NFO-110 (AV10612): NFO Round Table

welcome to us farm report a public information program brought to you in the interest of agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation by members of the national farmers organization in this local area the national farmers organization takes pride in abandon a marketing system to meet the needs of the 20th century collective bargaining for agriculture every American can profit by the successful NFO collective bargaining program for farm income sets the nation's prosperity us farm report presents NFO roundtable with moderator Hugh Crain [music] for those of us who are in the national farmers organization it is particularly rewarding for us to know that there are areas that are being added to our organizational efforts every day and you see the symbol of the map with the collective-bargaining emblem and the NFO implement it on your programs quite often tonight we have gathered together people who are going to represent areas of this area of this United States and it would do well for us to look at this point as to how far in the United States collective bargaining through the NFO program has actually moved out so that you might have an idea of the area we now encompass NFO as you know began in the central area of the United States in Iowa and in the Missouri area from there we sped out in all directions but let's move westward first up through the Nebraska Kansas Colorado on surrounding Idaho then we swept south down into Arkansas across the Mississippi River into the upper Ohio Indiana Illinois Regents on clear up into New Jersey New York across the Appalachians then we move down the coast down into the areas of Virginia Georgia and just lately we have had memberships coming in from Florida at quite a great rate and then back across the southern section so that now you can see we encompass most all of the United States it will be of course our ultimate goal to have charter organizations in every state of the United States because we've had people asking us to come into their states and help them to become organized we have gentlemen here this evening who will be talking with you from the geographic locations which were pointed out to you on the map but before I introduce them to you I should like to say that just the other day average in the mail a pamphlet from the United States Department of Agriculture which illustrates better than anything I've ever found the facts of life as far as farm income is concerned for an example in the central northeast dairy section of this United States there are people who have quite a bit of dairy and the dairy industry as far as the farming end is concerned for a farmer to actually go out and produce cows produce milk it takes 4,600 hours per year in the Eastern Wisconsin area it takes 46 hundred and 50 hours per year in the central northeast area they have an investment of something around fifty thousand dollars according to the pamphlet I am using and when you consider their return to the operator and to his family for the labor you find that he only made 37 cents per hour in the Eastern Wisconsin area they're doing just real good there they're getting 63 cents per hour we would like to discuss this situation with the men who are producing the milk the men who are with us on tonight's program and I'd like to introduce you to a gentleman from New Jersey mr. Charles Barbary who is in the dairy business there and who joined the NFO a short time ago when did you join mr. barber just three years ago this month how many dairy cows do you have on your farm we have about a hundred and seven hundred eight cows milking cows we have about 22 young hen that we're raising how much walk do you get from this we're average about two tons a day or 4,000 pounds of milk a day is milk a good price in your area Oh terrible for the cost error we only received right now we're receiving about while they'll average around 550 570 and that is very hard but to produce milk there at that price and number one is our taxes are about the highest in the nation and everything that we touch there it's it the cost is very high because you have to in think of a grain coming out from the West coming out there to the east you have your transportation problem which your freight and all that it all adds to the cost of production and then the farms are very expensive out there so that it's really difficult to to make that's even with that price which out here the boys think it's good but out there it is north near what we should get we should receive out there at least six dollars and seventy five cents to seven dollars 100 in order to make a decent living there are some farmers in different areas a little bit further south that get a better price just exactly what there is I don't know have you up are we a lot of milk as far as the amount to consumers is concerned produced in your area no New Jersey only produces about 30 percent of the note that's consumed in the state we have to import seventy percent from out-of-state why do you feel then that the NFO can help you in your area well we import so much milk that we have to have or belong we have to have an organization that is nationwide like the NFO in order to price the milk for us we in New Jersey cannot do it because we have to import so much milk and be impossible for us to price milk so therefore it was being the reason we joined and the reason why the farmers are joining Indiana's all in New Jersey is because that by having a nationwide organization that we could stabilize the price not only in New Jersey but it would help to help the farmers even around New Jersey and that is the reason why we joined the NFO and i also like to say this that i think the NFO is the best program that we have ever had out there and each this collective bargain is a wonderful thing and the farmers out there once they understand the program why they they they join up sometimes it's very hard for them to understand the program it's so good that it's unbelievable from new jersey let's move on over to Tennessee once and with us we have James Womack who is a farmer in Tennessee and he tells me that they have a rather large operation there would you care to elaborate on that mr. Womack well you, we operate about 1500 acres of land they have about a hundred and forty five head of group cows we feed about a thousand lambs a year and about 5,000 whole I noticed that you have some tobacco here too yes we have raised about 12 acres tobacco how about the how about the group cows you say is that beef beef cattle- cattle you feed them out do you times we feed the calves another time with we sell them out as feeder cows this looks like quite a large elaborate operation and one which you would think would be quite profitable how is that actually well if it was possible I wouldn't do so much just takes so much to keep up expenses that I'd like to have another time for leisure we're not really quite as large do you have hired men on your farm there yes we do how about your own family oh well my son works at the bank and farms on the side any time he get off the bank he comes and help but most of it I do myself was a few hired men you mentioned the banking situation I attended a conference the other day where it was suggested that by 1980 we would have to be raising five hundred bushel per acre corn we'd have to be raising two hundred bushel per acre soybeans and by the 1980 period we need $300,000 more of operating credit this looks to me as if in the first place how can we expected to produce that much I'm not sure I don't know the pattern that they hope that we can achieve the second thing is it occurs to me that if the local community can't possibly hope in 15 years to generate enough profit to take our own future credit needs that there's a great big lack some place or another in the marketing system or there at least in our inability to make a profit do you want to make a statement about the general economic trends of agriculture in your area well it's it takes a lot of money to operate now money is tight the return on fom investment alone and we find it increasingly hard to get extended credit because of the low return on our operation we could come up someday the bankers feel like it they might lose some money also it's getting a little bit hard extend their credit to what to predict we gonna have to have in a few years from North Dakota tonight we'd like to talk just a few minutes with mr. Ken Spitzer he's an operator out in the Worcester County area and has a substantial large operation there would you like to tell us about that Ken well I'm from North Dakota and I suppose that I joined the NFO for them primarily the same reason that these other fellows have the low return on investment and possibly another reason we have six children three boys and three girls and I have two boys that are real interested in farming and and I would like to see them farm but I'm sure that they won't want to farm under the present return-on-investment that I am receiving or they will not be able to make it come out in a few years and it also has this low farm income has also reflect reflected in the rest of the community I'm a member of the Board of Education and we are having a real severe time to keep our school system operating in the black and I suppose that some of the main reasons that I joined NFO yes I had noticed when we were discussing this a minute ago that you said you farmed 3,000 acres and you feed about 300 steers you must have at one time or another enlarged because you certainly didn't start that big that's right you we have been told that if you want to keep up with the trends of farming today that you should become large and more efficient and this I have realized is not the answer to our problem because the larger and more efficient you be- you get the more expenses you have and if you- your if your operation is not returning you a fair return on your investment if it isn't returning you more than what you're paying for the money that you're using to operate on you're going backwards yes and I'd like to point out to you of just a couple figures from this book that I've met you to your moment a goal in 1949 cash receipts from farm marketing's the United States amounted to twenty seven million twenty seven billion eight hundred and five thousand dollars in our production expenses with 31 billion six hundred twenty eight million dollars leaving a nine thousand eight hundred and twenty three million dollar realized net farm income by 1965 instead of the ninety eight hundred and twenty nine billion eight hundred and twenty three million dollar income we had only eight billion four hundred and fifty two million dollars of income so from 1949 to 1965 our agricultural production was worth about a billion dollars less at the same time we were producing 41% more with only half the number of people doing it so if you say that farms ought to get efficient I say that we have got efficient we're doing with half the number people we're producing twice as much for a little less money we have some gentleman here tonight from two other states from Colorado I'd like to introduce you to Jack Holman Jackson dairy producer out in his area farms quite extensively Jack would you like to tell us about your operation yeah we milk 90 cows just north of Denver about 50 miles I also farm hundred acres of irrigated land and with this kind of an operation milking 90 cows I have to buy a pretty good percentage of the feed that I put to all of these animals so we have do have a lot of problems you know in our area about the price of feed how is that if your feed is getting higher prices and milk getting higher price - well I'm not so concerned with feed getting too high we're concerned with it not being high enough we do have a lot of concentrated large feed lots in our area that do the price setting of the feed now the problem that we're having is trying to get this production or trying to get a price for this production that we can get enough farmers to produce this feed the problem that we run into is the farmers getting the finances to be able to stay on the farm to produce this feed not only that I buy but that these big feed lots I need to produce it how about the dairy business that you're in has the price been going up on milk in the past three or four months the prices have increased but of course this has been through federal marketing orders this past month though it is beginning to go down again we have kind of a ideal situation out there in Colorado we are a deficit market similar to the man from New Jersey here we do have two cooperatives in the state that almost 95 percent of the milk in the state goes through these two properties like I say an ideal situation where these two properties could get together and get this price of this production up quite a bit but like has happened in some of the other areas you run into these cooperatives that aren't willing to work along with NFO so we do have that problem there at this time are you NFO being organized new in your area I've been in for approximately three and a half years and it all came in to our area in 1963 we have grown quite a bit in that area in that time and I think we have done pretty good we've had the same problems that some of the other areas have had but I think all in all were progress and to where I think one of these days we'll get it done glad to hear that it's always interesting to get the comments from another state as to the effectiveness of an apple have you had any real inclination from the processors in your area that they might be showing real interest in NFO yes we do have one of the cooperatives that have agreed to work with us in every way that they possibly can for the benefit of the dairy producers and I think this is a major breakthrough that we've made in Colorado that some of the other states have not made this is good glad to hear that from Georgia tonight I would like to talk with you to Charles Polk he's one of the newer states from one of the newer states one of the youngest men on this group and Charles why don't you talk about your operation there Thank You mr. crane I have about 327 acres down there with about 200 acres of low crop and ballots out being in pine timber and permanent pasture I'll grow cotton peanuts from corn soybeans being the major crops that I go you said you had some tobacco or used to have some tobacco I used to house in the back but the labor situation put me out of business I had to go all the way mechanized and I couldn't do it with the back I don't hardly know anything about tobacco being from Minnesota what kind of tobacco did you raise there [unclear] yes someone else say they had [unclear] tobacco here which the gentleman is that right do you have government programs on tobacco we do what do you think about that situation as far as the back is concerned well I don't feel like we could drop government programs on the back at this time and I think it's the best government program we do have in other words a parity when the bucket is higher than it is only other crops we have down there although I don't go along with them altogether I think we have to have it this time well you say you mentioned that tobacco is highest as far as parity is concerned what is the parity on tobacco about 85 and how about peanuts about seventy five forty five and six cotton isn't we're doing back before you'll notice not Cotton's moving out and so I've been moving in soybeans yes do you raise soybeans in your farm yes what kind of production do you get well in a normal year we'll get about 25 to 30 bushels this year we have a bad crop oh we're too crop that land we plant wheat or riling and July I would plant soybeans in July yes and when do you harvest them then on September and October have you participated in the NFO collective bargaining program for our soybeans no not on soybeans this was my first year doing beans and had a short crop but on corn we're working on that now mm-hmm and with much success were you with the big NFO workout they had there this spring when they had this yes sir yes sir we had a good turnout then why don't you tell us about that one well down the way we knew how to get people in with freedom free so we just pitched a big barbecue we had in about 1200 people from the surrounding counties and it was very successful we had mr. Benson down speak to us and I feel like it's made our organization easier than anything we could've done when you're talking with the farmers in your area about NFO do you need to discuss within the economics of our- is this a pretty well-established thing they pretty well understand that the greatest problem we have with our NFO is explaining the program it's a broad program but once we get it explained and they understand it well we're not having the trouble getting membership it's progressing pretty good I'm glad to hear that the thing that I'm not liking to hear about all of these discussions is the fact that from each of these states we've had the same overall opinions that agriculture is in just kind of a real bad shape that there isn't even an opportunity we might say for us to recommend to our own children that it would be advisable to stay in farming I have seen figures from time to time about the out migration of children from the rural area especially the age groups from 15 to 20 to 25 my operation is one that I would like to have the labor of my own children I would like to be able to have them come home and help me I have a fine hired man and I am glad of that but why is it at a time when all the rest of the economic sectors are doing well as for an example our paper at home suggested the other day that the things were good in the south the farming in our area needed to be carried on like they were doing in the south and I'd like to refer you back to the lad we just talked to from Georgia and see what he thinks farming is doing for the local communities in the area where he lives well about the same situation at this time mr. crane the young farmers are leaving the farm there's nothing to stay for they realize it and they're moving into different categories of trade have you some good industries right close to you no sir we do not you probably familiar rural areas out of South are coming through the north cotton industry and of course the reason they're doing it agriculture sitting and can't support those rural towns that's a problem and mr. Holman how about your area well I think you'll find the same thing in our area it gets to the point where you can't get younger people in agriculture there's the investment that you've got to have to start or stay in it for the younger people it just isn't possible anymore and you see the same migration into the cities where you find people gone into the city and finding jobs in there where they can go out to .70 or 2.80 an hour just like that paper you've had a while ago that's sure a lot better than .43 cents an hour quite considerably isn't it mr. barber how about New Jersey and we're very- we're just as bad as the other two gentlemen just spoke on the left here we have the same thing we have a lot of young fellows that would like to stay on the farm but the industry is so closed in New Jersey that they say there's no incentive of staying on the farm and they just simply give up because they see their fathers in such terrible financial distress that they just said there's no future in farming so they just simply go into industry on our industry are at the hospitalization pension plans and forty hours a week and all the young boys can't see it and it's a shame even though the government- the government of New Jersey would like to keep more land in what they called green acres in New Jersey they would like to keep it but they can't hold the farmers unless we get a price very soon we're going to lose a lot more I should like to tell you that I honestly believe that you as consumers if you have followed this show should be real concerned that in not the too distant future there will be a situation which we have been projecting now for good many years where we might get in the place where it will be absolutely necessary to charge exorbitant prices for food in order to get agriculture back on its feet the family- the family farming situation as it has been conducted for a good many years has been a highly efficient type of a situation without produced the world we give you production that other countries can't possibly get from there people are from their land we've done this with a minimum of later- labor and a minimum of income but this condition can't go on the NFO presents these figures to you for your consideration you as consumers need to know these facts you need to know that the dairy man who actually produces the milk is putting it on your doorstep about eight or nine cents a quart you need to know that the soybean situation is such that the oils you use should we have to get so sick that we're practically out of the picture and then bring in vast resources money to get us established again would have to be much higher than the price of soybeans is now the NFO collective bargaining program is one that asked for fair prices it asks for cost of production plus a reasonable profit we want that for all industries we want it for farming we'd like to have our children come back and farm we'd like to encourage everyone's children to stay on the farm and for those of you who are farmers whatever your commodity is the oughta ask the NFO about the collective bargaining program because we can offer you an opportunity to get together with us collective bargaining means bargaining together and selling together together we can do these things and that's what it's going to take it's been a real pleasure to talk with these gentlemen from all over the United States it's a happy day when we will include the few remaining states in the NFO collective bargaining program [music] us farm report has presented NFO roundtable members of the national partners organization invite you to tune in again next week for more facts on agriculture and rural America which is the gear wheel in our economy that produces the majority of our nation's new wells every American can profit by the successful NFO collective bargaining for agriculture for farm income pattern sets the nation's prosperity