Louisiana: The State We're In; Farmers in Louisiana

[silence] Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians for Educational Television. The following program is a production of Louisiana Public Broadcasting. [music] [Beth George, Host] Good evening. I'm Beth George. Welcome to this edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. This week we survey one of the most traditional and most important aspects of the state's economy: agriculture. Farmers have been making the national news for weeks now. In Louisiana, the only story has been their silence. This week, however, farmers held meetings in the northeastern part of the state and agreed to participate in a nationwide strike December 14th unless they receive higher prices for their crops. According to the strike's organizers, as many as four million American farmers could take part. In Louisiana the strike talk called attention to

the complex relationship between farmers, distributors, state and federal governments, and consumers. The price and availability of fresh produce is a part of our everyday lives. We never tire of talking about how high a head of lettuce was, how tasteless a tomato, how good a price for cauliflower. These are topics common in consumers' conversation, but the person seldom heard from is the one responsible for the products, the farmer himself. With all the silence of statistics, farmers in the state have in large numbers abandoned their fields for other occupations. Between 1950 and 1970 the rural farm population decreased 80 percent in Louisiana, from more than 550,000 to a little over 100,000. This 80 percent contrasts with 64 percent across the nation, and the percentage of the state's labor force involved in agriculture, forestry and fisheries combined has declined from 18 in 1950 to just over 4 percent in 1970. There are signs now, however, from all over the country that farmers are no longer content to let

statistics speak for them. They want to speak for themselves. A call to unite and strike has gone out, with 100 percent parity as the goal. This term is used for what farmers consider a fair price for products in relation to the cost of living. Farmers have said that to achieve this goal, they'll shake the nation to its core. A group calling itself American Agriculture has named December 14th as strike day. Farmers have been asked to withhold all produce from the markets and to boycott all but essential goods after that date. The movement has been spreading. Farmers in Washington, Nebraska, Kansas, and Georgia staged marches and tractorcades to call attention to their plight. Louisiana has been slower than many states in catching the protest fever. But in recent weeks, meetings of the state's farmers have gotten people talking. [T.C. McGuffie] I would like to at least make a breakeven profit on my commodities. I am a hog raiser, a very small one at that. I raise cotton. I raise soybeans, and

I'm also a gospel disk jockey, and I enjoy that an awful lot. But in making a profit, a reasonable profit, so that I can go back next year and continue to carry on this heritage. [Mrs. Prentice Harper] Well, at this point, we've been told that about 60 percent of the farmers are following this movement and one gentleman who's working in American Agriculture told us that it will take about 30 percent of us to follow this movement. [Jesse Smith]Certainly it affects our industry because West Carroll Parish is directly dependent upon agriculture. If the farmers do not get a profitable wage from their crops, where it affects the entire economy in West Carroll Parish.

[Fred Huenefeld] The American farmer's not asking for a guaranteed profit. The American farmer's still got to combat the weather, the insects. He's got to be a good producer; he's got to make a yield. The American farmer's asking for a fair return on his investment. No more than any businessman wants. But we're not asking for a guarantee on that. The man drawing minimum wage of $2.30 cents ought to be getting 82 cents a pound for my cotton. But as a result, what I'm getting 44 cents a pound. Something's wrong. Somewhere in our economy, somewhere in our system of laws and legislation, somebody has dropped the ball. [Roger Farner] It's ironic to me that farmers, who consider themselves such an independent breed of people are now asking, asking their government for more government, more spending, in fact, more socialism, to regulate what should be an unregulated market. I am in the commodity business and I have seen the smart farmers the last five years do very well in free markets. As an example, four out of the past five years, the smart farmers have gotten at least 90 cents a pound for their cotton. In three out of the past five years, farmers were able to get at least $9 for their soybeans.

And in two of those years, they've gotten $10. And not only that, in the worst of the last five years every farmer has had ample opportunity to make a dollar a bushel profit on his soybeans and it's a parallel to the sugar situation where in 1974, when raw sugar went up 54 cents a pound, everyone expanded their production. And now that it's a dime a pound, they can't understand why the government won't step in and help them solve their mismanagement problems. [George] Sugar, Louisiana's second most important crop, has both profited and suffered from drastic price fluctuations during the past few years. Consumers began using less sugar when a shortage for world trading escalated foreign prices in 1974 to 57 cents a pound and domestic growers' prices to 65 cents. That meant a 5-pound bag of refined sugar cost nearly $3. Despite production cuts this year, worldwide surpluses from good 1975 and 1976 crops and the decreased consumer

demands have depressed growers' prices below production costs. Sugar duties were tripled in 1976 in response to pleas from the producers. But their financial bind worsened. Louisiana sugar growers kept describing their problems to the state's congressional delegation till it prevailed upon United States Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland to take a firsthand look. Before flying back to Washington, Bergland discussed what he'd learned in Louisiana and what he would report to President Carter. [Bergland] I'd read about the sugar industry here and I'm acquainted with sugar production in the North and the beet ??? regions and the cane fields in Florida and Hawaii. But I'd been told by Louisiana sugar leaders that the conditions here were different. I came here and found that they were right. The situation is different and it's one thing to read about a matter and/or have it described by someone else

but it's uh nothing quite as convincing as going and seeing, and touching, and seeing, and smelling the sights and sounds and sensations. The basic difference here is that the people who grow sugar are totally dependent on that crop and there are really no economic alternatives. Whereas in much of the sugar region of the U.S., there are choices. Here there is none. Not only as far as growers are concerned, but as far as the many thousands of workers are concerned. And so as we develop a sweetener policy for the United States I am now better equipped in dealing with this question. Of course better equipped to discuss the sugar situation with the President and with leaders in the Congress. We are in the process of implementing the price support

provisions which are authorized by the farm bill. The sugar price support provision is really organized, and credit for its passage can be given to the Louisiana delegation. They've done a super job in this regard. And I will probably recommend that the President impose either a, an increase in the tariff on imported sugars or a reduction in import quotas or both, prior to the time the price support program is put into effect. We regard 13 and a half cents a pound as an absolute minimum international life net. The new international sugar agreement is based on a 13 and a half cent a pound minimum price worldwide. And we hope-- we want to make it clear that it is just that. It's the absolute rock bottom minimum and it's expected that

prices will move above that level into ranges which are hopefully profitable. Thirteen and a half cents is probably less than the cost of production in Louisiana at least for the average producer and surely less than the average cost of production for the people who have only recently started in the business. Sugar is a high-cost crop. It has also a hyperic (?) return, very labor intensive. Farms we were around today were small in size, generally 400 acres, 500, more or less. You can't make a living on 400 acres of soybeans. Takes much more than that and of course you don't need all the help. If the land were converted to soybeans, there are thousands of persons who are now working for a living making a respectable wage and would find that job go. Because you don't need this sort of

workforce if you go to soybeans and so that's a matter which needs to be taken into account. So when you take all matters into consideration, the substantial number of fairly small farmers who could not make it growing soybeans at these prices, It means that you really don't have a choice. Not like in Illinois where they can grow corn for sweeteners in competition with sugar or corn to be fed to hogs or they can grow soybeans. There are choices of that sort which are open to them that are denied to people in Louisiana. The economic circumstances deny any real choice in this matter. President Carter does understand the problems of farmers. He understands the risks, the anxieties. I've farmed 27 years and I've lost my crop. I know what it's like to see a whole year's work go down the drain in one bad storm and to see the notes piling up at the bank and not enough money to go around. That's an experience that one really can't appreciate unless one's gone through it, and I have. And so has Jimmy Carter. So I can come to meetings like that here, those

here in Louisiana or in other places which, and I go a lot, and people tell me about their hard times and I know what they're talking about because I've been through it and that, I think, is some comfort to them. At least they know that I've been there, too. I don't put anybody down. I don't disagree with them, don't argue with them. In fact I encourage them to continue to demonstrate their concerns and their anxieties anyway they can, anyway that's peaceful, I mean, including a threat to strike. [George] After Bergland's departure, Louisiana sugar farmers wondered whether the visit would accomplish anything. Few were optimistic. Bergland himself said he didn't know what the federal government could do to raise sugar to 17 cents a pound, the level Louisiana farmers say they need to break even. But he did ask the President to increase sugar import tariffs to assure a minimum of 13.5 cents in the domestic market. The President imposed the increased import fees in early November, the middle of Louisiana's cane harvest. It takes seven to nine months for the

cane to be ready for cutting here. And that's when the hectic work begins. The cane must be cut and trimmed carefully. The leaves are burned away. What's left is taken to a refinery. There was a time when nearly all planters in the state had their own refineries, but high costs forced them eventually to combine their efforts into co-ops like Cinclare in West Baton Rouge Parish. One planter who knew the cycle well is James Graugnard of St. James Parish, president of the Louisiana Farm Bureau. [James Graugnard] Our real problem now is that it looks like from what we're getting from the Department of Agriculture is that we're not even going to get the 13 and a half cents because putting this 13 and a half cents a pound for sugar into effect seems to be causing a mess, much problems in the Department of Agriculture. But provided that we got the 13 and a half cents per pound, many of the sugar farmers

in Louisiana would not be able to make a profit. And many of the sugar mills that mill the sugar would not be able to make a profit. So the sugar industry is in a desperate situation right now for survival. And whether we survive or not, I think is going to depend on what we can get price wise. The 13 and a half cents would probably keep more growers in production for another year. But I'd say less than that would put many growers out of business this year. [Male reporter] Although Graugnard was sympathetic to the farmers' cause, he did have reservations about a farmers' strike. [Graugnard] As we are in sympathy with this movement as far as the price of farmers are receiving, but the farmers are receiving prices on all farm commodities that are below the cost of production. So this has the farmer in a very bad mood and I'm one of them. So I can tell you that. The only thing

is I don't really believe that a strike is necessarily the best way to get to our problem because I'm concerned about who are we striking against. I hope we're not striking against the consumer because he is our best friend. He's our market and are we striking against Congress? Are we striking against the President of the United States? Then this is a different story. But I hope that the strike that they're putting together is not striking against the consumer because, believe me, the consumer, I think, is on the same side as the farmer. [George] The farmers represent an increasingly significant and vocal segment of the population. Their numbers are small compared to consumers, people who buy the produce in the supermarkets. And if you shopped recently and in the year to come, you'll find out the prices are increasing. It's estimated that prices may go up for food products four to six percent of the next year. Farmers say they aren't making excess profits. Retailers say that they aren't making a

profits. Well, then, where's the excess money going? Commissioner of Agriculture Gil Dozier offered a possible explanation for the high prices on agricultural products. [Gil Dozier] The middle man, and when I say the middle man, I'm talking about the processor, the wholesaler, the many different people that handle the foodstuffs from the time of production all the way to consumption. Those are the people that are making most of the dollar. Now the farmer certainly is not making the money. And in most cases the retailers are only making a fair and reasonable profit. But the problem is we have come to the point in our society where we have so many middlemen. And one of the things also is that it's brought this on is that our consumers, and I'm talking about our daily housewives. To some extent we have become spoiled because we can buy almost everything that we eat in so many different packages. We can buy it wrapped in half-pound, one pound, two pound. We can get it partially processed, completely cooked. We can get it fresh frozen We get it almost any way you want it. But when you do that, it costs you money. It costs more and more.

And so the many different middlemen that handles the food processing and handles it from all the way from the time-- you may have heard this story that I think Chill Wills is the author of this story would say there's so many things wrapped up in the hide of that cow, when you start thinking about it all the way, you know, from milk to beef steaks to boots. There's a lot of things that come from an animal and there's a lot of steps that have to be taken from the time that that animal is born to the time that it ends up as a T-bone on your table. [George] Mr. Dozier, aside from the high prices that housewives find at the supermarket, one of the things that concerns people, I think, is that you don't get fresh fruit and vegetables like you used to do. I think there's a move on for people to buy more of Louisiana's products instead of getting things shipped in from California, Florida, whatever. Are you addressing that problem? [Dozier] We're addressing the problem through the hands of Dr. Reid Grigsby. Dr. Grigsby has, is my director of marketing. He came out of the LSU System with many years of experience. California has come to the front and mastered that particular problem and made Louisiana,

California consumers buy California products. We're doing the same thing in Louisiana now and the way we do that and the way we'll have to do it will be with marketing co-ops and with marketing orders that allows our own Louisiana producers to sell to the Louisiana domiciled chains. Because most of you, and when I talk about most, I'm talking about the large volume -- some 80 to 90 percent of your fresh fruit and vegetables -- is produced in Louisiana, can be consumed in Louisiana through our chain stores. But we've got to make the marketing available from the producer to the chain store and that's the problem we've we're confronting now and that's one that I think Dr. Grigsby will work out for me. [George] It's been done in other places. You think it can work here even though I think this might impose another restriction on farmers who've been talking about federal restrictions and this would be another restriction. [Dozier] But our farmers are rather enthusiastic about it for this reason: it costs between twelve and fifteen hundred dollars per truckload to actually ferry and move the fresh fruits and vegetables that are

produced in Tangipahoa Parish, for example, to Detroit and when those-- Of course that price is not passed on to the farmer. So we in Louisiana while we've been getting most of our fruits and vegetables from Florida, California, and from the Rio Grande Valley. If we can get more from Louisiana, we can affect the savings to the consumer while we hold up a good price for the farmer because we will cut out the transportation costs, for the most part. And really what we're talking about is the bottom line. We're talking about the quality and the quantity but particularly the quality of the food we eat and the milk we drink to our, to our housewives and to our families. [George] One of the things As you said earlier was that agriculture in Louisiana, as in other states, is inexorably tied with federal problems and regulations. Secretary Bergland was here recently seeing some of the problems that sugarcane farmers have in Louisiana. Do you think that there will be any answers coming forth from Washington or do you think that maybe some of the sugarcane farmers will just have to go out of business? It's sort of the survival of the fittest.

[Dozier] Well, certainly some of them will go out of business but there'll be many reasons for that. But, yes, there will be some help in the offing and will be coming fairly soon to our domestic sugar industry. [George] Many Louisiana sugar farmers are saying the federal help is too little too late. Foreign sugars piling up in New Orleans just ahead of the new import tariff. The sugar will keep prices down. And in Louisiana some farmers may seek a sweeter way of making a living. The governmental intricacies of import tariffs, quotas, subsidies, and parities can claim national attention now. But they cannot lessen the importance of the most unavoidable unknown in the farming equation. Agriculture is not only affected by the weather, it's tied to it. And farmers, of course, are not the only ones who benefit from a reliable forecast months in advance. [Male reporter] Just imagine what we could do if we only knew what the weather would be months or even years in advance. We could plan our vacations and construction schedules and family picnics. Farmers would know when to plant and when to harvest. Cities and towns could more accurately budget for

snow and ice removal. And sporting events could always be scheduled for only the best of weather conditions. Yet our weather has generally defied long-range predictability. Even the art of predicting tomorrow's weather has not been perfected. No one knows this better than the National Weather Service, which has taken a very cautious approach to long-range weather prediction. A team of National Weather Service forecasters works on long-range prediction here at the World Weather Building in suburban Washington. Inside they keep 90-day records of the behavior of wind flow patterns 2 miles above the Earth's surface. They look at the ways in which the pressures and temperatures have changed over the preceding three months and they try to predict how they will continue to change over the next 30 to 90 days. From that they prepare 30-day and seasonal forecasts which they distribute to government, industry, agriculture, and the public at large. Here, for example, is the outlook they've issued for the month of November. Temperature they portray in

terms of three gradations: below normal, near normal, and above normal. Precipitation they predict at just two levels: above normal and below normal. These forecasts are painted obviously with a very broad brush. And still the National Weather Service's record is less than impressive. [NWS worker] We're right about 60 percent of the time. We just took the odds a little bit from the 50/50 proposition of chance. I think that with the passage of time and the devotion of more resources to the problem, we can look for an improvement of this rather marginal type of product. [Male Reporter] But in nearby Bethesda, there is a meteorologist who is convinced that accurate long-range forecasting is possible today. Gordon Barnes has been selling his services to industries, municipalities, and the commodities market since 1966. His Bible is a book of weather patterns compiled in the 1940s at the California Institute of Technology.

Barnes claims that the occurrence of these patterns can be predicted using historical data and that the degree to which they affect the Earth's surface is controlled by periodic cycles of the sun. Barnes gives his clients a week-by-week plot of precipitation and temperature extremes supplemented by a written summary of what the weather will be like. [Gordon Barnes] Let's take, for example, someone who is interested in whether or not the air conditioning season is going to be early in Youngstown, Ohio. We will prepare the forecast for each six-day period beginning the first of April through maybe July or August, and we will pick the days that we feel the temperatures are going to be exceptionally warm in April or May so that he can plan his advertising and inventory accordingly. [Reporter] Barnes claimed that his long-term predictions are more than 75 percent accurate would make some three-day forecasters envious if they believed him. The Barnes forecasts are proprietary, available only for the eyes of his clients.

Those who want to check his accuracy without buying in have continually been frustrated. Can you really prove your accuracy to a skeptic? I mean, is there really any conclusive way? [Barnes] I'd be very happy for him to sign a contract, give me the check and sit down and work with him and show him the forecast. It's very simple. [Reporter] It's no wonder that Barnes is considered within his profession an unusually good salesman. Many of his counterparts in day-to-day forecasting consider Barnes little more than that, a good salesman. They often refer to an Air Force study in the late '60s which evaluated several methods of long-range forecasting including that which Barnes uses. One of the participants was Boston meteorologist Norm Macdonald. [MacDonald] The conclusion I came to at that time and I don't know of any studies since then which will change this. Our ability to forecast temperatures dropped off to zero about the fifth or sixth day. The precipitation dropped off to zero about about the third day and I'd say

those were two things we were verifying, the temperature and precipitation. Anything beyond that on a day-to-day basis showed no skill at all. [Reporter] The American Meteorological Society has underscored that view in its latest policy statement issued last year. While seasonal outlook shows some minimal value, they say, day-to-day or even week-to-week forecasts have not demonstrated skill. If there is to be any hope for long-range forecasting, it will probably come from studying the sun. Cycles of drought and plenty, cold and hot, have shown nagging relationships to the rise and fall in the activity of sunspots on the surface of the sun. The National Science Foundation has just announced that it will pour new research money into the study of just such relationships. But even if they find how sunspots and weather are related, it probably won't much advance the art of predicting precise weather conditions far ahead of time.

[MacDonald] I don't think there's any hope, any hope, for day-to-day long-range forecasting. Period. At least in the foreseeable future. I think maybe to be able to say, well, this winter is going to be colder than last in general and maybe you've got a drought coming on the Great Plains or something like that. Maybe something might emerge from that. But all that's going to do is just give you a broad general, broad brush forecasting, which would be better than what we get now, which is no good Period. [Reporter] Meteorologists hope that something will come of this latest infusion of money into long-range forecast research. For while the last decade has brought tremendous advances in their ability to forecast the next day's weather, the methods used today in long-range forecasting have not advanced significantly in over 30 years. [George] In other words farmers shouldn't hold their breaths waiting for long-range forecasting to revolutionize their livelihoods. Waiting has always been a part of the farmer's existence, waiting for crops to grow, for harvest and sale, for government aid when necessary. The rallies and strikes of the next few weeks will show just how tired farmers are of

waiting. I'm Beth George. Good evening. Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians

for Educational Television.