NFO-28 US Farm Report: Businessmen Go NFO (AV10436)

NFO [MUSIC] today on our us farm report the title of our show will be businessmen goal for NFO I have as my special guest today a number of businesspeople from the state of Minnesota there is a problem in the United States today that most big-city people and many small communities and farm people aren't aware that exists and that our rural way of life in America is in danger of disappearing it is difficult to drive by or fly over our seemingly prosperous farm areas here in the Midwest and imagine that this way of life could come to an end and yet that is exactly what is happening a good example of the threatening extinction of the rural way of life is what is happening what has happened and what is happening at Granite Falls Minnesota a rural community of just over 3,000 people this is why we brought these three businessmen together the rural community roundtable let me introduce them to my left is Arnold Paulson of Granite Falls manager of the Minnesota Business and Industrial Promotion Agency is also once voted Minnesota's Man of the Year his well-known speaker throughout the Midwest and number two to his left is Elmo Volstad executive secretary of the Granite Falls Chamber of Commerce and former newspaperman with 15 years experience in this field and to his left is Bob Wadsworth a Minneapolis businessman who calls on rural clients have made him concerned with the farm problem and to start out here today we're going to have a roundtable discussion of the situation and to start the program off here I would like to ask Mr. Paulson how did you first become aware that there is a farm problem well thank you mr. Swaim I come from a community in western Minnesota that's been a very progressive community and a very good agricultural area but Granite Falls Minnesota as thousands of other communities throughout America during the past 10-15 years has been quite conscious of doing something to stimulate the economic growth of our community and so we have had a very extensive industrial promotion or industrial development program going on in our community and for the past several years I have been working with communities who have been interested in attracting industry to their communities primarily to help bail themselves out of their economic mess now going back to the year '52- 1952 is when this mass promotion and in America started to try and attract industry to the communities to try and help stimulate their local economic situation now in some of my promotional work and in trying to sell communities on the idea of attracting industry I had to have some arguments stressing the benefits and obtaining industry so I conducted a economic survey of the communities to determine how much value was actually derived from an industry well when I completed this survey I found out that the per capita income in the community was not sufficient for the people to live from industry alone and so I pursued to find out where the rest of the community's source of income originated and the only other place I had the turn was to agriculture and after a real thorough economic survey of the entire economic picture of the rural community my findings prove that the average community depends four times as strongly on agriculture for their existence and income as we do in industry and yet in my community we have possibly more industry than any other community our size in the state of Minnesota we possibly have as much industry per capita as any community in our side- in our state and yet I found that industry only contributes approximately 400 dollars per year per capita and I found in my survey that agriculture just in taking into consideration the farmers on the Granite Falls mailing routes contributes 1,600 dollars per year per capita four times the amount that our industries do now don't misunderstand me I am not trying to discourage communities from attracting industry I encourage it because attracting industry will help stimulate your local tax base and it will help increase the job employment in the community but I have come to a conclusion that attracting industry cannot possibly solve the economic problems of rural America that agriculture is still the largest industry in the nation and still the largest industry in our various states and if we want to really do something to help stimulate the economic growth of our communities let's get behind this agricultural problem and support it because agriculture is the largest industry in America today and at the same time it is the sickest very good Arnold I think you brought out some real good points and now Mr. Volstad & Granite Falls folks by the way might be of interest to a number of you people Granite Falls as the community the home community of Senator Volstad who was a co-sponsor of the Senate of the Capper-Volstad Act under which the National Farmers Organization has the legal right to operate and Mr. Volstad we understand that Granite Falls was the first community in the country to take a stand on supporting the NFO why did the businessmen do this and how did they go about it prominent Mr. Swaim the businesspeople in Granite Falls have always been interested in the farmer as any community businessman throughout the United States because of the dollar he spends in that community but the Granite Falls business people have had through the years more opportunity perhaps to study the agricultural situation as far as it affects their community our brochure which we use in our Granite Falls promotion always includes in there one statement farming his principle industry back in the 1950s an active JC chapter from Granite Falls promoted farm forums to educate or bring our businessmen perhaps up to date on the farming situation in the area what was happening to farming two-and-a-half years ago when I took over as executive secretary of the Chamber of Commerce our board discussed this problem of farming we felt that our business people were not keeping up with the steps being taking and trying to solve the farming problem as it existed then we instituted a series of meetings with all the farm organizations in our area invited them to come into our community building and hold meetings we sits with them financially and in the promotion of their meetings one organization brought in a state president another one brought in the national president during this time businessmen were encouraged invited directly to attend these meetings and they did attend them now Mr. Swaim you say why did the businessmen make this NFO okay the reason I feel that they've studied this enough they understand the situation and when the NFO people held a banquet for the business people explaining their program and then later went to the businessmen and said will you put this sticker on your window I believe in NFO the businessmen understood that possibly here was an organization that was doing something it was young it was active and something had to be done and the businessmen went ahead and put their stickers in the window I believe an NFO over 90 percent the Granite Falls Chamber of Commerce took this as an endorsement and we planned a large rally last year just before the presidential election I called the White House for a statement on farming on agriculture I called presidential candidate Barry Goldwater I talked to their offices I received no statement this was done in a hurry so perhaps we can forgive them but we held our rally people came for hundreds of miles to attend this and as a result of that the newspaper you saw in the format of this program businessman go for NFO the area did wake up other communities start to follow suit a hundred thousand copies of this issue were distributed throughout the United States we drew national attention and we must draw attention to more businessmen in more communities to what's happening unless the businessmen wake up in rural America and take a stand to improve- to do something about our agricultural situation they'll not only lose one or two customers because of taking a stand but they'll lose their business this is why the Granite Falls businessmen went very good and I know that a lot of people don't realize the seriousness of this farm situation recently in the US News & World Report there was a survey of what's happening in agriculture stating that over half of our farmers are already gone since the beginning of 1940 and that now the latest thing in prospect in1965 here is that seventy one percent more of the nation's total farmers are scheduled to leave in possibly the next three years now this is not the little inefficient farms down south this is farms throughout the United States and this survey shows that this would include 65% of all the farms in the Northeast 79% of the farmers in the south and approximately 65% in the Midwest 66% in the West or in the Midwest alone now just the Midwest portion of the United States they're scheduled to leave if you'll visualize this thing and I think this is why businessmen will go for NFO as soon as they understand it there's eight hundred and sixty thousand farmers that are scheduled to leave the Midwest alone now it's a big figure it sounds big but let's see how big really how big in order to accomplish this it would be the equivalent of eliminating every single farmer in the state of Missouri every farmer in the state of Iowa Plus every farmer in Minnesota every farmer in North Dakota every farmer in South Dakota every farmer in the state of Nebraska every farmer in the state of Kansas plus all of the farmers that are remaining in the state of Colorado to make up this hundred or eight hundred and sixty thousand that's scheduled to leave the Midwest and there's no reason for this the NFO can correct this situation and prevent it this is my opinion why the businessmen go for NFO because there's plenty of opportunity in the Midwest for everybody or we wouldn't all be here now I'd like to ask mr. Wadsworth you're a businessman in Minneapolis how did you get interested in the farm problem well Mr. Swaim as you know I call on a lot of rural clients in the state of Minnesota I got drawn into this almost by accident I was calling on a business client of mine in northern Minnesota and he suggested we go along that evening to hear Arnold Paulson give a talk on what is happening in the farm area when I heard Mr. Paulson talk I was simply dumbfounded by the enormity of the problem and I couldn't begin to believe that it could be that serious so I began to check on my own I talked to some small bankers I talked to some farmers I talked to businessmen throughout the Minnesota area and I soon became aware that actually the problem was not only true but more serious than even Mr. Paulson had pointed out for one thing I discovered that many many businessmen and farmers were in debt up to their ears and that many small bankers the independent bankers were saying openly that they didn't see how they could continue to grant loans to the farmers for seed and for implements and for just in order to keep going now as I became aware of the problem I also and I incidentally attended some other meetings where mr. Paulson talked and I got to know him I found that many many businessmen and farmers want to know what they could do to help solve this problem and simply survive and the rural way of life life survived and at that time I also became aware that read Paulson was more or less carrying the burden by himself he was actually letting his small community business go to pot so to speak while he went out and made talks to wake up rural America to what was happening so we slowly conceived the idea of an independent nonprofit committee or organization to help out where we could to help solve this problem and to make the general public simply aware of what was going on the the enormity and the problem as I say should be appalling to everybody well we actually formed this- we have formed this committee and we've started what we call a crusade to save rural America and this is the main reason why I joined this group although I don't happen to be from Granite Falls we're starting this crusade and we want to enlist eventually the aid of everyone we we can wake up to the fact that this problem exists and that something has to be done about it well-read and speaking engagements throughout the Upper Midwest I know you've had many of these some of the interesting figures that goes with your County and Yellow Medicine and why it was in the farm dilemma can you give us some of this illustration or something on what's happened in your area the survey that you ran well Bob we conducted an economic growth survey of Yellow Medicine County and also of our community and I believe it's almost essential for every community to conduct one of these surveys if they are going to know and understand the economic problems that exist in their community because unless we know where this money originates how it is spent and where it is spent we really don't understand our community and so we ran one of these surveys in our County and one of the amazing things that I discovered was the fact that rural communities have been living off of farm expense money and farm debt for approximately the past twelve years now this is hard for the average businessman to understand because he doesn't realize that each and every the farmers have been forced to go back to their local banker and increase their debt to keep their farm going now the only thing that's made it possible for farmers to increase their debt is the fact that over the years land inflation has has made this a possibility very briefly but the survey that I conducted in the Yellow Medicine County I found out that the average farmers gross income was about ninety three hundred dollars I also found out that the average operating expense for our farms was six thousand nine hundred and seventy five dollars and that the average net profit for the county was twenty three hundred and twenty five dollars per year now this is only an average of $59 per week and yet these farmers have got an investment of over sixty thousand dollars and they received no return on their investment and now we're speaking in generalities about averages well the actually the average farmer in our County has lost money each and every year because the only thing that brings this average up to twenty three hundred to twenty five dollars is the fact that we have some large operators in our County who are collecting all the way from five to fifteen thousand dollars a year soil bank payments which rises this average now I found out that that through this survey that farm expense money is what has been supporting our community and that the average businessman does not realize this because when a farmer comes into my store and lays the dollar bill on my table I didn't have the slightest idea whether this farmer earned the dollar or whether he'd been to the bank and borrowed money on his next year's crop or the crop two years from now and yet the Independent Bankers of America are real concerned about this situation because the average farmer today has extended himself to the maximum limit and he cannot go into debt any further and when the farmers credit runs out then the flow of money into the communities of rural America has run out but I wish that every businessman and every rural community throughout America would take a good inside look at where their money comes from and I'm sure that they'll appreciate the fact that they have been living off of the farmers expense and off a farm debt and not off of farm net income this is the very good observation I'm sure because as long as the farmer has to spend all that he produces of course this flows through the channels in the rural community but he doesn't have enough left over to educate his children and to live a decent life like the rest of the people in the economy so this is a something to remember that and you don't really miss this until the well runs dry the speaking and the old saying goes because when the family farm out here disappears and the structure begins to fall down brings on a depression or a recession whatever you want to call it many people says recession but when it affects them it's a depression they talk about a recession when it affects the other fellow so right now the farmers look at it as they're having a farm depression while the rest of the industry might think we're having a farm recession but the fact remains that when the family farm goes and I know Arnold I've heard you say make this remark many times then when one farm disappears another one has to take over and they go ahead and another farmer absorbs this land that it leaves somebody else to pay the tax load but the one farmer that does remain just somehow just wears one pair of overalls and he just wears one pair of shoes and he just has one family to feed and clothe so it cuts down the spending in the area regardless of what happens and I think this is an interesting observation now Arnold do you have anything to add as far as the effect on the community is concerned on the overall thing and why the businessmen go for NFO and why the businessmen throughout rural America should go for NFO give us your ideas on some of these things well Butch I noticed that our time is almost running up so I'll hit this one very briefly yes I can see why every businessmen throughout rural America should go for NFO because probably the best illustration Butch is during the flood season this year people really banded together and they- they shovel sand and they help sandbag the the dikes prevent their community from being flooded we were very much concerned about water doing damage to the buildings in our community well now if businessmen would take a good inside look at the agricultural problem we would find that the dam of inflation is busting and that as our farmers are going broke that our communities are going to die just as sure as if we were drowneded out by a flood and this is reason enough we should be concerned about the very source of our income where our money comes from and what we can do to help stimulate the economic growth of our community but Butch I don't want to see this program in without giving my solution to this problem because I feel that rural America is living in very serious times and that the time is our worst enemy and that we've got to take some immediate action to solve this thing now I've analyzed the various farm problems and I've looked into supply and demand and my conclusion has been this that the only time that supply and demand on the open market has ever worked has been during war or famine and I'll be darned if I want to see another war to get farmers a decent price nor do I want to see farmers or people have to go hungry to raise farm prices I think the rural America and the farmers are entitled to fair farm prices all the time and let's take a look at government as a solution I think that government has no intentions right now Butch of solving it because the president has indicated this in his budget message and this is why I feel that it's high time for businessmen or for farmers to become businessmen and form their own marketing arrangements like every other segment of the economy in this country and put a price on their product and solve this program- or this problem once and for all and this is why I'm not afraid to take a stand and support the NFO as the solution to the problem and the thing that will save rural America and Elmo how about you what's your reactions there must be an answer we have to do something to save rural America the NFO right now is the one active organization that seems to have a workable answer I wish that all the farm organizations the farmers the businessmen the 7% of our population the farmer and the people that handle this project if they banded together would be 40% of the population then something could be done we must join together to solve this one great problem that's facing our country Bob how do you feel about it well among the many figures that I've heard you give Arnold from time to time the one that's impressed me probably the most is the fact that corporation profits seem to be directly tied to farm income from year to year that figure that you have cited of 60% of farm income equals the net corporation profits and I think all of America simply has to wake up to the fact that we may trigger off a gigantic depression if we continue to let farm prices remain low as they are today that's absolutely true Bob because right now this is a deep concern of the independent Bankers Association they fear a depression because of this problem because the country cannot go on and live off of farm debt and I would highly encourage businessmen to talk to their local banker and become aware of the fantastic debt that farmers have had to accumulate to keep our communities going what do you say Butch well there's no question about this as you fellas pointed out there each dollar of gross farm income generate 60 cents net profit with the corporations of America and the NFO the National Farmers Organization is not against big business but it believes that the biggest business of all the agriculture business should be operated like a business and should receive its fair share Senate capper in discussing the Capper-Volstad Act which is enacted in 1922 said that the cooperative marketing bill as it was offered to both the Senate in the house seeks simply to make definite laws relating to the cooperative- the cooperative associations of farmers and to establish a basis on which these organizations may be legally formed it is the purpose to give- its purpose is to give the farmers the same legal right to bargain to collectively that is already enjoyed by the corporations of America and Mr. Volstad- Senator Volstad said in growing up this bill the object of this bill is to modify the laws under which business organizations are formed so that the farmers may take advantage of the form of organization that is used by business concerns in other words what you gentlemen are saying about making seeing the Farmers of America wake up to become good businessmen is just exactly what the Capper-Volstad Act was intended for people and this here's what will happen folks if family farm prices pair farm prices are restored to America the flow of dollars throughout the Midwest will more than double it will double through Granite Falls, USA it will double through all rural comm- communities USA rural communities or communities like Des Moines, Iowa Kansas City, Missouri, Minneapolis, Minnesota in Omaha yes I said double the dollar flow will double in those communities and it won't cost anybody anything because prosperity starts on the farm and it continues on through our economy when each one gets their fair share everybody prospers the farmers members the national farmers organization this group of businessmen that are here today and many other hundreds of groups of businessmen and farmers are calling on everyone the join hands to solve our problem in America today [music]