with you and this I think is a part of democracy but many times farm issues become so clouded as you well know that really nobody knows what is happening in the overall picture mr. secretary so the thing that I think that the intervener but our members and I'm sure everyone in the listening audience is interested in about three or four areas first they're interested in farm income as farmers I think that you have many consumers also in the audience of the small towns and of course many of the large cities that watch this program and then I think that the overall picture in agriculture is of vital importance first I have heard it said that and I think very accurate so that the job of secretary particularly when you became Secretary of Agriculture was the job that no one really wanted but I guess being a a major in the Marines during World War two must have gotten you conditioned for the job of being Secretary of Agriculture sometimes well Oren it's not a job in which you run a popularity contest or expect to be particularly popular there are great changes taking place in our nation and very basic changes taking place in agriculture change is painful adjustment is painful all that one can do is to think work and make the best judgment you can as the old saying goes and that someone said this to me before I became secretary of agriculture you ought to strive to have a tender heart a keen mind and a high the stickers are in house with this and I'm doing my best well mr. secretary I think that there are two or three areas that we might discuss because the man that said this job that was not hardly wanted by anyone and he was not trying to lower the greater the cabinet position of Secretary of Agriculture he was playing a compliment to you and also the fact that we had some problems and of course I think we all recognize we still have some problems and and will in the unforeseeable future now the thing that I think that the people would like to know what is your feeling about farm income at this time we're talking here now in the middle of the summer of almost the middle of the summer in 1966 what is happening in farm prices and do you feel they're adequate and what's your general attitude as Secretary of Agriculture on the prices for farmers well first of all let me answer the last question first if I may I I don't think that farm prices are adequate farm prices are a dozen percent lower than they were way back in 1951 people don't realize that a matter of fact I made that point to my wife who has heard me say it a dozen times the last evening at dinner and she said you mean to tell me that farm prices are actually 12% lower than they were way back in 1951 and I said why you know that I said that a hundred times and you've heard it well she said I thought you meant relative to other things when I said relative nothing these are absolute prices so far places have gone down farm prices are not what they should be nor as farm income what it should be on the other hand everything is relative progress does take time particularly in anything is complex as American agriculture farm prices are significantly better than they were in 1960 I tend to a date from that time oran because of course I walked into this job in 1960 for all practical purposes December of 60 actually took the oath of office in January of 1961 so farm prices are better as a matter of fact I have a little a little card here that I distributed its own report review meetings question answer sessions with farmers out in Iowa a couple of weeks ago and set down and these are national figures now these are farm prices we're talking about some of the changes catalogs about twenty one dollars they're about twenty three now hogs are about fifteen dollars they're 22 to 23 now corn was a dollar seven year the average in sixty a dollar nineteen now soybeans were two dollars to ninety now milk was three dollars and nine cents about 375 now that's 100 pounds raw milk so that's farm prices in addition of course our farm production has gone up sharply government payments and our programs have gone up very sharp about a half a million billion dollars to about three and a half billion dollars adding all this together net farm income and that's what really comes we've got lots of indicators like Perry prices on various commodities but the real important thing is what does a farmer have left at the end of the year when he sits down and balances and books and pays his income debt hopefully he has to pay something and we're that concerned why farm income this year will be up around the nation about four billion dollars it will be up on a national basis per farm net and these of course are average figure pretty close to $1,500 a farm now farm incomes still lag behind it that rate but I think we can all take encouragement we can all recognize that we can make progress we can't reach that parity of income target by looking at what we've been able to do in this short time mr. secretary I think there's another question that comes to the consumers mind is food too high or first that I think you've answered on the farm prices in relation to the rest of the economy but what about the price of food is it a good buy indeed it is food really and I'm not just saying this because I'm the farmer spokesman I I say this in all deadly seriousness to the consumer food really is the best Bob that the consumer gets when he goes to the supermarket or when he spends the money that he earns to live really the only meaningful indicator as to the cost of food is how much will an hour's worth of work by now comparing just to 1960 an hour's work will buy an extra couple loaves of bread an hour's work will buy another quart of milk an hour's work will buy a more pork more beef more meat an hour's work will buy more food a good bit more food than it would in 1960 I do want to go back a little further than that and go back about about 30 years why today an hour's work will be by twice as much food as it would thirty years ago and so although the the absolute price the amount that you see on the given food item when you go to the supermarket is up some from five years ago and is up some from thirty years ago in relation to the total picture of our economy in relation to what an hour's work will Bob we find that the cost of food has gone steadily down until the day it only takes about eighteen point three percent of our take-home pay which is significantly less less than any of country in the world let's have any other time in history at the same time that the food we eat is more diversified is more nutritious and is more adequate and so really although my wife your wife and the farmer's wife who goes to the supermarket most of them in these days grumbles a little and wishes that those pork chops or wishes that that that steak or that ground beef and whatever it might be was those vegetables I wishes various things have cost a little bit less nonetheless when you just sit down and take a look and draw some comparisons and realize what we earned the truth is an hour's worth of work each year buys more food and food is our best buy mr. secretary I think this is very important for the consuming public to understand well it surely isn't may I add to it there's another thing that the consuming public hopefully will get in mind and that is coming I think to the front more and more and that is that even that increased cost of the food the fact that the price tag in the supermarket is up a bit well for what it was last year or five years ago that increased cost is not something that goes to the farmer because really that increased cost is explainable mostly in terms of the improved services that have gone in to that food we tend to forget but let me just take the example of a TV dinner I was talking to to one of the chains for executives other day and he told me that they sell almost 5 million TV dinners they cost about 60 cents the the amount that goes to the farmer of that 60 cents is about 8 cents the balance has gone into preparing to the cooking to the packaging to the handling so that and I for example when my wife is gone I'm no great cook I go down buy a TV dinner I mean I can just put that in the oven and keep right on about my business doesn't take very long and I get by fairly well but that is what we're paying for and so I think that the consumer on to recognize that almost all of the increased cost of food let's say 30 to 40 billion dollars more over a period the last few years that almost all of that goes for new services new services that have been built in to food so that it can be processed more and handled and prepared for use more quickly I take less time of that busy housewife who today your honor is out helping in many many things and I think it's a wonderful thing that that many of our housewives and mothers of today don't have to shop three times a day they don't have to spend their whole day in the kitchen as my mother did in yours they have more time to spend with their children it more time to spend in their community and to work with a school and work on many many fine things and - this makes for a better home in a better community but that same housewife from that same mother that same consumer ought to realize in all fairness I did a good bit of what she's paying at the supermarket are for things other than the food that came off the farm the farmers getting very very little of it mr. secretary I think this is such an important point because I think many people in the American consuming public are a good portion of it because of a lack of understanding just expect that the farmers can go on and on producing it without adequate return and that they able to keep their food prices at the same level while their wages go up or the products that they're manufacturing go up in price and I think this is so important that the that we can get across these points so that everybody realizes what is really happening as far as balance is concerned well that's exactly right because what has happened what tends to happen and that's why we have farm organizations and that's why I and if always out to battle you represent the farmer that's well we have some of the government program is because the farmer and there are so many of them it doesn't have the kind of power in the marketplace so that he can compete with other segments of our economy to get his fair share and they've been a tendency taxes go up and payment for other thing goes up cost goes up there's a tendency on this relatively on the organized group of primary producers out here to just to leave their prices where they are for set prices down while other parts of this keep getting more and more of that consumers dollar so today the farmer gets only about 39 cents out of the dollar that we spend at the supermarket and unless something is done in connection with that why this will in the last resort finally drive that farmer off the farm and then you won't have the abundant production we have and then that'll hurt the consumer that way you'll really have high prices and I'm very concerned about that currently it's a reason that that the president has seen fit to direct me to raise price supports and dairy we've raised them twice now 75 cents 100 pounds this year because dairy income has been disastrously low and dairy farmers have been quitting we have had more cows go to slaughter rather than continue milking this year than any year in the history of the nation we're not careful while we're going to have such short supply that price can indeed go through the roof that's no good for the farmer and that's no good for the consumer and so to summarize it unless the farmer can get a fair return unless his earnings can be commensurate comparable to that of your brother in town a why after a while he'll just get fed up farming may be a way of life but it's a business - and the farmers entitled to a fair share well mr. secretary this is a very important point because certainly our program is on the bargaining in but we have supported in the past and will continue as the responsibility of a farm organization working for farmers any legislative programs or administrative efforts to maintain an increase farm income we feel this is our moral responsibility as well as the duty of any farm organization and of course we have been in contact with you on the dairy price structure because it has been very low and as far as prices are concerned and I'm know that the dairy farmers are going to be glad to hear you talk about their problems because dairy farmers put in longer hours they're out there working many hours before most of the people get up but they're still in the barns after many or most of the people quit working or I can I can testify to that because on our farm the farm that my grandfather homesteaded we got the initial government patent it's been in our family since the very beginning why we still milk around 35 cows and I was milking cows almost before I could walk and that was before Rea that was before electricity when he had to sit down that stool and just grab a hold and keep pulling so it is hard work and you've got to be there every day and it's hot and you've got to really look after those animals and dairy income dairy income has been the lowest of any sector of American agriculture and none of Agriculture has been very well compensated so I'm very pleased that those dairy prices are moving up and in many many areas around the country dairy prices right now are a dollar a hundred more than they were a year ago and and everywhere are they're up sixty to seventy-five cents so this does represent some progress and I hope we can get some balance you can look forward to a fair steady price in the future well the naree farmers were quitting in large numbers as you well know and I'm glad that you recognized this and that steps were taken for because the dairy farmers income has been so low that most of them were just getting plain discouraged they were selling and this threatens the food supply in the future as well as threatens a very vital in economics of the rural communities this is exactly right and again directly into the consumer and now and then in the Orang and they give and take that attention emotions sometimes the politics and this is a political year that I'm not complaining about we've got to keep some of these things that's some kind of balance the charges made that that the secretary redcoats are thinking more about the consumer than he's thinking about the farmer I want to say that that certainly is not true but I hasten to add that I am thinking about the consumer the farmer is the biggest consumer of law and he's got a bigger stake in fair and lot of prices and he's threatened more by inflation than any other sector of our economy and furthermore the consumer which includes all of us but we've got to keep in mind that the consumer only as he understands these issues and supports programs and supports the goal of parity of income for the farmers the only way to be accomplished know the farmers are minority in this country today and they put just a little bit wise in that respect what will go a long way to explain what we do to the consumer and to be a very fair-minded to lean over backwards to be fair minded about it and I think we're not very wise if we don't do that well of course this is part of the purposes of these type of programs to get across to the general public as well as the farmers the attitude the actions that are being taken throughout agriculture all of us this this is an important point that you were hitting on there mr. secretary because many times the rural businessmen do not realize how important farm income is to their business and how it affects the rest of the economy would you like to comment on that point yes indeed I think one of the real stimulants and one of the reasons of course not the only one but an important contributor to the great economic progress we made in this country since 1961 we have had the longest uninterrupted economic advance without a recession with growing employment with increasing farm income of any period in the history of this country and we are better off our economy is stronger our standard of living is higher our pay is higher our profits are higher our income is better we're buying more than any time in the history of the nation now one of the keys to this has been the improvement in farm income and you can just take a chart and you can just see what's happening you can see it most dramatically in the direct farm related industry take a look at the farm machinery industry they're having some very good years employment is up profits are up and the net result has been a very important contribution to national economic well-being I could go on and some others in some of the Petroleum areas in many areas where the use of power is concerned and of course in areas in rural parts of the country where appliances are very kind of various kinds are concerned the farmers a very good buyer he needs lots of things as soon as he makes a buck you start putting paint on the house instead of the barn and getting things inside the house and putting in a bathroom and having with Lang water pushing the lights up in the bedroom when I got that far yet and he's a very very good buyer and this increase in income has made a real contribution to the national economic expansion we have enjoyed now for five on errupted years these are very important points because many times they're not realized but the people right in the rural community and the small businessmen in the real community and how they are affected as you see the problems ahead in agriculture as you look over the total progress or the total steps that are being taken in the various stages how do you look at the future in agriculture let's talk about for a moment food for peace type of programs this isn't on the minds of many people there's a lot of publicity on it what about the hungry throughout the world and such the phrase the race between people and food and the phrase the war on hunger are used more and more these days they state I think very well one of the most important facts one of the greatest challenges perhaps the greatest that we face looking down the road to the future of not only dissipation but the world a well the less developed nations with the tremendous increase in population will India's in the Pakistan and Indonesia's and the Brazil to be able to feed themselves and we don't know it by no means certain that there will be enough food in the world to feed all the new mouths that must be fed if there's got to be mass starvation so what we seek to do in this country with a generous and humanitarian heart but also we hope with a thoughtful head and good judgment is to use our great food abundance to feed the needy to sucker the starvin but in the process to work with these countries so that they can increase their own productivity only in that way will there be enough food in the world to meet people's needs we hope the day will come in the not-too-distant future but countries like India and Pakistan Indonesia instead of being recipients of food for peace or long-term credit sales will be commercial customers and it'll be a better world when they are and so we seek to mobilize our productivity and to use it to use it to meet the needs of the needy but use it also to finance new economic agricultural development in these countries so the time will come when they can stand on their own two feet and be our commercial trading customers and partner rather than its recipients of our bounty which they are today well these are all very important points we might get down to a few specific questions on various commodities I think we might go back over the dairy for example because this is one area of commodity that we touched on and recognizing how important that it is to the many of the communities where there is about the only really farm enterprise than many of the communities as you sit and certainly we are glad to see you follow the route that you did of raising the price supports rather than other type of programs because we feel that at the market place is where it should be gotten and so we're we're pleased that you did follow this route mr. secretary now I think that we might talk for a moment when you talk about raising the price support just recently fifty cents a hundred more now is this and there's Bemis much misunderstanding over the large area of these programs cover now this is on the Wisconsin Minnesota base is it figured from that yes oh this is this first of all applies to manufactured milk it means that the federal government is prepared to buy the manufactured products the cheese and the powder and the butter at a price that will hold the raw milk at a four dollar level in the market so there will be $4 price then the milk market order areas are tied in in their price with the so called Minnesota Wisconsin series which means that the increase which will result from strengthening the support level will reflect itself in the prices will be paid for fluid milk as well well this is an important point so everyone understands that where it works from now then in the area of wheat you've made some announcements recently as far as wheat production is concerned how do you view the problems in wheat well we stands out as an example of what we've been able to do under the new farm bill of 1965 in the case of wheat because we have succeeded in eliminating the heavy surplus that we've had hanging over our head since 1960 because we have increased our exports $4 a very significant and because our food for Peace program has had great demands on it particularly this year from India where they had the greatest growth of the century why our wheat reserves I have been drawn down quite tightly the net result has been that we have increased the president directed the increase of the acreage allotments for week up some 8 million acres or 15% which means that land which hasn't been used for wheat for a long time I will now go into production and those wheat farmers will still be able to qualify under the program to receive the certificate payment and will get a hundred percent of parity for the domestic share of their wheat and will also get a price in the market which currently is quite a bit higher than the loan rate I think it might be well that if we touch on the feed grain program which covers many of the areas what is your belief as far as the progress is made in the feed grains and the future in the feed grain well here again we've been able to work off a surplus that was crushing in its nature kept prices down very costly just inexcusable eighty-five million tons of feed grains that were there when I became secretary have now shrunk to about fifty million tonnes we still have perhaps a five million ton surplus we got not to go much below 45 million tons this may very well mean that we can have more land producing feed grains in the years immediately ahead however we've got to be cautious here and use good judgment and moderation truth the matter is we have some 20 to 25 million acres in the feed grain program in conserving uses which could be producing corn if we had that production we'd be piling up our surpluses again at the rate of about a billion bushels a year and so we've got to keep this balance that's working balance between supply and demand in the marketplace have adequate carryover avoid heavy price depressing surpluses and work our way along I hope that the day is not far off when we won't need such programs and we can get the return for the farmer exclusively in the marketplace but let us be realistic and sensible as matters now Stan we have a very big over production capacity impede grain if Satan's five years to work off the surplus let's not because things look a little brighter now I turn it all loose and get back in the mess we were in just a few years ago mr. secretary we've asked you many questions today certainly I know that everyone agrees that you should have the opportunity to answer these questions than many of them that we feel are in the farmers minds and the consuming public Minds over the various areas we're certainly glad to have had you with us today for the opportunity to ask these questions and for you to express your views on the many subjects that we have covered nfo Collective Bargaining for agriculture the economic keystone of America you farm report appreciates the opportunity in presenting the United States Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman and Orrin Lee's Daly president of the National Farmers Organization on today's program