NFO-139 (AV10637): Main Street and the Farmer

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 inventing a new marketing system to meet the needs of the 20th century collective bargaining for agriculture and F all represents new thinking in a new generation of farmers u.s. farm report presents Main Street and the farmer with WW Swaim the Reverend E W Mueller and Ed Shima as moderator welcome to another US farm report some of you in the audience may wonder why the NFO and there are probably many reasons for the NFO but we're boiling it down real briefly the income of farmers over the last several years has been considerably below the rest of the income of the rest of the economy currently the parity ratio stands with about 74 percent of parity the recent congressional study showed that farmers were getting only about two-thirds of the income of the rest of the people in the economy these inequities can't exist over a long period of time without causing serious problems not only to farmers but to the rest of the economy we want to go into some of these things today on today's u.s. farm report and on the program today where we have the doctor E W Mueller who is with the Department of church and Community Planning loosen consul in the United States of America Chicago Illinois and also W.W. Swaim better known as Butch Swaim and he's heads the National Farmers Organization research and information department which is headquartered at Corning Iowa we will start off today's program by first of all going to Dr. Mueller and asking him why Main Street should be concerned with the general agricultural situation as we have a today Dr. Mueller the Main Street and the farmer are closely tied together I would say that in the years past you know over emphasis on independence perhaps the two have not worked as closely as they might have worked they've always had a concern for each other and they've been friendly and had a community spirit and the like but they never really had zeroed in on the basic problem that you're mentioning that the farmer needs to have an equitable place for his input of labor and his input of capital and this spirit of interrelatedness needs to be developed and I would say the Main Street- man on Main Street ought to be concerned not just from his own self-interest but as was mentioned in the opening statement because the well-being of the nation I would say that a man on Main Street and the farmer they have a tremendous responsibility at this particular point because if they can come up with a method of working together and supporting each other or that I mean is encouraging each other meet other in their particular different responsibilities then they can render a real service of the nation and helping to solve this basic problem that we face today and that the producer of food and fiber is not being equally paid and I would say again that the Main Street man must somehow recognize that he's in this as deep as a farmer the going on to Butch on why you feel the businessman on Main Street should be concerned with the general agricultural situation which would you elaborate on this some then Butch well most everyone a student a real good student of economics realizes that the farm income pattern such the prosperity level of our nation and our Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman recently made the statement the farm income doesn't improve the family farm system will disappear to be replaced by a monolithic corporate farming operations that couldn't conceivably control the supply to get any price that they want and most certainly if this takes place the family farm doesn't get a price now if this takes place and corporate agriculture should be the way of life in rural America most certainly Main Street won't be involved because corporation farming with one corporation possibly holding the whole county most certainly will have the company store and Main Street will be completely out of gear so they have more to lose in the farmer themselves Dr. Mueller before the program you'd mentioned that the actually businessman had more stake in this than the farmer did would you elaborate on this fan well yes in the sense that it's a family farm system goes out of the picture the family farmer can always sell his land because there'll be a price for it but if the small town disappears there's no one that will want to buy the Main Street man's store whose lumber yard with hardware store life and therefore he has really he's really in a tight spot and I would say that you ought to really see how he's in this with the farmer and that they ought to really work together on this now there are several different ways of working together on this of course and and different approaches and so on the NFO has worked real actively in terms of bargaining for farm products to raise a general price level to do this rather than go to the government asking for a subsidy or whatever might be involved and how would this work butch well of course if the price doesn't come in the marketplace this leaves out the rural community and because the real community lives mostly off of the gross farm income and they also live off the net farm income which the family farm pays for its own family education is that retirement and the like but if it doesn't the market the price doesn't come in the marketplace this will leave rural America holding the bag so to speak because most certainly come that way why they won't buy these other production things and and keep them in business and the statistics show lead the freshness rural America farm gets him so much money as gross farm income fifty-four percent of that historically has gone on to other segments I mean the farmer has paid this out and right at the present time gross farm income is just about half but it ought to be and this is every job truth 59 and the local businessman gets most of this money that's spent by the farmer right the local businessman gets fifty four percent the gross farm income historically when we were in balance I'd like to take a little different slant to that and in this standpoint I think the farmer has a responsibility to solve this problem himself his own organization and so has an industry strength that he can go in to market the backing plate and demand a price but we all know that it's very difficult to organize the farmers and I think here's where the mantle means he could be a real help to encourage the farmers to really work together with his farmers is his neighbors me friends too often the Main Street person takes about the opposite attitude he discourages and say well you farmers can get together anyway see and they're brainwashing our primer is trying to convince them that they'll never organize I think we the man of Main Street ought to really make a real contribution to encourage the farmer and to create a climate that will convince the farmers that they can work together because only if they work together long as they join an organization and make a commitment organization will they achieve what you're calling for it swings at this point is it's well taken I need a price but no one is gonna go out there and give him the price on selling themselves put themselves in position and that a bargaining position and can demand adjust in a fair price in this sense I mean that the the businessman ought to work together with the farmer not that he joins organization I don't think that would be desirable even see I think the farmer said we don't organization teaching run and should manage to be but the community ought to encourage the farmers to get the job done i think that word you said community is a real important thing this would include the role ministers the business people the bankers the school teachers school superintendents and others Dr. heady Dr. Earle Heady who heads up the agriculture adjustment Center at Ames told a group of bankers and businesspeople and employer are in Texas sometime back but if the farmers and the business people with bankers don't wake up and start working together along those lines Dr. Muller that they're all go down the drain and they just as well realize this has to be done I think people's in the rural areas we have some minute block and we are very much concerned and talk about our freedom our sense of Independence and we can do what we want to do this is fine we're all for freedom but I think there's a negative side to freedom and there's a positive side to freedom by negative we mean the sense I don't want no one to tell me what to do I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it I want to sell my car I want to sell it now I want to sell where I can sell it I'm not gonna wait for the neighbor I have some beans to sell I'm not gonna wait until the rest already see this sense of independence that's fine but if we put to a higher price on this then we will lose the very independent that we want there's a positive side to freedom to in this sense that I covet with my neighbor or my fellow members that we're going through this together on a fence they give a little treat him in doing this but in doing it together we can achieve things that otherwise we could not achieve in this connection I'd like to tell a little story about fishing I'm not a very good fisherman but I know that when I got the fish in Minnesota or Wisconsin they will tell me I can see how many fish I can catch what kind of fish I can catch how long they have to be now this is not being done to take fishing away from me this is being done by the sportsmen themselves in the interest that there will be fishing on the same sense I think farmers need to be willing to give up some things which they give up when they join a good organization that can be tough and that can be man power in the marketing place they get up something but they get so much more now here is where the businessman needs to convince the farmer that he needs to do this but this is where I think we're falling down in other words like the fishermen being able to continue fishing the farm to be able to continue farming there you hear quite a lot in terms of well I don't want to lose my freedom of them for this reason advance but butch as far as the NFO is concerned how much freedom would you be losing if you were to cooperate with the NFO or join the NFO whatever might be involved in a particular identity situation well I don't consider that you gave up any freedoms at all I consider like Dr. Muller says that you gain a lot of freedom because you gain a fair price at the market place as soon as the farmers start working together you might lose your freedom to go broke so to speak but they've got people more concerned about losing their freedom to go broke and they have losing their freedom to make a little money in and more change I think time the family farm start making a little money and get together so that we can preserve the family farm system of agriculture just as the the sportsmen Dr. Muller pointed out has preserved the fishing if they hadn't have done this fishing would have been gone a long time ago probably most of the fish would have been confident and it would be over and the same thing goes for the family farm if we don't get together organized for a fair price as the Secretary of Agriculture has said the family farm will go down the drain along this line of I of course I'm a member of the NFO and I help with the various things involved from time to time and try to visit some of my neighbors often on in terms of their understanding in if we're better and joining the NFO and it's been interesting butch that in visiting with some of these people that they say well I don't want to join any for because I lose my freedom but it's a surprising thing some of these same people that say this may be a few months later you see the sale go up in town there across the banker is sold amount or they've been forced to quit for one reason another mainly because the price of what they receive and I think people need to be a little bit honest with ourselves on on this score and look at the thing objectively and what should be done and can be done into it I think this is right and if the camera will come in on the chart there I see they already have this represents rural America will church the finally the businessman the banker and there about all of them to slide downhill together now what they need to do is join hands and realize that they all lead to each other and that by joining hands and uniting together with a spirit of cooperation as the title says cooperation is the key this will enable all of us receive a fair price the merchant to stay in business the rural church to continue in the community our local schools and so on and so forth but if we fail to do this we're all going down the slope together Dr. Mueller as far as the farming of Main Street cooperating together what are some of the things that should be done and can be done to to do this to improve their general lot well I would say the I think there should be more dialogue between the farmer and the people on Main Street do they understand each other's problems not all farmers are convinced that they have a problem and there's a man on main street he deals with all farmers and so he hears many different stories I think here again the farmer has to be honest with himself and and taken real inventory is he doing fairly well no we don't want to emphasize any- we are net for inefficiency or poor management but when we do have a good manager is this manager really being adequately paid for his management or and is he being paid for the time that he puts in if he for instance went and sold out and went someplace else with his ability and his manageability and skill what could he get someplace else because I think it's important not just to stay in business in farming but that we developed farming as a profession that's desirable for young people to want to go into we just can't think of ourselves as staying in farming and willing to be willing to put up with all the hardships we've got to also think in terms of farming as an industry that can attract and the best young people or at least a fair number of the young people and then when they do go into farming that these people will be adequately rewarded now here I have a real problem I have two son or i have four son I just think of two one is works in Chicago and he is the maintenance man for a large for a firm and I know what he makes and he has little money invested he probably maintains thousands and thousand dollars of equipment but my son on the farm well he manages a lot of capital and not only manages the capital he has a lot of his own capital invested and it takes the risk of having borrowed al of that capital but he does not we receive the same amount of return for his effort a management labor and just plain hard work now he's willing to put up with it because he likes farm otherwise he wouldn't be in it but well somebody else be willing to do this this doesn't attract young people to a grinder it's real serious and in this point that now 2 and 4/10 million farmers are over 55 years of age and the point that Dr. Mueller is making for instance if his grandchildren don't want to continue in farming or someone else's grandchildren they'll be no farmers left after a while to carry on and then Main Street will really suffer if assuming that we continue in the general trend we have been over the years Dr. Mueller the average age of the farmer becomes higher and higher and there become a point where there aren't any young people coming on what do you anticipate what happens at this point I think the trend continues you have less and less time the declining population will either be accelerated and I don't think any of us really want this and I don't think this is according to what I know and what I read this is not necessarily in the best interest of total nation I'm not interested in maintaining farm for the sake of maintaing a farm I'm not concerned with mr. who's senator I'm concerned with what is good for the nation and I think what's good for the nation according my conviction is this that we have a fairly number of good farm units large enough size they can- they function efficiently they can turn out of income to the producer if he gets an adequate price but he's constantly trying to get an added income by enlarging his holdings by getting more land or more cattle by expansion and his I would say his work load becomes two large and this I don't think is desirable at all because I'm just tell you that they aren't going to put up with it at that point then you would have outside capital come in and you'd have a different farming structure than we're currently having they'd be financed differently and and at this point you would see very large farms consolidation farms and large farms and these people would basically be bypassing the local businessmen and in their dealings in I would say it's a well-known fact I think that where we have big large farms I feel we have in California for example the small town disappears by small town I mean a town twenty-five five hundred thousand or three thousand this like ya see we have a lot of these good places and they're good places to live they're very desirable now they must fulfill a role we don't wanna maintain towns just to maintain to simple maintain towns they must provide a service to society and I think they can if the farmer is in a position to buy these services I think Dr. Mueller you made an excellent point before the program started on the success of the farmer getting a fair price hangs the future of Main Street would you live right on that just a little well I think they're they're in this together because I don't think there's a man on Main Street has any other source of income except the money he gets from the farmers for the service that he rendered and if the farmer is in a in a tight economic position then he is not going to buy his services how can he and in this sense I would say the man on Main Street is also underpaid I would say the man on main street he's also not being adequately reimbursed for his input of capital and his risk and his management the we've been talking in terms of the man on Main Street and being a minister what are your views as far as the church would be concerned in this issue my main concern here as a churchman is for justice I don't particular identify with any particular farm organization I've watched NFO for years I've been associated with with it ever since it sort of started but I work also with other farm organizations I worked with Farmers Union long before i ever heard of NFO and I hold it by the way I'll hold a membership in two farmers organizations won't tell ya which one but I will membership in two of them and the this is partly because the fact my son is a farmer and I'm a partner [unclear] though I feel a person should out to support farm organizations and but I came back to my role as a churchman I am for justice and what I have to tell you frankly what I've particularly appreciated about NFO is the fact that I think they've identified the problem mainly that the problem is that the farmer is not getting an adequate price an in collective bargaining I see the a farm organization reaching for a marketing structure to deal with mass production urban society has done this a long time ago they've come up with a a structure by means of which the laboring people could get a fair price for their input of labour now I would say in the farming picture up to this point we have not yet come up with a successful tool or structure that will give the farmer an adequate income I see the possibilities of collective bargaining being the answer but there'll be an [unclear] if it fails it will not be because of collective bargaining it will be because the farmers are not using it adequately and to use it adequately means that just one or two using it they've got to work together and make a commitment to each other just recently we have enjoyed the first of July our Independence Day I think we ought to check and see the commitment that the signers of the Declaration of Independence made to each other they covered each fortunes and their lives and they stuck with it and that's why we became a nation and until the farmers are willing they're covered with each other and stick with it and make and and work for long term goals but they're always selling each other out because as soon as they can get a better price some place else they desert their own organization and here's where I come again as a churchman this is wrong I say that the farmers owe to each other to work together the farmers owe it to each other to get a better price if the neighbor's house is on fire the neighbors will come in and try to put it out the farmer is in trouble because of inadequate price and I think the farmers ought to rally around each other in order to get at this particular thing and I think the business in our main street they out to be able to- they ought to support them and encourage them going on to the legal aspect of the people on Main Street and the farmers working together Butch what are some of the things that be involved here well of course all the Main Street merchants that own a farm where Dr. Muller points out in partnership to the farm they can belong to NFO as such but they can produce- [unclear] encourage the rest of them to organize and get a price there Dr. Mueller pointed out their future hangs together we either hang together or they will hang them one at a time but it's illegal for the farmers to ask non-members to cooperate or like to say during the holding action they can ask them to join the organization and support their efforts but it's illegal for them to go out and as Dr. Mueller pointed out all the farm organizations have done some good the Capper-Volstead Act spells out that it can be producers and producers only that join together in this collective bargaining effort senator Capper made the statement that this gives the farmers the same legal right to bargain collectively that's already enjoyed by corporations in other words Dr. Muller collective bargaining under the capper-volstead Act gives the farmers the legal right or the legal tool to be a businessman a good businessman and run has been a strike a business and I think that for the good of all of them the merchants and all of them should think about this thing and it hinges the success of the farmer getting a price hangs the future of Main Street well most certainly they should take an active part in understanding the problem and promoting what can be done to solve it you could ask the question on this and for instance then if I am NOT a farmer or another production business at all yes any consumer then it is not possible for me to belong to the NFO right no this is right but the Capper-Volstead Act says it shall be producers and producers only now another thing you mention which I'd like to know I heard a lot about this but if if you as a organization a collective bargaining agent for a group of farmers and then you can then you also be involved in being a purchasing agent no this would be a double agent would not work in other words an NFO if it wants to be the collective bargaining agent for farmers then it cannot go into insurance or you cannot go into selling the fertilizers or the buying the feed this right in this yes this is right and this is why the Main Street merchants mostly appreciate NFO because they don't enter into any business of any king no competition with the local merchants they don't try to now we're not saying that all the farmers should give up their other farm organization Dr. Muller what we're saying is that they should sit down together and go as one unit as producers and producers only in other words the NFO could be sort of the marketing agency in common for all farm organizations and all farmers so this way they can get together and this is the ground the legal ground whereby the merchants and other people should encourage at the farmers to do understand yeah I think the Main Street man he he ought not to be put in the position had to take side I think there is a role for different farm organizations and the ones that do a real good job an area of the being purchasing the agent for the farmers and some of them have a real good job in the area of opening up foreign markets i think there's a real role for the various organizations my concern is that they complement each other and I see no no conflict at all and belong to more than one farm organization because they do two different things this is right in fact I belong to a total of four farm organizations actually we appreciate having been able to bring us farm report to you today to explain some of the things that are involved as far as the businessman on Main Street so how he is affected by agriculture and how the country as a whole is affected by agriculture to the and at this point I'd like to direct my remarks to those of you who that are not yet NFO members if you have not yet joined the NFO we would appreciate and that you joined the NFO today because the success of the NFO hang- hinges on you the non-member in order to be successful as an organization we must have active participation and that would your membership now to those of you that are members I would like to suggest that you contact your non-member neighbor and ask explain to him the any of oh she doesn't completely understand it and ask him to join the NFO with you in order to raise farm prices the NFO during the next few weeks will be on a intensive campaign to get more members to make collective bargaining work real effectively for agriculture so that we can improve not only the income of agriculture but of the rural community as a whole [music] members of the national farmers organization invites 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 wealth the national farmers organization represents new thinking in a new generation of farmers\for the farm income pattern sets the nation's prosperity TuneIn again next week at the same time for another edition of us farm report sponsored by members of the national farmers organization in this local area [music]