NFO-137 (AV10635): Cheap Food Means Hungry People

[music] the national farmers organization the organization that awoke America presents 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 area and others interested in having farmers receive cost of production plus a reasonable profit the national farmers organization takes pride in inventing a marketing system to meet the needs of the 20th century NFO collective bargaining for agriculture u.s. farm report presents cheap food means hungry people with monsignor O'Rourke director of national catholic rural life Des Moines Iowa here now is W. W. Swaim national director of NFO research and public information it's a pleasure to visit with you and your home at this time and discuss some of the things that faces the world and America especially in the United States it's a pleasure to have as my guest today Monsignor O'Rourke the National Catholic Rural Life of the nation headquartered in Des Moines Iowa and I would like to ask you Monsignor O'Rourke why does a priest become concerned over the cheap food makes hungry people Thank You mr. Swaim during the past seven years it's been my privilege to serve as the director of the National Catholic rural life conference an organization that's not interested primarily in the worship or the theology of the church but rather the application of religion to the practical affairs of daily life and in this connection obviously we're concerned with justice to all sectors of our economy and since ours is a rural organization were concerned with fair prices for farmers on the other hand it's been my privilege in recent years to travel rather widely both in representing the National Catholic world life conference overseas and another fine organization for I work the international voluntary services so I've seen people who are hungry to the point of death and must of course be deeply concerned and also it seems to me that it is the responsibility of groups such as ours to do something about these problems both at home and abroad Monsignor O'Rourke is there any opposition between the desire for a good price for the food producers and cheap food policy and then the people that sell the food is there tell us a little about the conflict well there would seem at first glance to be a conflict mr. Swaim it seems that if the price of food goes up the cost to the hungry people go up also and obviously their food dollar would go not so far I think the first but perhaps not the most important answer is the fact that only 38 cents out of the food dollar currently reaches the farmer and therefore improving the price of the farmer does not necessarily mean a very substantial increase in the price of food I think you too have some thoughts along those lines yes and I have one singer I have a chart here that shows what's happened to the food cost the retail food prices and the price is received by the farmer if the camera would move in close here and pretty soon I want to get back to your overseas international voluntary services I want to get back to that but all we're talking about the prices I would like to show here he would come in close enough please that they could see the lines on this chart and the top line that goes along here are the retail food prices retail food prices the price that the American consumer is paying the lower line is the price that the farmer is receiving for the same food now you'll notice that 47 through 49 those lines were pretty well in balance and they're supposed to stay right together or nearly together all the time right along together but you'll notice that the prices to the retail trade begin to go up and the prices to the farmer begin to go down and all along the line and Wallis farmer had this to say about it if farm prices rise which they did here food prices invariably follow that shown up very clearly here if farm prices are stable food prices rise farm prices stable the food price rises if farm prices go down food prices rise usually and this is what's happened so it's a real conflict and then in this year nineteen forty or sixty seven they're expecting the food prices to go up to the consumer one and a half to two and a half percent and down to the farmer anywhere from two to three percent so you see that the statement that you made that just because it went up to the farmer doesn't necessarily and this is most certainly true this chart will show what the farmer is going to get up there his prices could come up a long ways all over the world and not raise the price of food much this happened to be the chart on the United States mr. Swaim distance suggest the second and main point I would like to make namely that almost all of the people and these hungry nations are farmers and if they ever hope to have a better way of life and enter in any sense into 20th century living they too must have better prices for what they sell first of all they must be helped to increase their production so that they will have something to sell and as they do enter into commerce in the modern sense of the word they're going to be more deeply concerned with fair prices than the American farmer is because their need is more desperate I think this is very true and the point that you brought out that they must have a price if they're going to proceed into the 20th century in other words if they're going to progress as a nation this is so true and it's borne out by a lot of facts the longtime records of the united states government proved conclusively that each dollar gross farm income each dollar that we pay the farmer for his production multiplies or generates seven dollars into $7 of earn national income and this is the reason one senior that India for instance has such low income and haven't progressed and are not able to even buy the tools of production not able to even feed their own people and they're starving today I have here a recent article on that pointing out that in India right now they're having famine strikes they're blocking the trains and the trucks to get more food and things of this nature and the cost or the fact that brought this about was the fact that the income in India is only about seventy dollars per person because they underpaid India for its raw materials all these years may I I build on that please mr. Swaim first of all I think we had to see how close the problem of the farmer in America is with us say the whole nation of India and the other developing countries by enlarge the farmer sells food and other raw materials fiber and so forth so also the people these developing nations who enter only very insignificant into manufacturing in that kind of industry they - as a whole nation not just as one sector of the economy are dependent upon the price of raw materials and of agricultural products for their national prosperity I have here and I think this might relate the encyclical by Pope Paul the sixth on the development of people's issued just a very few weeks ago and which elaborates this thought I think rather forcefully he says in the 57th paragraph highly industrialized nations export for the most part manufactured goods while countries with less developed economies have only food fiber and other raw materials to sell as a result of technical progress manufactured good is rapidly increasing and they can always find an adequate market on the other hand raw materials produced by underdeveloped countries are subject to wide and sudden fluctuations in price a state of affairs far removed from the progressively increasing value of industrial products as a result nations whose industrialization is limited our faced with serious difficulties when they have to rely under exports to balance their economy and to carry out their plan for development the poor nations remain ever poor while the rich ones become still Richard's right and I would like to add a little to that Monsignor the rich nations of the world considered to be Europe including USSR Russia in other words North America from the Mexican border on up Australia and New Zealand and Japan there are 900 million people living in those countries and in the poor countries there are two and a half billion people in the poor countries mainly in the southern hemisphere including the mainland of China in India in the rich countries the average income per person is eleven hundred and seventy dollars per year in the poor countries the average is a hundred and ten dollars which backs up what you said that they have a hard time getting by and they must put a better price on their raw materials also the gap between the richer and the poor nations richest and the poorest nation on the other hand the United States has a per capita income in 1960 of 2,300 dollars while in India they generated only $70 of income per capita and this is why they're starving and not producing enough food may I then build on that too please mr. Swaim it stands to reason then let's say people have something to sell no matter what the price they are in a bad way now it has been my privilege to do some development work and culture and community life in some of these struggling nations let me at least very briefly give the audience and the TV stations some idea of how this proceeds I'm sure almost all have had some reports along these lines I have some very vivid recent memories just a few days ago I was down in the lower West Indies in an island called Curaçao about 200 miles north of Venezuela and there on the jetty at the main harbor of this little island I saw boxes of dried cod fish they had been shipped more than 4,000 miles from Canada down to an island is surrounded by waters and with their hundreds of thousands of tons of the finest fish in the world now what is the problem well this is a problem that grew over the years these fishermen and their many on the island have no motors for their boats they can go out only so far as they can dare to row in that rather rough sea they have no nets they must face both line and hook when they catch their face they must sell them that day because they have no way of preserving them now one of the immediate and obvious answers is to help these people form a cooperative so that they can purchase and utilize motors for boats and nets and coal stories and modern ways of marketing their face so that someday when I return to the jetty at Curaçao I hope to see many may boxes of fish and canned fish not being shipped into Curaçao but being shipped out again I think of the situation down in Yucatan down in southern Mexico which I recently saw here's a little cooperative of farmers they decided that their ancient way of farming was not adequate to produce the corn and beans and other things that they needed and wanted to sell and they were persuaded to form a cooperative and they resolved to work together on a little piece of land and make it a showpiece for themselves and for all the other farmers on the in the community and it was our purpose to make a available to them certain little tools for example a sprayer with which they could put insecticides on their crops and to spray folio fertilizers on their crops and you see they sound like little things but you add this up by the thousand and realizing in each of these instances we're helping people help themselves not just bringing relief to them and we're building their courage and their determination and we begin to see that it is possible to enable these people to produce more but this then mr. Swaim brings us back and I think this is your field more than mine how will we help them and the farmers of America get a better price well I firmly believe munching your lark that that the Farmers of America can be helped mostly through collective bargaining program everyone's talking more muscle in the marketplace more bargaining power for American farmers and it's been far too long that they haven't had this bargaining power but it seems as though when they begin to get in position maybe to get a price why they begin to import more food into this country and this is only natural even though we don't need it so badly because we are the high market of the world but I think that we're going to have to organize collectively and get together sort of a big co-op as you spoke about collective bargaining is nothing more than a form of a co-op people cooperating together and working for one thing bargaining for a price and I think that great strides have been made in this and I know that many others in the world are looking for this at the same method for instance you might be interested in or I'm saying here that the European Common Market has visited our national office three times and they're very much concerned they would like to use collective bargaining on their livestock to get them a better price they have government help on the other what is your idea of what needs to be done well may I say first of all that your observation that the bargain of which you speak is very much similar to the co-operative that we usually use when we go into developing nation of this I'm very conscious if I go for example from being in Minnesota as I recently attended where we were talking about bargaining by the American farmer and a few days later go let us say into Vietnam or Laos or India or wherever it may be and speak of these very elementary kinds of cooperatives it doesn't take a great shift of orientation of mind they are basically the same things if people will learn to use their resources and work together and to live in a cooperative way we can solve our problems I would like however to respond also to something you mentioned a moment ago about the importation of dairy products there seems again to be a conflict here any restriction of imports by a very wealthy and powerful nation like ours might seem to only intensify the problems of the struggling farmer let us say in another nation and to a certain extent I would agree to that view I am certainly of the opinion that as a general policy it is better for all peoples if we lessen as much as we can the artificial barriers to trade because in the long run a lively trade means a better way of life for all people however in recent months we have witnessed here in the United States States a kind of phenomena and a dairy importation business that I feel is disorderly and for that reason hurtful to all concern dairy products have been brought in that for some technical reason were not subject to importation quotos but easily substituted for those that were dairy products that some of which at least were produced under sanitary conditions that were quite different from and quite inferior to those required by the of the American farmer and therefore I feel that legislation to restore order and fair play in this particular sector of international trade is needed in the meanwhile I reaffirmed my contention that as a general policy a lively growing world trade is very very important I think monsignor what we need really we hear so much about free trade I think what we need is equity of trade we need if we actually leave the product we need to pay the other country so that those farmers could benefit and that they would be able to buy other commodities back and raise their standard of living I think it's equity of trade that we need and I think you would agree with me on this situation and talking about the imports of dairy in 1966 we imported enough dairy commodities into the United States to put 6050 cow producers out of business in America and you pointed out another thing it isn't fair to the American producer to expect him to buy high-priced machinery keep the standards way high on his production the bacteria countdown and then turn around on the other hand at this what course would be a fabulous cost to him it cost all this machinery costed a lot of money and then on the other hand to import it from standards that aren't even halfway up to that normal well I think this is a two-way street on some of those things most certainly we need to import some commodities but most certainly we need to pay those people a fair price for it mr. Swaim I gathered from this and previous conversation that you and your organization asked the farmers to help themself and only very rarely turn to the government for help but do you ever find that sometimes government action interferes with your operations I heard that for example of an action by the Justice Department against the National Farmers Organization during one of its holding actions do you have any comment about that that you'd like to offer well of course the government claimed that one department claimed they didn't know anything about it I mean the president the United States claimed he didn't know anything about it the Secretary of Agriculture we know he took the side of the farmer but it seems real strange that two departments that are directly under the president the United States it seems strange that one take one side and one the other side and the president the United States not know anything about it and I think definitely that in a very short while we would have won this milk action and we would have been receiving prices it stopped all of our bargaining efforts for just a few hours 48 to 72 hours which is enough that some of the others backed out that were in the notion of signing contracts that would have assured the farmers a price we did however though in the milk holding action we did gain at least 50 cents a hundred in most marketing areas for the summertime months and it remains to be seen what the price will do later on in the fall as a result of the milk holding action so many people don't realize the gains that we did made make but I think the government should have given the farmers a free hand to try to get a price I think that you pointed out that you looked over the injunction and and what's your observation on it as you pointed out you called me one day on the telephone well it seems to me that it is absolutely essential that the farmer has the ability to bargain with other farmers in one farm organization collaborate with another farm organization in order that they may have some voice in the price of their commodity now if it's really true that the present law under which this bargaining takes place naming the capper-volstead Act does not permit that kind of activity by farmers and farmers organization without violating the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act and I would say let us modify the capper-volstead Act to make feasible this most important activity by farmers and their organization well you see the reason they gave or the injunction of course as under the capper-volstead act as producers and producers only the farmer can go together he can hold his milk he can set a price for it and he can get that price but he isn't it isn't legal for him to ask others to cooperate and this is the reason Monsignor O'Rourke we're on this subject none of the other farm organizations have been able to do it but should they keep they would keep their own farm and organization and get together in a bargaining structure of producers and producers only it would be legal we could solve the problem almost overnight just the same way that the dairy coops can solve the problem for dairy farmers by forming a marketing agency in common so that they market their products through this one agency then it becomes a legal structure and this is the term now some people accused us of helping or asking others to help which this would be illegal we asked the farmers of America to join the National Farmers Organization and then support our efforts but some of the people had this confused and they accused our members of asking them to cooperate when they weren't a member this is why the cause for the injunction may I return now please before time runs out to the main theme of our program namely that cheap food means hungry people as I observed the current scene here in rural America and over the world and I see many many thousands of millions of hungry people and still some of the productive agricultural resources of the United States not being utilized and it seems to me that one of the reasons that is not utilized we have an antiquated marketing system which frightens the farmer in the sense that he produced that abundance that would be needed to help the people overseas in the present marketing situation this would probably have a devastating effect upon farm prices and press put the farmer out of business so it seems then again if we really mean business here both at home and abroad we must take a very hard look at our present marketing system this is absolutely true the Secretary of Agriculture said not too long back that if farm prices do not rise if farm income doesn't improve the nation's family farm system will be disappear and be replaced by a monolithic corporate farming operation that could conceivably control food supply so that they could get any price they want so it's real important I think that we do something about the marketing system as family farmers keep the family farming business so that they can provide food for the hungry overseas now would you like to make a statement here we're getting close to the end of our period take them all the time you want because I've done most of the talking up to now I mean I say that as we said at the outset by reason my office with the National Catholic Rural Life conference and as a citizen of the United States I am deep in admiration of the farmers of America and prized very highly the family farm system I think is an excellent way to produce food that the family farm is a tremendous environment for family particularly for children and since it is necessary that the farmer have an adequate income if this system is a pre be preserved I urge all farmers to do their part together to get a price for themselves and again as I see firsthand and hear the cries of the hungry people in other countries their faces haunting me often at night and knowing that the causes of hunger are very complex and certainly related to the topic that we're discussing here today I urge that all of us be alerted to the needs of these people and not to take a superficial view but to help these people help themselves and to do things like improving agricultural price and who provide the guidance that will form and strengthen Cooperative and other self-help organizations so that someday these people too can stand on their own two feet and support the children they bear and whom they love and become a part a healthy and happy part of the family of nation just a moment here Monsignor looking ahead in some recent figures that I have here on the international scene the threat of widespread famine is validated by a glance at the future projections of population figures and the world food needs at the present annual growth rate of 2% a year world population now over three billion people three billion will double within a generation and zoom to 24 billion people within the next century now the next hundred years or slightly more than a lifespan so most certainly that we must be concerned about feeding these people we must start now we can't wait any longer the underdeveloped countries now have an annual food grain deficit and I get the point that I said grain because rain will take care of more people and meat will it's a cheaper diet and it can they can get by but the deficit is now 16 million tons this deficit will increase from 42 million tons by 1975 and skyrocket to 88 million tons in 1985 this is why we must do something recognizing the seriousness of the impending world food crisis we firmly believe that the United States cannot play an effective role in feeding the hungry world unless American agriculture is assuring that its productive efforts will be rewarded present low farm income is wiping out the family farm at a fantastic rate they're getting much older the average age of farmers is 51 with two and four tenths million of them over 55 so we're going to have to do something now we're going to have to organize and solve our problems together thank you u.s. farm report has presented cheap food means hungry people with Monsignor O'Rourke director of national catholic rural life Des Moines Iowa WW Swaim NFO national director of research and public information members of the national farmers organization invites you to tune in again next week at the same time for more facts on Agriculture and Rural America which is the gear wheel in our economy the majority of our nation's new wealth the national farmers organization has been recognized as the leadership of agriculture represents new thinking in a new generation of farmers [music]