NewsNight Minnesota; 5193; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 08/03/1998; SD-Base

NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is a production of Katy CA with the stations of Minnesota Public Television. Hi I'm Kim St.. Then I'm Little Harben This is NEWSNIGHT farm crisis continues to take its toll in northwestern Minnesota from the same way as Rose came back from the Nixon County he files a report tonight and we'll follow that up with a disco and we are going to hear what you've had to say that it will shock some viewer calls tonight NEWSNIGHT. You're rough too from what Bill and Monica at least for now. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT Minnesota a statewide news and information program for thoughtful Minnesotans bringing context in-depth to the region for most important stories. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blendon Foundation working to strengthen rural communities throughout Minnesota. The McKnight Foundation working to strengthen families and communities across Minnesota. Cargill supporting Minnesota's tradition of community service and by bakery and Benson offering comprehensive service for the legal needs of growing and established

businesses. And we'll start with the headlines for the second time this year the Twin Cities is being considered for a national political convention. The republican site selection committee is spending three days in Minnesota scouting out the metro area for the GOP its national convention in the year 2000. This is nice Mary Lou Hamer caught up to the busy group today at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Piling onto a bus to see yet another spectacular sight that's a day in the life of the Republican National Convention site selection committee. And former Senator Rudy Boschwitz isn't the only one giving the Twin Cities a good review. You feel that you know there is that that energy and that synergy that has come together in the city that no one wants to do this to it's capable of doing it in going to good feeling in Minneapolis and Minneapolis is you know is a great city. St. Paul is a great city in that you know this is a very competitive process that we're competitive

because the convention brings about 100 million dollars to a local economy along with the attention of the nation. We look at a combination of things. Look no one at the facility the hall the arena you look at the hotels for the attendees to stay in and then the transportation system to get them in and out of the city. The Republican selection committee is looking at the Metrodome as a possible site for its national convention in the year 2000. Democrats on the other hand are looking at both the Metrodome and the Target Center. But Republicans say one of the dome's best features is how quickly they can empty it in terms of transportation it's very important that you move people in and out quickly. They were telling us last week that they moved you could in 15 minutes you can clear out of the Metrodome. And that's very important it's something that we're looking at. The committee also admits politics plays some role in the selection. It's not you know totally independent of politics but I

will tell you that the overriding criteria are that that the city has the physical assets and has has that commitment. And the Republicans say despite Minnesota's Democratic reputation the land of 10000 lakes is surely showing them it's committed and ready for the National Republican Convention. The level of enthusiasm in that is very different. We saw it last night in St. Paul when we arrived at the museum and there were people cheering with banners and and just an old fashioned rally and that was great fun. But it's also shows us that people here know that we are here and that they are glad to have us. And that's what we're looking for is the commitment from the community. You hope for a compatibility between the host city and you know the party in our our governing philosophies and that of the host city but I don't see any problems in that. This is the last stop of the committee's eight city tour our competition includes Charlotte

North Carolina Chicago Indianapolis New Orleans New York City Philadelphia and San Antonio. Republican national site selection committee should make a decision in January. Minnesota Attorney General Skip Humphrey today announced a settlement in the charity's fraud lawsuit involving United Children's Fund. The suit alleges United children had falsely claimed to raise money for local charities and overstated the amount of money that went to help kids with cancer. As part of the settlement you know the children pay one hundred twenty five thousand dollars and reform their solicitation practices. An independent board will now oversee the charity's operations. And we have a few numbers on what it's costing local governments to lobby state lawmakers last year. Local governments in Minnesota spent just over 2 million dollars to lobby state legislators. Now this is according to state auditor Judi Dutcher and she says that is only a part of it. She says if you add in the money that local governments pay groups such as the League of Minnesota cities or the School Boards Association which then lobby state government the

real cost last year was 3.7 million dollars. Time's running out for Minneapolis City officials on what to do about blocking. That's the infamous stretch downtown along Hennepin Avenue. They know they'd like some new development there and developers are waiting for the word to start their hundred million dollar plans. But the question is how much money should the city put in the project. This morning committee decided to allocate five million dollars to move not tear down the historic theater. But that decision also has to be approved by a couple of other committees. The issue far from over and we will keep you posted. And you may be enjoying. Hello everyone National Night Out About this time tomorrow well after news night of course National Night Out was started 15 years ago to help people get to know their neighbors and local police officers through block. Lots of parties are planned all over the state. Minneapolis alone has more than eight hundred clubs participating.

Four thousand people are expected to meet and greet in Olmsted County and in northern Minnesota a flashlight march is planned for the mass market walking area and I'm told to be glad to show up at your neighborhood party if you only give them some free food and free food free press. We are going to devote the next 10 minutes or so to folks who grow food cross-road Minnesota's report on the farm crisis in the northwestern part of our state. Other farming areas around the country are also having a tough time this year and there is renewed talk in Congress about the government getting more involved. This just two years after Congress passed a farm bill that does is designed to get the government out of farming. We're going to talk to our regular AG expert Tom Rothman in just a couple of minutes but first a glimpse of the tough going in Pennington County where NEWSNIGHT spread to Sam last row visited last week. I wanted you to get our hands on it and I know you're going to have a service at the farm auction seems an appropriate symbol for what's happening a lot in the northern plains of the Dakotas and northwestern Minnesota and precious little is selling for a

decent price. The 520 think I was told they were going to seventy five hundred fifty dollars and hardly anyone is buying come here just to see what's going on I guess. Really not interested in even purchasing anything. But I'm here. So what is our support for the labor I guess the option of Don Thomas's equipment ended three generations of farming in his family. His grandfather began farming this property in Pennington County Minnesota. Early this century. For years Tao says the price of food has not kept up with the cost of farming. Well the price of milk has been at that $12 to twelve dollars and fifty cents a hundred average your prices since 1980 or 1981 so we're we're at about eighteen years with the same price. Here we are escalating costs for dairying or farming chemical costs fertilizer costs fuel costs. And we are living with the same

prices that we lived with in the in the early 80s and the dairy business and you could buy a pickup then for four or five thousand dollars you can touch one for twenty thousand dollars today. It's tough you're out there. Swatting your granny thinking for the last time I'm going to be doing this maybe. Lou should bowl could well be calling an auctioneer in the next few months I think is that. I mean if we don't get some prices this that. And I've been here 24 years. And. And I'm. I don't overspend I don't have a lot of new equipment that oh I mean you know what. That means getting old repairs are going up. I mean we just can't you know cut corners and cut corners we can't do it anymore. Besides depressed grain prices weather has hurt both severely unlike the searing heat elsewhere this region has suffered five straight years of wet spring weather including the record 1997 floods that devastated the city of Grand Forks.

All the rain you can see your own doubts but it's truly got to wondering where their crop has died. So this is what one time was really water logged right even though it looks dry now has at one time was under water. Not only has the high soil moisture drowned crops it's also spawned a widespread fungus called wheat scab you can see here there's a little there's nothing in your brain and the series of color in here that made a kernel would seal white it is. That's absolutely worth nothing. Wheat scab has dropped the yield of fields like this by anywhere from 35 to 50 percent according to both a related fungal epidemic called Bumba toxin has dropped yields on another major crop barley. The result is a severe toll on the small communities across the region in North Dakota. Farm income has dropped 98 percent in the past two years and some twenty five hundred farms gone under. That's almost 10 percent of the total number.

In a predominantly farming state leaving farmers and we're losing farms we're losing County population and in neighboring Minnesota. Howard Pierson sees the same trend. He's a university extension agent who assists farmers had trouble. Pearson says the decline in the number of farms has accelerated in the past five years. When I started in Pennington County in 1985 we had one hundred twenty dairy farmers. Today we have about 35 left. At that same time we had seven hundred and twenty active farmers on the on the farm program at the farm or less. Today we have just under 500. Traditionally in times of rough weather and markets farmers could rely on the government to help. Subsidies provided the difference between the market price and production costs. But in 1960 Congress phased out those subsidies in a bill called the Freedom to Farm Act song once known as the chief economist at Norwest banks. The Freedom to Farm Act was designed to wean farmers away from

the government that the government used to tell farmers what to do what not to do. How much of this and to plant. And so the Farm Act was designed to really. Get farmers to receive signals from the marketplace instead of the government. But at the same time they decided to provide subsidies to farmers on a fixed basis over a seven year period. It is gradually scaled down being placed out and it is phased out by the year 2002 although that promise of free and open markets was generally well received. Song says several factors have made the reality very different for many farmers. When the farm bill was enacted in 1996 everything went right. First of all the subsidy payment was near the maximum and it is being gradually scaled down to zero eventually. Also all production here in the US and overseas was very low. That meant that prices were very high. Also economic growth was very strong

in the United States and overseas. So we could sell more and more Asian economies were warming and they were buying more of America's food. Today we have the opposite situation. We have an economic debacle in Asia. Therefore Asian demand is down the dollar is too strong so that they cannot buy very much from us and production around the world is very bountiful and on top of that in this region we've got this scare. Ken and Connie Merkins run a large farm in Pennington County Minnesota. They say the Freedom to Farm Act removed a critical safety net for them. In many ways the merkins are textbook farmers for a market economy. They've responded to market signals by planting a diversity of crops. We raise wheat barley sunflowers canola corn soy beans navy beans and pinto beans. In theory with that kind of diversity there should be more hits than misses. Chances are a problem like wheat scab for instance will be offset by strong demand in

say sunflowers. It's September wheat. It's closed today and it was down seven and a half. The December contract is down seven and a quarter. But Kahney Merkins who keeps abreast of market prices from her home office has seen little that promises a profit among their several crops without a swift turnaround in the price the grain fetches the mark in say three generations of farming may soon end in this family. After years of huge losses between a hundred two hundred thousand dollars every year every year it right now it cost that the hapa million dollars to put in our crop. That's what we're risking every year. We can probably hold off for two more years and it's probably. You know maybe that's being optimistic. You just can't keep on selling. For less than you have you know. General Motors doesn't sell cars for less than it costs them to produce.

You've been above you. We've done it for five years. And for all the equity that we've built up that his dad built up before us. Is going down the drain. We're losing it. Democrats in Congress have proposed restoring some of those price supports. Republican leaders however say the new market driven farm economy will have as many good years as bad. They've proposed emergency aid including disaster loans and advances in the subsidies still given farmers live in and under water. That assistance may be too late for many farmers in the northern plains who are forced to seek new livelihoods. Donald says it helps that farmers typically have marketable skills. He's already lined up a new job. Actually I'm going to work for every dumb guy that's putting on a production line together and I think that you know I would like to plant everybody thought it was a new line you bought some years equipment and it needs to get put together to have a new president put together with the production and I you know I guess I've been you know a putting on

like you keeping old equipment put together and going for 40 years so I figure. That's what I'm going to try to do for many farmers However the job opportunities lie far away from this sparsely populated region and there's widespread fear for the survival of many small communities. And one question yet on answered is when whether fewer farmers will lead to higher food prices at the grocery store. Rothman is with the Minnesota farm network Welcome back. To the old farm program the federal farm program that we had before 1996 make much of a difference. Well you would have target prices and efficiency payments but you'd still have the scab problems you'd still have low prices it would still be very tough. You know agriculture lives with cycles and this is a down cycle right now as far as prices go. So it it might have made a little difference but it it. It wouldn't change things dramatically. The very first farm story I ever did for radio was in 1982. Corn was selling for about two bucks a bushel and beans were selling for about six bucks a bushel and that's

what the prices are now. That's here in 1900 it's the same thing and you heard in Fred's piece earlier that these these farmers are dealing with input costs they go up fuel costs go up fertilizer costs go up but what they sell what they get for their products they sell stays the same it's hard to make a living that way. Is that dynamic ever going to change. Well that's a good question you know Congress doesn't know the answer here they try to pass these farm bills and emergency measures different farm organizations have different proposals different plans but you know I just don't think can and it's my personal opinion that we're going to see anything different until food prices rise at the grocery store. Farmers have have complained for years in this country that we have a cheap food policy. We spend as consumers less of our disposable income on food than any other country in the world. And as a result farmers see less of a profit. This is not a 1980s problem I remember back when farmers were told to expand out and buy expensive equipment. And in the 70s

and then it caught up with them in the 80s and they had these huge mortgage payments ending whipping. We saw in the piece there that you know that's not these farmers problems they're not overextended they can't make a living no matter how. How many farmers can make a living in northwestern Minnesota where the growing season is so shorts and they just seem to have a smaller margin. Well in northwestern Minnesota the scab diseases really cause the problem that's been the real real challenge for these people over five years. Some of these farmers have been there for generations and I've have made a living. Unfortunately even without the scab problem of the past five six years you still have low prices you still have prices for wheat that are in some cases below the cost of production so I think of you know farmers can make a make a living farming. Unfortunately something's got to change in this country where they get a price for what they produce. Disaster payments that they're talking about now in Congress make much of a difference to these farmers.

Oh it's certainly going to help any kind of income is going to help these people but it gets back to that same old same old story. You have to have a price for what you produce. If you're going to make a living. What happens to these farms if the farmers sell out. Does the land go fallow. Does it get bought up. Everybody talks about corporate farming and these huge corporate farms but you can't make a living on 10000 acres now. Is anybody going to buy that land. Well it gets bought. It usually gets purchased by neighbors and they get bigger and you know it's not necessarily any easier for a very large farmer of any commodity to make a living if they can get a price. It doesn't matter if they're huge You still have to to generate a good income for what you produce. I was thinking of that couple of who had done everything that they were supposed to do diversify the crops a lot more diversity than you normally see in that part of the country. And they're still talking about going under in two to three years and they're still having problems and one big reason why I think is farmers are a very tiny minority in this country there's about 2 million farmers it's about 1 1 100th of our population are so they just don't have that that power that

political power economic power they don't it's not one group of farmers you have farmers with different philosophies in different parts of the country who compete with other farmers and and it's very very difficult there's there's no easy answer to that was almost out of time very quickly the scab. Is there any indication that scientists are either finding a way to combat this or that it's going to go away naturally. Well scientists are working on it but it does take time there were some fields that were fumigated this year I talked to some wheat growers in the southern Valley who said the scam is a little bit less than they thought they're optimistic. All right Congressman thanks a lot. Thank you again. Phone calls letters emails we truly love them all here at NEWSNIGHT call us up bed

2 2 9 1 4 3 0. Or an email of yours dated the type of person and news at a dot org. Now last week you took an interest in a number of our stories including our show devoted to lieutenant governors in particular Roger mole. I was interested in Senator McCain's comments tonight on what he would do him the kind of governor and how he would work to build consensus and so forth. I wish he had been asked if that's what he was doing the day he is chairing the Senate. When you didn't have to vote for it he did have a vote for an issue that he was against and Soviet you're in the Senate. It was the first time in history that such a thing has been done and it was a misuse of his power and I resent it carefully. I have the phones ringing our delightful chat about the KSTP investigative report on the D in our spending habits prompted some questions including this one I really

enjoyed reading your discussion at KSC gate a reporter therapy. I like good questions about readiness. Thanks for the background. PRESIDENT Thank you. I want to know if how many people get a feel for a country town. Good question I've got to ask that one sorry about that I'll call up somebody and find out for you finally our discussion with the judge told him about the Zapruder film. At least one person thinking about the big picture. I'm a morbidly philosophical point of view I ask whether you're a nobody like me or somebody in a fancy high powered position. The bottom line question is how much power and security do we really have and how much of it is the Rouge. I don't know about that we've got to think about it give us a call to 2 9 1 4 3 0 and don't forget that area code now is 6 5 1 now in for folks in greater Minnesota. You will be charged for the call

because as you know we're cheap and because for public television we just get the money. Please give us a call. Now let us take a quick look at the weather and tomorrow's weather looks like it will be mostly cloudy with a chance for afternoon thunderstorms with highs from the mid 70s to around 80. And now we save the best for last I love this story St. Paul will be deciding on a new school superintendent Wednesday night. Now of course the selection process involves the school board. But what about the kids. Now before you start thinking that kids don't care who the new super is we found one that does. In fact he was one of the folks who interviewed the final candidates today. Joining us tonight is Steve Rosenbloom a sophomore at Johnson senior high school and they were talking about upstairs. I don't even remember I had no idea who the super was and I went to high school and here you're taking a part in the selection process. Why do you even care. Well you know I just want to be the ones one of the ones that gets you know a chance to be

there. And you you want to have like a voice so you want you want to get what's best for you. Now there were you were not of course the only student. Fourteen or fifteen others yes. OK and you all get a chance to ask questions. There are and there are nine of us they got to ask questions. We met previously and we you know we made up the questions. And what was your question. My question was for the betterment of student education. What target area areas do you think need improvement and how can you improve. All right what were some of the other concerns do you feel that they both answered your question. Yeah yes I do. They say they are good or give me a slight here who's ahead Who do you favor right now. I'm going to say that tomorrow. Oh you're sounding like I'm alright this is pretty good this guy's got a political future but somebody is the head of somebody oh yeah right now in your mind. OK there's a point that people of color kind of dropped out there now there are a lot of people you know figure with St. Paul schools and the diversity in the city. Something you don't

want to just wipe off the map without thinking about. Yeah. Well yeah I was kind of disappointed but you know they're there if they want to be there. Hopefully whoever gets the job will do quite well. What were some of the other questions that came up from the students. There were there were questions about safety in their situation questions and their questions like What would you do about a student you know how would you help us out. Questions like that. And you feel the school board will seriously take into account what happened today. I think they will. You know they made a name to come out and get us and I think they will. All right. And I would think you in turn take that back to students cause you were there in a part of it. You could lot of the students know that yes we are part of this is and is because a lot of kids they they don't even know the superintendent was and now we have we have a voice in who who was able to be picked. And so I can go back and tell him you know hey I we had to pick you.

Well I'm proud of being dead yet a chance to get in there and ask one question and take part of process and tomorrow you're going back to up find out how it develops from there. So for Steve Rosen blow Ma I'm Lou Harmon Africans don't Goodnight see you tomorrow please come back. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota has made possible in part with support from the Landon Foundation working to strengthen world communities throughout the SOTA. The McKnight Foundation working to strengthen families and communities across Minnesota argue supporting Minnesota National Community Service. And bike bakery and Benson offering comprehensive services for the legal needs of growing and established businesses.