Advocates; Should large corporations be driven out of farming?; 98

Tonight. From Boston the ad look at. Howard Miller. William rancheria. And the moderator Michael Dukakis. Welcome to the OF. The. Week at this time we look at an important public issue in terms of a practical choice. And we invite you to participate in the political process by listening to our debate and then sending us your votes. Tonight's issue concerns farming and specifically our question is this Should large corporations be driven out of farming. Advocate Howard Miller says yes. Large financial conglomerates are farming rural America for a harvest of dollars. And leaving behind an enormous human costs which we all pay for. With me tonight to urge that industrial companies get out of agriculture. Our Jim Hightower director of the agribusiness Accountability Project in Washington and the United States senator from Oklahoma. Brad Harris. Advocate with and lusher says no. Tonight's proposal is an attempt to turn back the clock

of American agriculture 50 years. It will drive up your food bill increase your taxes and not even help the small farmers it pretends to protect. With me tonight to tell you why are Russell Jeckell corn on hog farmer from Delavan Illinois. Howard Margulis president for agricultural operations of Tenneco and Professor Willard Williams of Texas Tech University. Thank you gentlemen. And now for some background on tonight's question. The small farmer in America is an endangered species in the last 20 years. Two million family farmers have been driven off the land. And Secretary of Agriculture Earl butts predicts another million of the 2.9 million remaining and leave their farms in the next decade. The farmer particularly the small farmer is being squeezed out of business. Increased food prices have mostly benefited the middlemen not the farmer. On the basic price paid for farm produce has remained relatively stable.

The cost of everything the farmer needs to raise that Prouty's has increased dramatically. Crimes have survived by becoming more efficient. Thirty years ago the average farmer worked a hundred and sixty seven acres of land. Today the average farm has grown to almost 400 acres. In short the process sees fewer and fewer people in farming. It is a process that sees the land itself being concentrated in larger and larger holdings. Coincident with the decline of the small farm. Has been the emergence of a new agricultural institution. A giant diversified corporation with farm and non-farm holdings. Such agribusiness giants now account for a growing share of farm production in America. While last year is still relatively small. The impact of corporations able to control every aspect of food production from the field to the supermarket shelf has been profound. The cry of alarm that has arisen from a small farm in America has resulted in legislation now before Congress that would

drive these diversified corporate giants out of farming. The legislation introduced by Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin is called a Family Farm Act of 1972. In the words of the act it is designed to restore competition to the agricultural industry and to provide for the continuance of the family farm. Specifically the Family Farm Act of 1972 would require any individual or corporation that owned more than three million dollars in non-farm assets to divest itself of all of its agricultural holdings. It would prohibit certain contractual arrangements between individual farmers and farm processors and it would encourage individual farmers to market or sell their products through farmer cooperatives. Senator Nelson and others supporting the bill believes that it is an important and necessary first step in reversing American foreign policy particularly as it affects the family farmer. The bill is now in committee but the sponsors of the bill hope to have it on the floor for debate

during this session of Congress. And that of the cases. Mr. Miller Why should large corporations be driven out affirming the family farm according to agricultural efficiency studies of the Department of Agriculture is happily the most efficient farm in the country. The one the two main farm no matter what it is dairy peaches vegetables or anything else but that farm agriculturally efficient cannot compete against the non farming industrial companies that are today coming into agriculture pure X growing strawberries and Boling tomatoes potatoes. Why not. Because the non-agricultural agricultural company can use financial and tax benefits that have nothing to do with agricultural efficiency. Tax write offs make little profit but hold onto the land for capital gains bargain for volume discounts what the small farm can not do. And so the small farmers threatened and the balance sheet of a large industrial company may on occasion show a profit but it's profit without value because in its way the large industrial company that

drives small farmers out of business leaves behind human costs that are on no one's balance sheet. Our system of accounting does not tell us how true the cost is when people must leave the farm even though they are efficient and move to cities. What's happened to Ellis Hale and Joe Weiss hour does not appear on any corporate balance sheet. Nevertheless it is a human loss to all of us and to the United States. Here in Arkansas. LS Hale tells us how we used to have a chicken farm but got driven out by the big corporations. This is what our house Number one there is number two. Number three and forward located down to the Hill. We were putting about a quarter of a million birds out of the building every year since 1962. We haven't grown one single solitary brawler not one chicken had come of it in 1962. And the reason no chickens have come off our farm in 1962 is because the big

corporation. Blacklist boycotted it and weren't conspiracy among themselves to stop a broad broad organization that we were instrumental in forming. I think that the the the farmer is definitely the most exploited man in the country and he's being exploited not only by the corporations but he's being exploited by the Department of Agriculture. I don't contribute to any political fund. I'm just an individual farmer and that's where the difference is. The corporations have the money. They have the power they have the politicians. They have enough politicians bought and paid for that they can control. The laws that are enacted in the administration of those low. Up. In Iowa. Joel Weiss are conceded that big corporations are

about to move into the hog raising area. He told us about the danger you see. The way corporations are going to get into hog farming and there's many of them starting this way now. They offer breeding stock to put out for shares or contract. And at first you're not tied to a contract where you have to sell the product. This is going to come later. It's kind of a creeping thing. And if the contracts get tighter and tighter just like they did in the poultry industry and after awhile you know you're going to be told where you have to market your product you're going to be told what to feed have to be to be fed if if your contract is tied in with the feed company. And in fact after all you're going to be asked just just labor for and you're going to lose all your all your management decisions will be made by someone else. I don't see I don't see possibly how. Corporations with hired labor can do as good a

job as the family farmer is willing to sacrifice all these days. And he's using these family labor hours mean nothing to him. He's willing to make these sacrifices. Tell us Hale is one of millions of farmers who've been forced off the land in the past 30 years. That tract gives Joe Eisenhower a lot to think about. That can happen all over the United States. Tell us why we must try and stop it now. I've asked to join us tonight. Jim Hightower. Welcome to the advocates Mr. Haidari. Jim Hightower is director of the agribusiness Accountability Project in Washington D.C.. Mr. Hightower is there a threat to the family farm today and what is it. Well this certainly is the threat essentially is since about 1945 the rise of corporate power in rural America involved here are not just family corporations or minor

corporations but really the literally the corporate strength of America the the same job conglomerates that sit on Wall Street in New York City that's all across the country right across to Montgomery Street in San Francisco AT&T for example is involved Boeing aircraft is involved Tenneco just the giant corporations the conglomerates that are moving into agriculture in addition to the conglomerates. There is an enormous rise in vertically integrated agribusiness is involved here for the giant processing corporations. The brand names that you find in the grocery store shelves you can literally just go down a grocery store shelf and practically for every brand name there Delmonte Han Heinz Campbell's Soup Swift. There you can assume that most of those are vertically integrated Dulux those large companies bring efficiencies to agriculture or do they just bring the advantages of their money. Well they do mostly bring the advantages of their money. Efficiency is a myth has been perpetrated by agribusiness and by its apologists both in Congress and elsewhere.

Efficiency is for years we had in this country a family farm system that produce food as a fix as efficiently as anybody can produce it it produce good food and food at a relatively cheap price. Corporate efficiency is can be more a matter of business than it is a matter of farming corporation business and farming are two separate pursuits. A corporation like AT&T might be good at getting the telephone steward but it's not terribly good at getting farms. What about this remedy that the bill suggests having the large industrial companies divest themselves of the their agricultural holdings. Is that unusual for us in this. No it's not unusual at all. I think it's a very appropriate step at this time to take essentially we're dealing with a Clayton Act which is the basic antitrust document of this country. When the Claydon Act was passed agriculture was exempt. And essentially what this bill does is just put agriculture back in there. I'll have to break in at this point. Mr. Treasurer a question to ask you retards are the cause of your answering them would

you tell us what it means to be a vertically integrated corporation. What can you do that briefly to begin. Yes vertical vertically integrated corporation or of Agriculture essentially means a non farming corporation that is controlling production Why doesn't it also mean a farming corporation that's controlling production. What is there about vertical integration that exclusively pertains to non farming corporation. Well it's the non-farm farming corporations that are vertically integrating backwards and forwards into the production of food. Now some foreign corporations might move forward themselves. How about co-ops. There are a lot of co-ops that are vertically integrated Arther co-ops though are owned and controlled by farmers. Yes but they're monopolies in their field the citrus juice co-ops control 70 percent of the American production of citrus juice. Why are they not mentioned in the Nelsonville. Because those are co-ops of farmers those are producers and they're not vertically integrated.

How monopolies conducted by farmers themselves or. Well they're not monopolies. I don't think the issue tonight is not Koach how this is public health. Well the issue tonight is maybe comparing corporate and co-op power and why you exclude one from the bill and include the other but you can show me a co-op that has the resources of AT&T and I think we'll be talking with us on that Sunkist had plenty of resources and they're not on that level. Well come on IP and he has the resources that need to do what it does. Let's ask you this. The Nelsonville to begin with doesn't just apply to large corporations at all does it. It applies to corporations assets of over three million dollars and not just the corporations the person's partnerships exudes conglomerate and partnerships also as well as corporations. In point of fact then the Nielsen bill is not aimed exclusively at large corporations at all with corporations as it is aimed at persons conglomerates corporations partnerships with assets of more than three million. Yes. Suppose a large corporation or a bigger individual farmer or for that matter does have. Advantages from the size of his operation either efficiency advantages or simply from

size getting credit. Things like that. And suppose further that he does pass along. His savings to the consumer in the form of lower prices. Are you saying or suggesting that we should pay higher prices to the small farmer in order to preserve the values of a say of a small farm. No nothing at all. As I said in my opening statement that efficiency is not a factor of bigness. Well I'm coming to the efficiency but assuming that there were an advantage to bigness even just getting credit for example sometimes is should the consumer be willing to pay the higher price to a small farmer. There are values on the small farm that are worth preserving that's what I was getting at. And you do feel that it would be appropriate to pay a slightly higher price in order to preserve that. I'm not sure that we have to pay a slightly higher price do it. I'm not willing to concede that you I think that question that if you don't want to concede that you spoke Mr Miller of the larger operations not in fact being more efficient but in the broiler chicken industry

which Mr. Miller's first farmer had been in and which was shown to us on film Ralph Nader's task force in 1971 reported that thanks to the new technology the chickens used to cost in 1950 about 60 cents a pound. In 1970 the price was forty two cents. The price that was a good deal more than 42 cents a pound. The price is also several thousand small farmers like Mr. Hainey in the south that are devils. That's what I'm asking you should we be paying higher prices for chickens in order for Mr. Haynie to continue but that the price has gone down is not a function of purine insufficiency. Well it certainly was sufficient to get Mr. Haynie out of the business. The price that the efficiency of your antics and the well certainly by the end of the story isn't it is not a human value when we're able to pay 42 cents rather than 60 cents a pound for chicken but you pay on April 15th as well as you pay at the Super Bowl. Exactly. And Mr. Haney I assume is not on as I understood it he had another business. Now he is not on welfare. So that a the question. Probably paying taxes like the rest of us. Tell me why can't the Sherman and Clayton anti-trust acts and the Federal Trade Act be used to prevent the

kind of conspiracy and blacklisting that Mr. Hainey used to Russia before Mr. McKale gets very upset at the fact for another they got to clear that up and I don't think that it is Mr. HILL. Mr. Hale the farmer we saw who had been in the broader chicken business what he accused unnamed people there of conspiracy and blacklisting. Why can't the acts that I meant to Sherman quaking in federal trade be used to go after those people. I don't know why they haven't done it before except the regulatory agencies generally have not. I have not been terribly high tech and have certainly not been involved in agriculture. You take the FTC which finally has found a new action against United Brands but it's 2000 farmers a week leaving the land I don't think that the farmers of this country are going to be willing to wait. I don't know. Are you saying that that people are not enforcing the laws the laws would work. It sounds like. How do you think they're going then to enforce the law that you want passed. I think that there will be actions under this law that are possible that that are not now being taken. It's an emphasis a focus that we need on the family farm system in the country.

What about farmers who want to sign up with non foreign corporations like the bill does not related to the bill does not prohibit them from signing up with Tenneco. Not at all. I think what you mean is it does not prevent them from selling. It does not prove anything else. I said signing up with actually becoming a part of the technical operation. For example Tenneco harvest the crops in large areas in California where we should Tenneco be allowed to harvest. Why should the farmer let them harvest. He wants to become a farmer because the one farmer is not the issue. The issue is is productivity and and the entire agricultural economy. So Ralston Purina again was with one farmer. I think the lesson is in all areas so that they actually have to break in at this point. Gentlemen thank you very much for being with us. The bill prohibits his industrial concerns controlling agricultural production whatever that involves. Prices of broilers fell but there's no evidence that it fell because Ralston Purina or other companies assumed ownership. We do know that Ralston Purina

and other companies were found by the Department of Agriculture to have done that illegally and violated many acts in the process. In fact the one family farm the one or two man family farm is the most efficient in the country. Its productivity rose twice as fast as that of industrial concerns. The only reason larger companies can enter agriculture is because of the accidents of their financial and taxability has nothing to do with agricultural efficiency. Let's protect agricultural efficiency and the human values of the family farm. Thank you Mr. Miller We'll be back to you later for your rebuttal case. Now let's turn to Mr. Rusher. Find out why large corporations should not be driven out of poverty. Once upon a time the small family farm was the perfect way to carry out agricultural production. In some cases it still is but in many others the small farmers have had to incorporate and enlarge their own operations or band together in big cooperatives to process and market their products efficiently. In a few instances corporations and other lines of business have thought it might be worthwhile to go into farming from

the seed to the consumers so to speak using their capital and their marketing know how to do what the average farmer could not reasonably be expected to do. Tonight's proposal pretend to concentrate on running those few large corporations out of farming supposedly to help the small farm. But the truth is that this bill would create chaos in a huge section of American agriculture including all the most productive parts of it. And the irony is that it would still not do a blessed thing for the large part of American agriculture that really needs help 60 percent of American farms that make less than seventeen hundred dollars a year. In short the Nelsonville might be called the farm state politicians scapegoat Act of 1972. Well let's hear first from an independent hog farmer who competes with corporations quite successfully. Mr. Russell Jeckell. During my last year at the University of Illinois and I graduated in vocational or coach and came back to the

farm in 1960. And at that time the farm was it was a general farm. We had a number of different kinds of livestock tags and cattle milk cows and chickens. So it became pretty obvious that if this farm were to support two families that we were going to have to concentrate and specialize in some business and decided to go into the whole business. And from that point the farm was grown from say 135 acre rented farm or something over 500 acres. Now. You have a pork production that is capable of producing in excess of 5000 please. Mr. Jeckell has left the farm in the hands of his father and one assistant to be with us tonight at 10:00. A.M. as I said Mr. jackal's the corn hog farmer from Delavan Illinois an ostrich

farm as we saw started rather small and has prospered. How did that come about. Well for the last two generations almost two generations. It's it's been operated as a family enterprise. We've tried to adopt new and better methods and ideas as they've come along. We've taken the profits from the business and along with borrowed money put to put this back end of the business to help it grow. We've tried to adopt efficient business management ideas and along with what we think is a good deal of enthusiasm and optimism and plain hard work. We've tried to make a real good stir tackle. You saw Mr. Miller's hog farmer on film expressing his fear of the corporations moving in on the hog farmers. How do you feel the unfair competition of the corporation. Absolutely not. Why not. Well.

We've seen some large corporations try to get into this business space that our type of business and very frankly the management know how it's just not available. And so you I have all sorts of difficulties it takes a good deal of experience to sort of put this know how together. One last question with the Nelsonville if it were passed help you or hurt you. No I don't think it would. Hurt us too much. I can see maybe in the future that the possibility might exist if we needed large amounts of capital. Some of the sources of capital would not be available to us. And I think it it would not help you. Right. I heard for the first time really has some questions for you Mr.. Jack can you run a successful operation and you think there's value in the family farm in the United States. Right. A great value in it. And I take it you agree and the Department of Agriculture reports which you've told us that the family farm not only can be but is as efficient as a large corporate things. They talk about competing with a large corporate farming Corp non

farming corporation. Now there are non farming corporations that have entered agriculture not for the return from agriculture for example but simply to hold on to the land and wait for capital appreciation. They don't care much about that immediate profit return. You think you could compete with that with such a corporation. Sir I've got to primarily tell you about my own experiences and those that I've seen cases where they tried to get into our type of business where sizable knowledge and a lot of technology know how is needed. They just haven't been able to put this together. And what we're going to hear from a subsequent witness who I think thinks corporations can do very well the farm Quarterly Journal reports in 1969 that the size of corporations makes a real difference it reports cases of up to a 10 percent discount for large industrial corporations and buying farm equipment when they order over a quarter million dollars or more. That is the amount of the purchase gives them enormous discounts on farm equipment. That's true isn't it.

Well I would think it would help with you would you think to jack a very ancient question that Mr. Rusher raised that image in your view I suppose that large corporations could enter and for whatever advantage lower prices somewhat let's not talk about the amount but a bit. Do you think it's worth it for the country because of the value of the family farm family farms that now exist do you think it's worth it for the country to preserve it because of the social values because of preserving rural life preserving the kind of life you lead. I rather I rather feel that it's a kind of efficient system that's going to evolve that's a really important part of this thing and I'm not sure who's exactly going to get to do this whether it's an individual or a corporation the family farm. But I think that if we continue with our free enterprise system as we all hope that we would be real efficient unit will prevail.

So it wouldn't it wouldn't bother you if with if largely the non-farm corporations that could get discounts on farm machinery get lower rates on bank loans get tax write offs against non-farm profits if those organizations came in and hurt family farmers that wouldn't buy these are the real measure is going to be whether they do an efficient job out on the farm. I think the things that you mentioned are maybe instrumental but they're testing efficiency quite different. I mean they may have lower costs having nothing to do with their farm efficiency because of their ability to get money equipment and write off against other profits. They may simply have a different balance sheet than you do because they have lots of non-farm business. So what's profit to them may not be profit to you. But it's it's a it's an interesting thing. But I we've not we've not seen these things materialize and have happened all over the South and the bright orange street that's exactly what happened in industrial concerns going in with the capacity to tie up farmers by selling them seed tie them up on long term contracts and simply because they didn't care they had

other profits so they could stay in farm losses. How can you compete against a company that looks at losses differently. You have to make a profit to survive a company that can write farm losses off against its profits how can you compete against them. I'm sorry but I have to interrupt and say thank you very much for being with us and keep the cost of porkchops down. Would you please Mr. Jenkins. Thank. You. Sir. Now what about those farmers who have chosen to work with the so-called conglomerates in Indio California the state capital of the United States and the date growers were in trouble. In 1969 they made a contract with h m t a subsidiary of Tenneco to buy process and market their dates. Today the date processing plant in Indio is in full swing. Sales are up. Prospects are bright. Here is what date grower Don Mitchell thinks of the new arrangement relation t h m t has been in the last two years.

And the really big carry over that was breaking our back is now gone. We do have. A more hopeful. Picture of the future. You had a big inventory a couple of years ago before HMD came we had to carry over that had accumulated over a number of years that we couldn't sell it without giving it away. And. The chain has been. Very healthy. How has your income been affected by your relationship with them. Well there's been not enormous share increase but enough better so that I feel far far happier about the future than I did before. Do you feel that they're competing with you in any way. Well they're selling fruit. Why should they compete with that. But they're not buying.

Date gardens or buying property. No. But I don't think I would object if they did for. If we got a fair deal from them. They're not putting anybody out of business or bribing the family farmer off his land. No they leave improved the picture here for the day growers. There's no question about that. Now let's hear from the chief executive of HMD that very large corporation Mr. Howard Margulis. Advocates Mr. Margolis must be as I said as president of HMD which is the cultural division of Tenneco. That's my goal is you are the president of a very large corporation engaged in agriculture is your operation represent a threat to the small farmers. Not at all. In fact just the opposite. We depend greatly on the small farmer 80 percent of our total sales of fresh fruits and vegetables are derived from small farmers and only 20 percent are derived from our own farmland so without the small farmer

we would find ourselves without a product and virtually out of business. What do you provide for that. We provide a vehicle. In reality to them or for them in order to market their crops. We provide a marketing expertise. We provide advertising promotions we provide packing houses for them which would if it were not for our providing this small farmer has got 10 or 20 or 40 acres would find himself in a position of frankly not knowing what to do with his product. I wanted to ask you what if the Nelsonville became law and your corporation was forced out of the farm business all together what would happen to the farmers like Don Mitchell the date grower from India. I think. Mr Mitchell pretty well I answered it and I think there's plenty of Mr Mitchell is all over the state of California and that not only would we be put out of business. I think that the small farmer he too will be put out of business because of the passage of the Nelsonville has Tenneco and all I'd ever been accused of is

squeezing out a small farmer frankly technical accused of a lot of things almost every day. And I would imagine that some of the accusations are part of driving the small farmer out of business but to the best of my knowledge this is untrue completely so. In other words to your knowledge there has not been such a case. None whatsoever. You know what benefits the tenant goes operation provide for consumers lacerates will have to be a very short answer them and if we feel that the sunshine program which will be a a national brand quality control high flavored attempt on our part to distribute fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the United States similar to what Domani is doing in the canned food area we feel that this is going to be a real asset to the consumer and that we're going to make available to her high quality fresh fruits and vegetables. Thank you Mr. Morone have some questions for us. Sorry Bill it's up until 1970 you weren't part of Kanika your own company correct wasn't it and you just became a

member of Tenneco And would you have been barred if you were now not part of Tenneco and your operation require more than three million dollars in assets it non-farm answer is no no. So that just as you were doing before 1970 you wouldn't you would simply not be part of Tenneco you continue to do every segment. Mr. Miller one at one point and that is we going to be about 10 percent is as effective as I think we are today because we need the capital with which to advertise and to promote and distribute and without kind of going without the resources behind us. We want to be able to do what we're doing for Mr. métier on his date. Well let's see if that's true the bill says you can't control production. You don't have to control date production to advertise it and sell it throughout the United States throughout this country. There are dozens of companies that buy and sell as wholesalers. You don't need to control the day production do. True but by the same token we provide many other services other than just sales and promotion to him. But you don't need to control the production to do what you do you do it very well and you have no need to control the production.

We feel we're doing a more effective job for Mr. Mitchell by controlling it for him. When do you control it. You have to control it. That's what I'm asking you do you have to control control what do you mean by control. Well tell me what you do. What do you have to do everything that you've told me is permitted buying from him advertising selling login on our prolifer along with dates. We harvest this crop for instance and harvest a crop of money that we provide the equipment and machinery and tools with which to do it that he could do that. So no the or I'm sorry he couldn't do it. He can take it from the Cooperative. Well he had a co-op in the co-op went broke. That's why we're there now. Before you did his selling for him of course. But you can make an arrangement where I don't know all I know is prior to our entry into the co-op was bankrupt and they asked us to come in and I think we've saved them and I think you've done very well and I think you might very well have been with the Nelson Bill and I congratulate you. You do more you do more than market Tenneco also owns land. Yes we do owns lots of land. Yes we do have 130000 acres approximately 100000 acres in Kern County in Kern County in the San Joaquin Valley. And you recently sold them also. Yes we just recently sold a substantial amount of acres.

There's a real difference in the San Joaquin Valley between towns that are near large landholdings and small landholdings aren't they you familiar with the classic study of two towns in the valley the town of Arvin in the town of Newman the impact of being near large or small. You know I Nouba. Yes yes yes. And the study found that they Newble which was near the small towns had twice as many retail stores twice as large retail sales. Whereas in the large landholding town two thirds were employed by his farm laborers in small town only one third by their social cost. The question I'm getting to do your balance sheets reflect the cost you put on a community near your large land. No but our balance sheets also reflect that we spent over 12 million dollars in new plants in Bakersfield alone to take care of small growers products and we're implying employing an excess of twelve hundred people without that without the infusion of our capital there these people wouldn't be without a job. No no. The contrasting study because that is the purpose of the Arvind that you study the classic study of towns near small landholdings near a large landholders purpose was that the towns near small

landholdings were economically healthy and provided more retail trade and had more self-employed people in the town near large land. Now that impact on a town near you you don't really care about where they are Honoris both of them are right. Yes we do care in Newcastle certainly and if there were small landholdings if you didn't know the 100000 acres of those were broken up perhaps even as the reclamation Act required 20 acre parcels Perhaps all those towns would be healthier. I think that's just a supposition on your part I would say that it's a part of what we'll have to end it. Thank you very much Mr. Mark thank you. Now let's hear your view of this from the standpoint of agricultural economics I call upon Professor Willard Williams. Welcome to the Advocate's professional. Williams is professor of agricultural economics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock I believe. We've heard a lot about the threat of giant

corporations for small farmers how serious. In my view it's unadulterated exaggeration that is designed to to take the attention off the real problems that are faced in agriculture today. I take it that there are real problems in American agriculture. There are and there have been for a half century or more. These have nothing to do with the corporations today. What are those bubbles. The matter of substantial improvements in technology over the years. The absolute demand to have larger farms and fewer farms. This was coming regardless of the issues here today. These are these problems that are affecting the Giants today as well as the small ones. The matter of highly varying prices a matter of low persistently low returns to resources investors their culture when the need for a great deal more capital. Now suppose the Suppose the Nelson bill were passed that would help the

situation in any serious way. In fact it I agree with you would cause chaos in a great part of the agriculture that I know about. We have a great many large scale partnerships. Individuals who own more than three million dollars outside of agriculture. These are some of the white hope we have for agriculture that perhaps. We'll be able to cause it to survive and provide under the low low price food policy. The government today and the effect of the Nelsonville will then be what. With respect to funding Well it would disrupt the structure of the organization of a good part of agriculture and caused sort of a caste system to develop in agriculture How would you you would be saying to agriculture you must stay there you can't be anything else but don't giant corporations drive out the small farmer as Mr. Miller and as witnesses as know in more cases than them otherwise. And this is widely recognized by the foreign papers and by foreign producers. They are helping produce more than

otherwise. And are some of the larger ones are investing in large acreages in let's say northern Florida that need to be drained have heavy capital investments in the desert areas of California in the western and eastern Oregon areas that need enough capital that no individual farmer could possibly And these are just I'm gonna have to break and let Mr. Miller ask some searching questions or research experimentally. Mr. Williams is an agricultural economist do you think there's a value for the country and preserving the family farm. Well we've always had an idea about what the value of family farm is. I know a family farm that owns $3000000. Well no but I mean you know what we're talking about is because it's a debate on agricultural policy. If you're talking about the family farm of the 1920s it's gone I'm talking about the family farm that exists and the 400 acre one or two. And what is the family farm today. What is the family farm. Let me give you the average the size and it's gone to 384 and that is a Midwest farm. I know many family farms that are in the Midwest

grain farmers that are three or four five thousand acres I know some in Texas that are several hundred sections and you know what I'm asking you and I'd like the answer the question is given the average size farm that exists farm by one family on a farm that Mr. Hale had the kind of farm that was the YSR has kind of farmed it Mr. Jackel is there a virtue to the country and having policies trying to preserve that family farm. I grew up on such a farm and I was told hot prices we would pay. And I was told what prices I would receive I was told by the bank how we would live. I stayed I moved out of agriculture because I didn't want that kind of freedom. I have to just ask you the question again. I just have to ask you the question again is the kind of farm that Mr. Jackel has and that we've heard about worth preserving assuming there a great many more like him and there are if you agree that we permit him to grow and develop to the kind of industrialized commercialized agriculture that we must have to fit your supermarkets to fit your consumer requirements to fit the kind of society we develop today

then I agree with you. But if you do that as if you're saying let's keep him the same size he is. Or less keeps these small farmers out who are struggling and living the way I've seen a great many. But you know no one saying that that's side Bill says and it's my business to know. Yes of course you know no one I do agree with the Department of Agriculture that the most efficient farming unit in the country generally is the one to two man fired. This is changing very rapidly. A 1 to 2 man farm can operate several thousand acres and they know that. But that's what the studies conclude. And they also can I know many that are that own elevators that own feedlots. We have multimillion dollar feedlots operated by family. Well what is the virtue than of permitting non farming corporations who have to have after all more than three million dollars in assets to come in and Elsin bail. What's the virtue of permitting them to farm. The virtue is this that the big problem of Agriculture is acquiring enough capital in some way or another to survive. You know in no area of the

country is the average size farmer farm equal to the optimum to the size can operate efficiently they've always been behind. We can help the farmers quite happily and by capital can't they. And the big corporations have been able to help in many instances farmers develop the kind of capital by drilling the wells by developing the land by putting in the drainage. And many of them have turned the land over to farmers to you that there's no other way the capital could be acquired. We've had a big problem. We've had the government trying to help him for 50 years now very successfully I mean farm productivity is much greater in terms of rise in industrial product. We don't have we haven't solved these problems where we get $30 one year and $16 the next. I have to trust them. I have to interrupt. Russell Williams thanks for being with us. It isn't altogether clear but if I understand what Mr Miller is probing and he seems to be say that because there is a certain virtue or mystique in the family farm as he imagines it is. Professor Williams correctly said about 50 years ago that there should be some sort of a subsidy

paid either by consumers or by government or by someone to keep it there. I don't think the farmers themselves the farmers of America themselves want that. I think that too individualistic. Thank you Mr. Rusher And now let's return to Mr. Miller for his rebuttal argument in favor of driving large corporations on a farm. There's no need for a subsidy though I think if one were required to preserve the family farm and the kind of advantages in the town surrounding the family farms it would be worth paying it. There's no need for a subsidy because the 1 to 2 man farm is the most efficient farm. What's happening is that others that simply know how to manage money better are affecting it and it's justified in the name of competition. But for the father of United States senator Fred Harris it's not competition. It's a stacked deck from Oklahoma the father of Senator Hybris talks about his small farm and what the big corporations are doing to him. Well I could cut out the big corporations that can operate cheaper than the little farmer can operate just like the chain stores

the big chain stores and my bike can sell groceries cheaper than a little operator and mine. And that's why big corporations are doing it cutting the little guys out. We can't live on what we're good. Well I can take it as a but I'm a menace and I can make money out of it. Looking for people that got blown out. Well. What I'm trying to get at now. I think every man was created equal and if you give him a chance to do what he wants to do I think he ever man has got enough pride. And all I want to do it myself. No. Did you tell him how to do it. They need to be slaughtered he said. Big corporations think wow Haley can't get it. Just happy make get little again. $2 a day or $3 a day. And we'll run it

and we'll make that bad money. And that's the way it looked to me and not know in a letter to tell me how to do it or when to do it. I'm too old for that. I'm 64 years old and I've always made my own living. I've never been on lead. I've never done no commodities don't have no education. And I think if you give people a chance. They would do the same thing on an ocean liner and nobody else. I'm just. Trying to make it. I lived on this place all my life. When I was raised that there was a family heirloom ever border and the land was in this country and everybody was happy and everybody was like I lived they didn't have a lot of money but they to live and I was happy. And it was a family now every quarter. Now then is a family but I never ate the canned laughs

we have with us Mr. Harris. United States senator Fred Harris. Well. Anybody who has been watching us has been counting I think this is your third appearance of the evidence in as many months. And we really appreciate your coming to us again and sharing your thoughts and concerns on these issues with us. John Harris is it in the natural order of things. Real companies get into agriculture that Ralston Purina grow chickens and grow lettuce and Carex grow strawberries. No it's really unnatural. They're not more efficient at farming. They're more efficient at harvesting from us and from the federal tax payers with tax subsidies subsidies and labor law subsidies you're Gieschen Waterlow subsidies even college agricultural economists. Help them out sometimes with federal money. We've talked about the effect on rural America. But when farmers leave the land and come to the cities that have an effect on urban America as well.

Yes I served on the current commission as you probably know which you made that study the cities back in 1967. And one of the things we found was absolutely true that if you continue to have as we do now 800000 people a year coming on into these cities you simply can't catch up with what are almost already insoluble problems. Is there a virtue in farming or any place else simply being bigger is that something we ought to promote. No I think that generally you'd say bigness is bad if it's for private profit. And if it means that you're exploiting labor if it means that you get control of markets so that you can drive up prices. I think by and large that's what's happened. And I don't think that's good in America. Tell us about the effect on the country. I've spoken about the Aravinda new study is there a value in preserving the family farm in the countryside that surrounds it the community as Thomas Jefferson thought so. And a lot of other smart people have felt that our kind of democracy probably thrives better where people can be small enough or small enough communities to belong to things to have organizations to have smaller retailers to have churches and so forth. The Arbonne

Aravinda new study is just a landmark study and it shows in California one town with the big corporation owning nearly everything. One with a lot of small farmers there was twice as many social and political organizations and so forth. In the place where there were small farmers. I think that's good for America. What should our national policy be. Should we encourage large companies to take over or should we really be promoting other things in rural America. Smart short answer to that we should stop subsidizing their takeover of Agriculture. Thank you Senator. Your old friend Mr. rushers could ask some questions. Sen.. Am I correct in believing that in 1954 in 1969 under Section 22 the state constitution of Oklahoma corporations were prohibited from farming in the state. Yes but it's my impression that I haven't been in the attorney general's office I anything that that was not a self-executing provision in our law. No it was it was however the uniform interpretation and then in 1969 the court ruled that they could some farm. Is that correct. I'm not familiar with exact details of it but by and large by and large no. Well I don't know whether that's true. I'm just

going to say Oklahoma North Dakota and Kansas I think rightly a long time ago said corporate culture is bad. We haven't enforced that as well as we ought to do. Well what I'm what I'm getting at is how could your own pappy tell us about his small farm and what the big corporations did to him and how they just drive on the little fellows plumb out of it. Well that exact information we're not even permitted under the state constitution of Oklahoma. Well that's exactly what is happening. For example in vertical integration just the thought of them that drove him out of it. No the vertical integration of the livestock industry for example has not been repeated. It isn't under the Kansas anti-corporate law. So you get a lot of oil companies for example now getting into huge livestock production operations which ought to be prohibited in my view. Mr. Miller seemed to think that the Nelsonville if passed into law wouldn't affect the tentacles operations. Do you agree. And do you approve. Well why is it. Why are you against it if it doesn't then I'm not sure that I consider Tenneco what I'm here to defend. I'm here to even higher values but just tell me Mr. Miller went through quite an elaborate low Kusin to prove that Tenneco wouldn't be put out of the

farming business do you think it should be. No I think he was asked Are you for Tenneco being in its reforming operations. I'm strongly opposed to that. I think it's really bad for man who thinks that it is terrible for California to redraft his bill to include something about that. Well I think it already applies to them and if you disagree with Mr. Miller about them you know and I think Mr. Miller doesn't take any different position from what I do. Maybe not. I don't know it seemed to me he did. Back to your man from tentacle you brought on as a witness should be in favor of the Nelsonville. I took it he was against it. He is but he is fascinated by Mr. Miller's interpretation that it doesn't apply to him. Lastly Russell let me bring break in for a second Senator. Nobody has mentioned farm labourers here and it's my impression that Cesar Chavez and his people have had an easier time organizing big farmers and big corporate farmers and small farms and they can get collective bargaining with them much more easily. You're a man who is concerned about farm labor. Isn't one argument for big corporate firms that the farm labor can be treated better because you can bargain collectively. No I don't think so. First of all there's the biggest part of corporate culture is

totally unorganized and wildly opposed to being organized. But if you're a small grower you're worried about having to compete with all these big subsidies that these corporations get. And so you don't want to be organized as one more disadvantage against those big corporations. If we could break them up then I think it'd be easier for everybody to be organized and I'm for them being organized for a minimum wage in agriculture across the board smaller level. I might add that if Senator Harris was on the advocates much more we'd have to get him on guard and after so he can be organized. Senator tell me back to efficiency. I have here a report of the United States Department of Agriculture the economic research service dated November 1971 entitled The Midwestern corn farms which I assume you might be to some degree familiar and it says in the abstract at the top of at rates of return on investment are greater for the large operations because of economies of scale. Are you working with the United States Department or are you. No. And you're your agricultural economists as I understood said. Yes USDA is right at least didn't disagree with it. I think he said the USDA was right in this I don't think he said that the USDA was right in saying that small

farms were necessarily as efficient. What about the statement rates of return on investment are greater for the large operation because of economies of size. Is that right or wrong. Show me the balance sheet but you cannot deny that one or two out come on one or two then one or two family farms according to one or two man farms according to USDA You surely don't discount that that source says are just as efficient as the larger or far from discounting that source. I'm holding it for my hand and trying to get you to agree with what you're trying to pick up an isolated example isolated example like midwest Warren. Well that certainly is an isolated example. Tell me what the USDA is exactly it was what they said. Tell me should we favor corner grocery stores or supermarkets. In what capacity and capacity we ought not to have a value to they have a value to preserve. Isn't that in the interest really of all the people of the United States including in the very long run the little corner grocer who was running a small operation that we should eventually get to a more efficient and larger operation.

This and if the little one is driven out there in agriculture by tax subsidies labor subsidies irrigation water. Well aside from that and or in violation of that across the valley Well you're not either. The antitrust laws are being violated. Then they ought to be enforced. Well I would just want to make those anti-trust laws available in agriculture. Why aren't they now. They're not. The law doesn't. That's what we're trying to do. And that's what the whole argument is just don't exclude for me why they certainly do where and when when the Clayton Act which is the basic act was rule the Sherman Act. Well talk about the play because that's what the Nelsonville goes to. I don't I as an industry it ought to plant agriculture. So what about the Sherman Act. Why can't the laws we have. You know if you if you like the laws. What's the matter with the law. Because we don't need it. It is going to do thing it's going to hurt all sorts of people in an attempt to wreak vengeance on a few large corporations. I think there are a lot of small people. Obviously that's where I and my dad who a farmer disagree with you and others. I'm not worried about him as long as that Constitution of the state of Oklahoma stays there and keeps them out the constitution of Oklahoma I don't know I think it's not bad idea.

You mean to tell me that unenforced corporations drove your dad to the streets that details about a part of it. That's true all around America. That's exactly right. You suggesting that they're getting all these big farm subsidies and tax subsidies to do it. You suggested at one point that farming should be made attractive to keep people from moving to our crowded cities. Exactly. Wouldn't it be more sensible to make it attractive for business and industries like industries appropriately to move out into what is now strictly rural territory and so thin out of the ghettos just a little bit and make isn't that the appropriate direction rather than subsidizing some kind of a green rural Arcadia where people will stay and therefore not going to make that center. Harris I can't you can't take the question. And it's nice to know where you got that accident accented obviously dead. Thanks very much advocate for that. Mr. Miller you have one minute to summarize your case. The case of Tenneco is instructive because it does different things. It owns 130000 acres of land in the San Joaquin Valley and it's large land holdings contribute to a more depressed

economic pattern for all the LB's around those large landowners. It would have to sell those landholdings under the bill. It could however like any other corporation buy produce and sell it and market it and advertise it. The bill doesn't stop that. But the bill goes to is the effect on rural America. The harmful effect for the large landholdings subsidize not because they're more efficient. Not like the super market that drives the corner grocery store out of business that there's a level of competition but because the large corporations work on a different balance sheet they can afford losses. They get the tax write off let's have genuine competition based on what agriculture can do. Thank you Mr. Miller Mr. Rusher you two have one minute to summarize your case to hear Mr. Miller talk you would think that tonight's proposal will chase Wall Street out of farming reduce tensions in our cities and transform rural America into a bucolic landscape of small green family farms. But the real effect of this bill as Professor Williams pointed out would be to create havoc among thousands of partnerships and similar enterprises which

by no stretch of the imagination can be called giant conglomerates but which produce two thirds of America's food and even driving out the few conglomerates would only force farmers like Don Michale the farmer who you saw earlier who works with the conglomerates back to an economic method and ultimately into bankruptcy. Is that progress. Wouldn't it be far better for Mr. Miller and Senator Nelson and Senator Harris to devote their talents to helping to train or relocate the 60 percent of America's farmers who earn less than seventeen hundred dollars a year. Perhaps there are votes to be had by blaming the ills of American agriculture on the larger operations that inevitably accompany progress. But in the long run everybody pays for such demagoguery. The tax payer the consumer and even the small farmer himself. I urge you to vote no on tonight's question. Thank you gentlemen. Now it's time for you at home to act and to express your views on tonight's question and it's important that you do so because senators and congressmen and others who are in government have told us how closely they follow the advocates and particularly the advocates poll those opinions that you our

viewers send in over a half a million letters have been received and the advocates poll first started two and a half years ago. So write us the advocate sparks 1972. Boston 020 1:34 and is week in and week out the Advocate's debate questions calling for action by the people who represent us in government. It is a way for you at home to register your views on what America should be doing and to know that these views will be counted and that the results will be passed on to the people who represent you in Washington. So we urge you to write for the common good that results when government knows how citizens feel about the vital issues of the day. Yes or no. What do you think the question on which you'll be voting should large corporations be driven out of farming. Remember that address the advocate spunked 1972 Boston 0 21 34. Recently the advocates debated the question should the states raise all public school funds and distribute them equally of the more than 2700 viewers across the country who sent us their votes. Fifteen hundred and sixty two or fifty seven percent were in favor of the proposal.

Eleven hundred and fifty one or 42 percent were opposed. Twenty four expressed other views. And now let's look ahead to next week. The sale of sex is estimated to be two and a half billion dollar a year business. It is viewed by many as not only a tragedy but an affront to any decent society. Some sociologists have more of a feel that while prostitution may be both degrading and exploitive it is at worst a victimless crime that law enforcement could better spend its time and energies in combating more serious problems of violence and robbery as well as white collar embezzlement and government corruption. Should prostitution be legalized. A question next time for the advocates. Thanks to our advocates and to our witnesses I'm Michael Dukakis. Please join us again next week at the same time. Thank you and good night. The program takes no question. Our job is to help you understand what.

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