The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; American Agriculture

"BUD" BITNER, Farm Protest Leader: You know, we own nearly a hundred percent of all the agricultural products in this nation. The big grain companies don`t own it, the government doesn`t own it, we own it. There`s no law that says we have to sell it at below the cost of production or below a profit level. One of our strike efforts will be not to sell our products until our demands are met.

You know, we just came here from Georgia. There were 3,022 tractors demonstrated in Statesboro, Georgia yesterday in this protest.

ROBERT MacNEIL: Last Friday more than three thousand farmers drove their tractors to a rally at Statesboro, Georgia to protest against the decline in farm prices. Rallies like this have been happening all over the country as part of a campaign to promote a nationwide strike by farmers if Congress does not help them by December 14. Tonight, a look at the growing militancy among America`s farmers.

Good evening. Two months ago a group of angry farmers met in Springfield, Colorado, determined to do something about depressed farm prices. They considered these facts: bumper crops this year have lowered prices, while inflation in land, fertilizer, fuel and machinery prices has forced up their cost of production. As a result, many farmers are making a loss and thousands face losing their farms.

The Colorado group formed an organization called American Agriculture, and in two months it has spread all over the country. American Ag, as they call it, claims it has contacted a million farmers, more than a third of the agricultural population, and that sixty percent of them are in favor of a strike. American Ag wants Congress to guarantee farmers what they call a hundred percent parity for their crops, based on 1967 prices, so that one bushel of wheat would buy today what it did in 1967. If they do not get parity by December 14, they threaten to stop selling agricultural produce, refuse to plant crops next year, and stop buying new machinery.

This weekend American Agriculture had a chance to explain its thinking to a meeting of farmers in Willmar, Minnesota. Their leading spokesman is Bud Bitner.

LYNN KETELSON, Linder Farm Network: You know, there`s a group called American Agriculture -- you`re all aware of them -- that are talking price of parity or strike by December 14. And it`s become a significant movement, there`s no doubt about it. So at this time we`d like to introduce the leaders, and we`re happy to have them with us today from Springfield, Colorado. You fellows come out, we`ve got Alvin Jenkins, Bud Bitner and Keith Thomas with us today; they`re going to make some comments and we`re going to have some questions from the audience for them, and we`re going to turn the microphones on. So at this time, we`ll turn it over to Bud Bitner. Bud?

BITNER: Thank you, Lynn. I know that you folks are all tired of sitting out there. Why don`t you all get up and stand up and stretch just a moment?

I hope that many of you have heard of American Agriculture. Most of you are part of it, whether you realize it or not. It`s not an organization, it`s not an insurance selling group, we don`t have any membership, we don`t have any elected officials. I`m simply a farmer from southeast Colorado, from a town of eleven hundred population. I never got before a podium and spoke to a farm group before in my life till this movement got started. I raise corn, wheat, cattle and alfalfa. I`ve been in the sugar beet business and I`ve raised a little bit of produce. I`ve shifted around every way I know how to make a profit, and I`m still not there yet; I`m still in a loss position, and I think many of you are in the same position today -- or have been, or will be.

The American Agriculture group is simply a realization group that finally, realizing what a desperate position we were in, decided to take it nationwide. And we look back on it today and wonder how in the world such a few number of us ever thought we could take something nationwide, but we`ve been from Delaware to California to Washington State to Georgia to Minnesota to Texas. And we have one goal, one goal only at any one of these organizations, and that`s a hundred percent of parity, not a dime more or a penny less. (Applause.)

I can see county people being elected and state people being elected and a national commission being elected to administer our agricultural programs, but we must have in the beginning the concept of a hundred percent of parity accepted by the entire nation or they will never allow us to do this. We are only three percent, and there`s only one way that we`re going to get that action, and that is to bring it to the attention of the people in such a drastic manner that they cannot avoid responding to it. And the only way to do that is to take the product off the market.

The food supply chain in this country is not very long, particularly in the dairy products, in the meat products, and not even in the grain products, in the cereal grains. Sixty days at the most for any product is the length of the pipeline. The pipeline is not overfilled. You know, business on up the line has learned to let us carry the inventory so they had no expense in it. They hedge themselves on the board of trade, but they don`t have any inventory. They`ve got it bought out there on paper, but they don`t have an inventory; we have the inventory. We`ve been raising it, storing it, maintaining it and financing it at our cost so they can have an inventory at no cost. So it`s not that hard to cut off that chain.

MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: We heard the Farm Organization say here today, two of them or one of them especially, that they agreed with strike and they`re happy to see farmers move. In the hallways you hear them say that you guys are crazy, you`re going to fail, it won`t work. What`s the reaction around the country?

BITNER: We`re saying that this movement right now has at least sixty percent of the people we`ve been in contact with willing to go on strike. There`s forty-five percent of that group, by the last poll that we took, indicating that it will work. That`s much above what it takes to create a scarcity of our products in this country.

SECOND MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: Would you believe thirty percent would be enough?

BITNER: Yes, sir, I very definitely do believe thirty percent would be adequate to create a tremendous shortage.

MacNEIL: American Ag puts out figures claiming that the average market price for farm commodities is only fifty-eight percent of parity, or buying power, compared with 1967 prices, the last time farm parity was adjusted. On that basis, they claim, prices received by farmers now are at a forty- four year low, the lowest since the depth of the Great Depression. American Ag said they are not demanding price supports or government subsidies, they just want Congress to set the price that buyers -- and ultimately consumers -- will have to pay them. They base their appeal on a mixture of the practical and the emotional that has clearly touched a chord in many Americans. At the Willmar meeting on Saturday another American Ag spokesman, Alvin Jenkins, expressed this feeling.

ALVIN JENKINS, American Agriculture: There`s not a young person can go into agriculture, buy a farm, buy ten year-old used machinery, forget the new stuff, and can even pay the interest on it, much less survive. We are fifty-six years of age in the farmers, we are fifty-seven years of age in the cattlemen; not one young person can start in agriculture and survive. Are we in trouble.

My son wants to be in agriculture. He don`t want to go off to town and teach school or something, he wants to be in agriculture. I cannot help him. I am mortgaged to the hilt now; I cannot start my son in a losing game. Don`t tell me your son can start in agriculture on his own; I know he cannot. Don`t tell me he can buy a ranch on his own; I know he cannot. He can buy it, but fellas, he cannot produce at a loss and pay for it.

Why do we think American Agriculture is a good movement? Why do we think that a hundred percent of parity is equal? There is nothing on earth, nothing that you can buy any more below the cost of production, exception of one thing: the third most thing that has to be had. You have to have air, folks, to breathe. We spend billions of dollars of the taxpayers` and the consumers` money to keep air from being polluted; nobody says a thing. We spend billions of dollars to clean the water so you can have a drink; nobody says a thing. I`m going to tell you, after you get your swallow of water, take a deep breath of air, it`s about time for supper. So let`s quit bitching over a little old farm bill that was passed to the tune of eleven billion dollars -- five and a half of it went for food stamps; three of it went overseas to back up the third world farmers to be in direct competition against you; 2.7 billion is made out in loans that we pay back every penny of, and we finally get down to what we`re backing the biggest industry on earth with, the one that feeds the world: it`s 1.9 billion dollars, and then all the politicians and the President will point their finger at you on television and on the radio and say we`re subsidizing the American farmer, taxpayers, once again. God, folks, you`re the only people on earth that is subsidizing everybody there in the United States and across the seas too. Why don`t we become proud people. I`m an American farmer. I`m not a Democrat, I`m not a Republican, I`m not Independent, I don`t belong to Farm Bureau, Farmers` Union or no other organization; that`s how I register to vote. God, when I go to the bank to borrow money I sign my name on it as a farmer or a rancher. Why don`t we act like we are the main people on earth and we are proud people. We`re going to live in America; we want to work if it takes sixty hours a week or seventy hours a week. We`re going to feed this wonderful country. We`ll give anybody overseas what they want to eat, but we want one thing: not no more I am no better than you, but I am just as good as you; I want a dollar for a dollar, not a dime less and not a dime more. I`m very fair, I`m American farmer. Why don`t we stand up right now and shake each other`s hand and become part of this society. Thank you, folks. (Applause.)

MacNEIL: That organization, American Agriculture, represents a serious challenge to the establishment organizations that have represented farmers for several generations: American Farm Bureau, the Farmers` Union, and the National Farmers` Organization. The Willmar meeting, sponsored by a network of radio stations, was billed as the largest gathering of agricultural leaders in the history of the United States. That`s because it was the first time that the heads of rival farm organizations had appeared together in public in many years. Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland and President Carter were both invited; both indicated they were considering it, both stayed away. As it was, the establishment farm leaders did not draw a full house, and found themselves having to explain what they thought about the strike called by the upstart American Ag. They took refuge in statesmanlike evasion.

JOHN WEFALD, Moderator: The question is, do you support a farm strike on December 14?

BEN RADCLIFFE, South Dakota Farmers` Union: Farmers` Union does not have a public position at this time on the farm strike. Obviously we`re terribly concerned, as President DeChant indicated, with farm income and farm prices. And we think it`s good that public attention is drawn to the problem. And any kind of public attention that can be drawn toward that problem may produce some results. But our position on farm strike is that we have no official position and we`re not supporting a farm strike at this time.

OREN LEE STALEY, National Farmers` Organization: There will be no criticism from Oren Lee Staley and the NFO on the farm strike discussion, and all encouragement and conversation that I can legally go with will be very emphatic that I am encouraged to see farmers on the move, and I hope they get mad enough that they really come through and unite agricultural production in this country together so it can be priced. (Applause, cheers.)

ALLAN GRANT, American Farm Bureau: We are having our annual meeting the second week of January, and the delegates make the policy, I do not. There is no position supporting a strike at the present time. If the delegates want to support it, they will, the second week of January. That`s after the fourteenth of December. And somehow or other somebody got mixed up.

MacNEIL: So if the older organizations were equivocal about the strike, what was their solution to the present situation and why couldn`t they all get together? The answers reflected the differing philosophies of the three organizations present. The newest, the National Farmers` Organization, founded in 1955, is generally regarded as the most militant. It has tried holding back commodities to affect prices in the past and is now campaigning for farm prices reflecting production costs plus a reasonable profit.

The American Farm Bureau, generally regarded as the most conservative, is the largest farm organization and is particularly outspoken about government intervention in agriculture.

The Farmers` Union, the oldest of the three, stresses the need for government to give farm families a more just share of the national income. Their spokesman, Tony DeChant, spoke first.

TONY DeCHANT, National Farmers` Union: When the latest agriculture price and parity figures came out Monday night, just this last Monday, some were quick to grasp at a one percent improvement in farm price and to declare that grain prices had bottomed out. We in the Farmers` Union are not going to be satisfied that the decline has stopped, or bottomed out, if it`s going to mean that we`re going to be stabilized at that point. If the administration is going to be willing to do no more than just administer the farm support programs at the bare minimum figures in the `77 Farm Act, we are going to be stuck where we are, with farm prices well below the cost of production.

But: the administration can go from forty to fifty percent minimums in the `77 Farm Law as high as ninety percent of parity on most commodities, and a hundred percent of parity on some. The administration does not have to wait on the Congress to act. But if the administration does nothing, if it lets November and December and part of January go by, then the Congress will have to raise those minimum crop loans or support levels and do it on a mandatory basis. We have to remind the Congress that we`re not going to be cowed by this business of budget ceilings, that somehow a budget becomes sacred and holy and that that has to be the guiding principle. I say it`s time to put America back to work to make sure we have a healthy agriculture, regardless of what the budget situation is because you have to make an investment! You have to start at some point to make an investment to get that job done!

STALEY: I have been termed as militant throughout the period of the NFO history, and it`s a word that I`m proud of. It`s a word that I`ve tried to live and enact, that I believe that we certainly must stay within the bounds of the laws of this country. I`ve never advocated, never supported anything else. But I am encouraged by the fact that I hear a farmers` meeting talking about a farm strike. I am encouraged by the fact that I heard of a tractor demonstration in this area of Minnesota. Those things don`t scare me, they encourage me! Why? Because I`m seeing farmers get active. I`m seeing them start to do things together. We have to do something in agriculture that we`ve never done before, and that is we have to organize and price our products and the cost of production plus a reasonable profit, and not go to Washington or anywhere else but do it from our own farmstands, our own ranches and our own barnlots, our own dairy barns. (Applause.)

GRANT: Farmers have heard a great deal -- we heard some today -- about the virtues of the strike which comes from unity. Well, we haven`t said nearly enough about the virtues of choice, what comes from diversity. Get together, stay together, all these kinds of things we hear constantly; we heard it again today. Heated discussions result when rival farm groups come into being. There`s nothing wrong with rival farm groups, there ought to be rival farm groups. People have said to me, "What is your opinion of this or that or the other farm organization?" I said, "It`s a good thing; it makes farmers think." We`ve not adequately explained how in this country these differences can provide a valuable dynamic tension. Total unity is as non- creative as it is non-competitive. Total unity is what we have in Red China, in Russia and Yugoslavia; in those countries, total unity. That`s exactly what we have in those communist countries, and that is not what I want to have as an individual.

WEFALD: The Farmers` Union insists that government is the only answer. The NFO insists that organization is the only answer.. The Farm Bureau insists that farmers don`t need anything but the free system. My question is, how much longer can the American farmer afford the luxury of supporting their farm organizations who will not join hands for the good of their members so they can realize a decent net farm income?

STALEY: Legally, you have to belong all to the same organization. You cannot have conspiracy; that`s what`s meant if you get together as various groups and talk over economic policies and make economic plans that would affect price. Therefore, it would be impossible for us to get together unless going into one organization, because that would be a direct violation of antitrust.

MacNEIL: None of the speakers from the old-line organizations fired up the crowd quite like the American Agriculture leaders, who came on at the bottom of the bill on Saturday. And as one question from the floor implied, there was a contrast between the half-empty hall there to hear these leaders, and the American Agriculture protest rallies that are drawing thousands around the country. Some two thousand people and five hundred tractors turned up at McCook, Nebraska on Sunday. Many more such rallies are planned between now and the strike deadline on December 14.

But the different voices speaking for the farmer left some of those attending that Willmar, Minnesota meeting on Saturday a bit skeptical.

CAROL BUCKLAND, Reporter: What do you think about what you`ve been hearing here today?

IDEN FAIRCHILD, South Dakota Farmer: Oh, I think a lot of it is a lot of talk, and I don`t think the Farmers` Union has the answer and I don`t think the Farm Bureau is ever going to have the answer. And it`s the farmers` own fault if the prices are low, the way I see it. And they aren`t going to get any help out of Washington; that`s been proven in the past thirty years. It`s helped for the time being, for a short period of time, but there`s nothing in the long run that`s ever come out of Washington that`s given the farmers anything to stand back on. And there`s all this talk about the strike, why, NFO went through that here ten, fifteen years ago. They`re doing the same thing as what this American Farm Organization is talking about now. I feel that those people can join with NFO and maybe accomplish something through them, through orderly marketing.

Mrs. BERNARD NIEMANN, South Dakota Farmer: I`d say we`ve got to get better prices, because we know at the end of the year we don`t have any spending money, we can barely get by. By the time we feed all our animals and that, we`re just going backwards every year, and it`s gotten to the point now where we`re ready to lose our farm unless something turns around real fast, like.

MARVIN JOHNSON, Minnesota Farmer: They complain about the farms getting bigger and bigger, but who s buying most of the farms? It`s one neighbor buying away from his other neighbor, and it`s just a vicious circle. And another thing, farmers have always been real enthused about driving new tractors and new equipment, new combines, just like the city dweller just loves to have a new car; whether his old car is wore out or whether it can provide him with a couple more years of dependable transportation doesn`t enter into the picture. And then when he buys this new machinery, it produces more so then he`s got to have more land -- and it`s just a vicious circle.

ERVIN STREY, Minnesota Farmer: After this meeting today, we`ve had a lot of rhetoric for many years, and so far this is what this is, and if we have no action comes from it after this, we`ve just wasted our gas and time coming here, that`s all.

MacNEIL: That`s all from The MacNeil/Lehrer Report tonight. Jim Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Goodnight.