Battle of the Westlands

<v Weatherman>August 23, and this is the Daily Farm Report coming to you from KOJ the voice of the Valley. Weather for central California is fair today. Expected temperatures in the high 90s, winds northwesterly. On the national scene, Secretary of the Interior announced yesterday regulations that aim to break up huge corporate farm holdings in 17 Western states and return the land in 160 acre parcels to family farmers. Target is our own Westlands District. [music plays] <v Narrator>Westlands may be the largest piece of farmland in the world. We Americans take farming pretty much for granted. We eat the food, wear the cotton, don't question where it comes from because we live in cities, most of us. So what goes on out here? Well, it just doesn't concern us much. But to the rest of the world, agriculture is America's great success story. We lose wars, a dollar isn't what it was still when it comes to growing food and fiber. We Americans do it better than anybody else. And our place as a power in the world depends in good part on this. Today, though, something seems to have gone wrong with a great success story, part of the problem could be that the farmer himself has disappeared. 100,000 leave our country's farmland every year. But whatever the cause, there's trouble on the farm. And a center of the conflict is here in California's vast Central Valley, where the longest, widest, most expensive water system in history was built by the American taxpayer. What may be decided here is who's going to control land and food production in our country? Many of us or a few?

<v Jack Stone>I don't believe the people of the United States built this district to have a revolution out here and push everybody off on the side and have my shop go to shambles just to see somebody else start up with another little farm.

<v Jesse De La Cruz>I would like to buy land in Westlands. I know that is prime land. I worked there for 15 years for the big corporations. <v John Whiterd>An element exists across the land that would like to see a redistribution of the wealth, and they feel that the land belongs to the people and that we have no rights of private ownership. <v Berge Bulbulian>In the Westlands Water District, we have a new opportunity for us, a new frontier in agriculture, and I think it could show us what we can do in terms of of peaceful, fair land reform. <v Gary George>It's a wonderful place out here, but the tremendous amount of money and political effort that's being put forward by the large corporate farms is almost impossible to compensate for. <v Philip Levine>And it's the worst example of a pork barrel project that this country's probably put together. <v Carol Harris>It was one of the best investments this country's ever made. It has returned money to the taxpayer hundreds of times over compared to what it cost.

<v George Miller>It is a stagecoach robbery. It's absolute looting of the Treasury. They run around and beat their chests like pioneers and say, we made the deserts bloom. Hell, anybody could have made the deserts bloom. If you gave them 12 billion dollars, you could grow aluminum in the desert for 12 billion dollars. <v Narrator>What is this Westlands, they're all fighting about? A trough of land in the center of America's leading farm state, California. 600,000 acres here and all of it pure gold. More wealth has been dug out of this ground than ever came from California's Goldfields. The battle is over who will control it? A few large landholders already here or a lot of small farmers who say it was promised to them. Nobody was fighting over Westlands 30 years ago, then it was raw desert, most of it desert and swampy grassland. The first settlers in the valley headed for better ground, and this land was left to a few ranchers who put down wealth and tried to grow crops. Then back in the 50s, some of the most powerful men in the state saw the potential here. If they could only get water saw to that it would soon go back to desert if they didn't. So they went to Washington and appealed to the federal government. [music plays] <v John F. Kennedy>[applause] it is a pleasure for me to come out here and help blow up this valley and [inaudible] its progress. What this project also symbolizes is an effort to build up our resource heritage so that it will be available to those who come after us.

<v Narrator>A mechanical concrete river that sends water from the wet north of the state south. We made the desert bloom. And we did it using a law whose primary purpose wasn't really to rescue land, but to settle it, most easterners have never heard of the Reclamation Act of 1992, don't know it was a gift they gave to the western half of our country. The government brought water to arid lands, then opened them up to settlers. And since the aim was to distribute benefits of this irrigated land to as many farmers as possible, ownership was limited to 160 acres per person. All land in excess of that to be sold at the price it would have been without the valuable water and the words of the man who made the law. Our purpose is not so much to irrigate land as it is to build homes. Their intent was that people come first. Today, reclamation accounts for only about one percent of our nation's crop land, but it's hugely productive, heavily subsidized by US taxpayers, and very little of it is held 160 acre plots anymore. About half the reclamation money spent in this country went here to the Central Valley project, four to five billion dollars. A huge investment. And two things were expected in return for productive land and thousands of small farmers living on it. But Westlands was already being formed the way they do it in California and big operations. <v Jack Stone>My name is Jack Stone. I've been farming here on the West Side since at least 1939. The Bureau of Reclamation came to me and said that we are forming the Westlands Water District and we're going to produce water out here in this area and you'll have additional water to run your farm more efficiently. Remember, you don't have to join the Westlands water district, if you don't want to, you can stay out, keep with your pumps and go on like you were. But if you want to get in the Westlands water district and get this water, you have to sell all your land that you own except one one, one hundred and sixty acres. And you have to sell it at the value that it may be if there was never a water district here. Now, no farmer in his right mind would agree to sell all his land at half price. But I need more water badly. And I then agreed to join the district, signed the contract. Jack Stone signed it here. United States government signed it below. And I thought it was a good and bonafide contract. And I certainly am going to stand up to my side of that contract.

<v Carol Harris>I'm Carol Harris, and both I and my husband are third generation farmers in this area. My husband's father came out here and my father came out here when there was nothing here, put down deep wells and developed what was essentially cheap land into farmland. And they were doing this for over 40 years. When the federal water project came in, it was brought in because the water table was going down and they felt that a supplementary supply was needed.

<v Narrator>The harris' farm is 17000 acres, Jack Stone, 8000. Like other farmers here, they made a bargain with the government in exchange for ten years of good, cheap water. They agreed to sell off all their land at the end of that time, everything in excess of 160 acres per person so that many small farmers could buy into the project. Farmers like these. <v Jesse De La Cruz>[Speaking in spanish] I'm Jesse De La Cruz, a farm working farmer from Raisin City. My husband and I own our 10 acres. We have been farming this land since 1974 and here we have cherry tomatoes, onions and hot chilies. I say that we are the true farmers because we farm the land even though we never owned it. We are the farmers so we can get land. We want that law, the 1902 law, enforced so that we can buy some of that land. <v Narrator>Gary George is one of the few small farmers who did manage to get ground in Westlands.

<v Gary George>It was very difficult. We found time after time contacting the different large owners and corporations that were selling ground that was necessary usually to purchase anywhere from a thousand to 5000 acres in order to, you know, to be able to buy. And I had raised a little bit of ruckus about it and was told that they would find me some ground. And when this 320 acres came up for sale, we were notified. And without even seeing the property, we immediately told them we would take it. We purchased this ground in 1973. We lease additional acres and we've operated as an 800 acre farm for the last two years. <v Narrator>In the early 70s, the first sales of excess land began. Small farmers and land reform groups were watching and they objected to the manner of those sales. <v Berge Bulbulian>I'm Berge Bulbulian I'm president of National Land for People. We're an organization essentially made up of California people. But we do have members throughout the country and this is the reason we call ourselves the National Land for People. And our goal is to enforce reclamation law specifically now in the Westlands Water District land <v George Balas>This is George Balas with National Land for People. Was I talking to are you familiar with the National Land for People and what we're about? OK. In the early 1970s, some sales began to take place under these contracts and they were absolutely outrageous. We had the public documents on 55 sales which showed how the Department of Interior was allowing these large landowners to evade the law and to freeze out legitimate small family farmers for whom the reclamation programs designed. So we took them to court and whether with a woman attorney, 28 years old, who had never tried a water case before, we beat him in three months and we beat him in three months in the face of you know, they had 12 very prosperous attorneys in that courtroom in Washington. I'll never forget that scene. We beat him in three months, that we beat him because we had the goods on him.

<v Narrator>That was back in 1976. A federal court judge put a moratorium on land sales in Westlands until rules were set up to enforce reclamation law there. <v Employee>Or we can mail you a sample copy.

<v Narrator>Now, it was a big growers turn, outraged by the court order. They joined with reformation farmers from 16 other states. They held protest rallies and formed their own organization. <v John Whiterd>I'm John Whiterd, executive director of California Westside Farmers, and we're an organization of farmers, farm operators. Our purpose is to preserve an economic and a political climate in which a healthy and a vigorous agriculture can continue to exist and reclamation areas such as the Westlands Water District. <v Narrator>And that's where the fight stands today. Big growers on one side, small ones on the other. So what's at issue is not just who owns the land, but how it is used. <v Weatherman>It's 7:00 a.m. in the Valley. Looks like spring planning will be late this year due to unseasonable rains. <v Jack Stone>Well, first off, I'm sure glad to have you guys come over and guys and gals, especially the gals, really, to look over our farming operation. What we got here, we've got about. Nine thousand acres of dirt. It's kind of spread out a little bit. Some people think all we do is raise cotton, but we don't just raise cotton. We raise sugar beets and hay and seed alfalfa and lettuce and lettuce seeds and cucumber seeds and bought everything we can think of that we can make a dime out of everything but Peanuts, I won't allow them to raise any peanuts in the place no matter what. But anyway, we think it's quite a business that should be really planned properly. And we have our office staff and we have our man in there that takes care of all the bookkeeping. And there is a lot of bookkeeping to a farm like this. We have our foreman under each division. We have an agronomist that talks about how to plant the stuff and how to fertilize it and so on. We have another guy that does nothing but worry about water and irrigation. Do we have another guy that all he worries about is harvesting the darn stuff after it's growing? And then there's me that worries about borrowing money and keeping us out of jail and that sort of thing. We figured that's the way it has to be. That's going to be a cotton field. What we call this is flat planting. And the object is to get the seed right down in the moisture, not too deep, about an inch and a half deep. Well, our hopes here is to get around two and a quarter bales, but we don't think we'll do that this year because of the problems we've had with the rains and too much water and too late of planning. So if we get two bales here, we'll feel that we're quite fortunate. I'm always interested to see which crop does make the most. And that's what's good about cotton. You can get into big acres and there's where the income is.

<v Jack Stone>OK, some people would say that our operation is rather large. And certainly larger than a lot of people think that farm should be, we hear all this talk about there should be a limit on the size of farms. And I, I don't like to have anybody talk about limiting what my abilities may be or what my position of efficiency may be or anybody else.

<v George Miller>Well, what I object to most is- <v Narrator>George Miller, congressman from Northern California <v George Miller>who don't need federal subsidies, are coming to the federal government to get those subsidies. And people who made a commitment signed a contract, lobbied for the contract to say that once the federal government puts the water on the land and it's a viable agricultural area, we'll turn it over to family farmers. The problem is now it's so good now they don't want to share it. And I think that's wrong. <v Carol Harris>So then the government comes along and suddenly says it's- that small farms are somehow desirable, which number one, nothing is desirable if it isn't viable. I don't care who thinks it would be fun to live out there and and somehow has a fantasy of what farming is like. Farming is a business and has to be I'm sorry to tell the American people, but that's the truth. We've got to produce and we've got to be in competition with these other countries and we've got to do it better and at less cost. And we've got to get that food in the store so that everyone can buy it. And it doesn't cost an arm and a leg just to have dinner at night. And that's the whole point. <v Jesse De La Cruz>We have been earning a living here out of these 10 acres. Last year we made close to 20 thousand dollars. But this is because we're doing the work ourselves. See, if I was to hire somebody to come and do the work for us, some of the profits would go into somebody else's pocket. But since we're doing the work, the money, whatever the profits are, will are ours. And it's our goal to prove that, yes, that you can earn a living and small acreage. You don't need thousands of acres. As the West Side farmers claim.

<v Carol Harris>We have become the size we are because it's necessary to be that in this area we have a lot of economies of scale. We're able to keep things up better. We're able to employ more people because we can operate at a smaller margin of profit. <v Jack Stone>But now they come up with these funny ideas that what's great in life is to have small farms and people have three hundred and twenty acres and a few chickens and cows and and maybe a car and a horse and a cow. And that's happiness. Well, I don't particularly think that's the way to raise the food and fiber for this United States. <v Carol Harris>And now the government sits there and decides that this is some wonderful thing. They're going to create a little preserve where everyone has to be a certain size. And and just that's the way it's going to be forever after. This will extend to the year 2020. In the year 2020, farming will probably even be more intensive than it is now. We're going to be having to produce 50 percent more in the next 40 years. And you're not going to produce anything more if you chop these farms up and what are people going to eat?

<v Jesse De La Cruz>They say that the big corporations are growing enough food for the whole country, for the whole nation and for everybody, the whole world. OK, say there say there's five corporations that are doing this. Why can't five hundred do it? And open jobs for these people. <v Narrator>Berge Bulbulian of National Land. <v Berge Bulbulian>Well, the more salaries you have, the cheaper the price of food is going to be and the fewer salaries you have. Conversely, the higher the price is going to be. Monopoly may be slightly too strong a word, but it would certainly be, cooperative efforts, whatever you want to call it. You can have an OPEC of food producers, food producers, what would we call it? The Organization of food producing communities, OFPEC? <v Jack Stone>I wouldn't want to say or recommend that somebody comes out here or what should come out here and start a small farm like one hundred and sixty acres or three, 20 without really thinking it over.

<v Gary George>We had that that philosophy try it on us when we were trying to buy out here. And we're told that it was impossible for anybody to make it on less than maybe 2000 acres. I'm very glad we didn't listen to him. It isn't the case. The ground is very productive, just some of the best ground that can ever be found. And I'm convinced that a single man on a one hundred sixty acres would would be able to make a decent living. <v Jack Stone>We farm one hundred and fifty acres. Indeed, we're farming grapes. We're not farming some of the crops they're growing in the West Side. But there is no crop, that has been growning on the west side on irrigated farmland on which you could not make a satisfactory living and still do it within the provisions of the law. So some people will fail, by the way. They always have and they always will. There's no guarantee. <v Philip Levine>If one put a lot of new novice farmers out there through-

<v Narrator>economist Philip Levine of the Public Interest Economics Group. <v Philip Levine>Willing to speculate that the productivity of the land would go down. On the other hand, if you put experienced small farmers out there, there's no reason to think that the productivity would change at all. Indeed, I've heard a lot of small farmers and large farmers, for that matter, argue that relatively small farms make much better use of the land resource and the labor resource. <v Gary George>I had always had visions of becoming larger and larger and very big blocks of ground. Everyone tends to believe that bigger is better as you get larger and larger. People tend to lose a touch with a soul, in essence, and be caught up in the management of it and the sense of power, the manipulation of large blocks of ground and of both people. And there's rewards there. And if that's the case that's happened a lot in Westlands, as they said, all of us out here realize that this is a good country that's very productive ground. We have the most fantastic water system that's ever been developed by man out here. And it's a natural tendency when you have a good thing to, you know, not share your ice cream cone. Well, my myself, I would I think if the 1902 law was enforced as it was agreed to be enforced when the project was proposed, we would see the breakup of this area and the section sized operations or possibly a little larger. I also think that from the standpoint of the well-being of this community, the well-being of the consumer, that we would be better off with the smaller family type operation. <v Mrs. Stone>I would like to have more people. There would be more children my children's age to play with and more friends.

<v Gary George>There's a degree of loneliness in the sense that it's quite a long ways to the nearest neighbor. Some people come out here and they say, oh, with their own country and other people come out and say this, I love it, I want to be here. And I think there there's a lot of people who would be out here if they could. <v Mrs. George>It's just wonderful living out here. The views are spectacular and it is just beautiful all the time. <v Narrator>What's the most efficient way to farm? Most growers out here believe the big units are the way to go. And many experts agree with them. An equal number, though, don't. In fact, one agribusiness giant, Tenneco Corporation, rather surprisingly, states this in a recent report, From the standpoint of efficiency, there is no substitute for the small to medium sized grower who lives on his land and has a deep personal involvement in the outcome of his efforts. As for the profits from farming, well, there are other ways to calculate it besides money. A lot of people think that an efficient farm ought to provide other benefits too. <v Weatherman>June 16, it's 7:00 in the morning, and the temperature is 92. First of the summer melons are in the market and they're picking cherry tomatoes on the east side of the valley. [speaking spanish]

<v Jesse De La Cruz>I'm so very proud of all of them. My sons and daughters. [music plays]. <v Jesse De La Cruz>As a child, I was working out in the fields beside my grandparents <v Guest>[speaking spanish] <v Jesse De La Cruz>half of the time we spent looking for work, I attended about 40 to 45 schools during this time. One week here, one month there, two weeks somewhere else, just on the move all the time following the crops. But that's not what we want for our next generation. We want farmers.

<v Guest>Is that what you want to do? Is that why you want to sell the house? To get the money to buy the 30 acres? <v Guest>Can you have a profit? <v Guest>If you've got a good year on 10 acres and everything, about ten thousand dollars an acre and vegetable. You'll make a 100000 an acre, we make sixty sixty one thousand on five acres. [laughing]. <v Jesse De La Cruz>You can come from over on vacation and help us. <v Guest>I'll come in and organize your workers. That's what I'll do. <v Jesse De La Cruz>No, they're already organizied.

<v Guest>It ain't the kind you walk on. [laughing] <v Jesse De La Cruz>My son. He wants to go into farming. They want to move to a farm where they can raise grapes or fruit trees [laughing] it's going to be hard to buy the land. <v Jack Stone>Tough to get Farmland. It was tough when I first came out here. It's tough now. It's going to be tough when you guys want to buy land. God just isn't making any more of that stuff. They say we've got to make land available for the people that graduate from Cal Poly so they can come out and farm too. Well, that sounds great. But if they take all my land and sell it to you guys, what land are we going to sell to the next group to come out here and the next group? The only thing that I'd like to keep a lot of jobs open for people like yourselves. If you don't have land, there's a lot of agribusiness that works out here. There's a lot of good jobs for people. <v Jesse De La Cruz>We don't want that. You want to do the farm work on your own land, <v Narrator>Berge Bulbulian.

<v Berge Bulbulian>For that reason, I believe that the land should be widely held in any of it seems to be about the only area in which there are any opportunities for new people to become property owners already. Very few people in this country own means of production. We think this is a free enterprise country, a capitalistic system, but very few of us are capitalists. Most of us don't own anything that produces. We own only those things which consume. And so we shouldn't restrict this. This is one of the things that made this country great, the opportunity to strike out for yourself to become an entrepreneur. <v Jack Stone>There's no way a person who just comes in occasionally to work on a piece of property is going to have the kind of interest that I have, for instance, and it's mine. I'm here all the time. I've developed it. I have an interest in it, and I, I devote my life to it. <v Jack Stone>I love being a farmer. We could've had a good life, perhaps, if you'd knowd that you're going to become a farmer she would have married someone else. <v Mrs. Stone>No. I love being a farmer. Oh, I like the outside of fresh air and I like neighbors, but I like them where they are and they like where I am, we're very happy, I like where I am. I'm near a small town and all my groceries come from there. My banking our banking is done in the small town and our children went to school there and

<v Jack Stone>we have all the advantages of an urban community and few, if any, of the disadvantages. <v Narrator>Sangar is on the east side of the valley, well outside of Westlands District. It's a town surrounded by small farms, most of them less than 200 acres. With a population of ten thousand eight hundred, Sangar has 11 elementary and junior high schools, one high school, 25 churches, eight doctors and one hospital, three banks and a number of locally owned businesses. <v Jack Stone>Hello, how are you?

<v Narrator>Some years ago, anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt did a now classic study of farm towns. He compared two rural communities, one located in an area of small farms, the other surrounded by large ones. And he found this. In small farm towns like Sangar, business thrive. Social services are readily available, but in communities surrounded by large farms, the opposite is true. Thirty miles west of Sangar is Huron on the only town inside Westlands Water District, population two thousand five hundred fifty. One elementary school, no junior or high schools, one bank, one doctor part-timeand no hospital. Three grocery stores, four bars. <v Narrator>Economist Levine

<v Philip Levine>The real problem of having a relatively few people on the land, even though it's still work by a lot of hired people, is it the people who own the land and earn the profits, don't spend them in that region so that the profits are essentially drained out of the region, which means that rural development does not occur. <v Narrator>Carol Harris disagrees. <v Carol Harris>The other benefits are even more important, I suppose, or equally as important is the tremendous tax revenues on the increased productivity, on the jobs, on on on the multiplier effect of the the efficiency and the extra productivity that we're able to have in this area. All the people that are needed are here. <v Jesse De La Cruz>There's hardly any people out there. There's nothing. And if the land was sold to the small farmer. These communities could be built up. We could have better businesses, small businesses, family owned businesses, and we could have better schools, better communities, recreation for the children, doctors. <v Narrator>George Balas of National Land.

<v George Balas>The real issue is if you look at Sangar and you look at Huron and you ask yourself what kind of a country do we want? Do we want our food and fiber supply controlled by a handful of corporations or large farmers or whatever you want to do or do we want many people to benefit from from the country we've created? That's the issue. <v Narrator>Six months after our first meeting with the Georges, they made a hard decision. <v Mrs. George>Well, we're moving to Oregon and we're moving because it's a little bit closer to the colleges and the schools that we want for the kids. <v Gary George>We had thought that we were fortunate to be out here, that there would be other people also coming out here. In fact, we knew of 10 or 15 people that had hoped to buy land out here, and we thought we would be seeing the development of the West Side into new small communities and a rural type of environment. <v Gary George>OK, these toys.? <v Child>Yes. <v Gary George>All right. <v Gary George>But instead, we see that it's going to be a road ride back to the corporate farm type of situation and no new people. We're leaving the best farm ground that we could ever possibly own. And we have built very nice facilities. But you just kind of miss the idea of a community being around and people that you can visit with. And we have similar interests. And out here that just doesn't exist. Most of them fly in or drive quite distances in order to farm out here and they're gone when evening comes. And we're kind of an island into ourselves out here might say, OK. And I kind of got myself and right in the middle of a controversy. And I've never been one to run from any kind of controversy. But I found myself on the side in which there didn't seem to be many of the people with me. And that was in support of 168 limitation. I think there's just too much money on the side of stopping it. This land is has a potential to be so valuable that there's no way that the really big operator, the big the big investor, is going to allow it to be broken up in that form. [music plays] <v Weatherman>Monday, September 18, last of the tomatoes off the vine, hay harvest is on schedule and early cotton. In Washington yesterday, the president signed a bill creating a federal task force to investigate the Westlands Water District.

<v Narrator>Harvest time in Westlands, a good time to see the return we have gotten on our investment here. The aims of the project, you'll remember, were two to settle people on the land, to make that land productive and productive. Well, you've seen it. Cotton is the big crop here, the federal water Westlands produces one hundred and thirty eight million pounds of it every year before the water, a fraction of that. <v George Miller>No question there's been a benefit to California, We're the leading agricultural state in the country. <v Narrator>Congressman George Miller, will <v George Miller>Start asking the cotton farmers of Texas, start asking the cotton farmers of the South why they can't compete on the market, why they can't compete with an 80000 acre cotton farm. I bet they didn't know there was an 80000 acre cotton farm in the United States because most of them are running 100 acres, 50 acres, they can't make it anymore. Why? Because the federal government's out here subsidizing, you know, the technical land company in the southern Pacific and the Boswells and the Saliers who are running farms as far as the eye can see. <v Narrator>John Whiterd.

<v John Whiterd>our figures would indicate that the benefit to the public is approximately three fold for the dollars that go into the project. So I think it is unfair to say that the farmers who are there are the sole recipients of the benefits of that subsidized water. Indeed, it's going to the public. <v Narrator>What is the subsidy here? <v George Miller>We basically give them a subsidy on the water rate. Also, when we build the canals and the dams and the irrigation systems, we- it's basically an interest free loan. <v Narrator>What does that mean in actual dollars? Hard to find agreement here. The Department of Interior in charge of the project admits they don't know. They've never estimated the subsidy going into Westlands. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has. However, they say that if you converted the subsidy into dollars, it would constitute 94 percent of a farmer's annual profit. Here, for example, on a farm the size of Jack Stone's. Let's say they natto one million dollars a year using these figures. 940000 of that comes from you and me, the taxpayers. Bank of America, who lends money out here, estimates profits to be much less than that. But whatever the subsidy, it's substantial. <v George Miller>It really at that point creates a system of welfare for the rich. There's no question about it. Nobody else in the country is entitled to the guarantees and the subsidies that these people get. If you're poor, you don't get them. If you're hard working, you don't get them. Only a very select few, a few hundred farmers out of the entire country.

<v Jack Stone>Certainly we are subsidized here. And we are asking now, however, to get in the law some way so that we can pay our full share of the of the water costs and not be a recipient of subsidies. It's not really fun for me to accept a subsidy. <v George Miller>So here, these people want to come in now. And what they're really saying is the big guys, we could never do this again. We could never replace this. So we could just buy our way out. You know, if we pay the full price for water, they don't want to talk about the full interest subsidies and the billions of dollars have been given to them over time. But if we just pay for the water, then it's all ours. <v Narrator>Berge Bulbulian.

<v Berge Bulbulian>And according to the law, the the recipients of this water must divest themselves of the excess land. That is the portion over 160 acres per person within 10 years at the price of land, not to include the value of the water, since they essentially didn't pay for the water. The public did. They agreed to this. And we feel that they should be held to it now, that the land should be sold, the excess land, so that opportunities be given to the people for whom this project was built. It was not built just to make the existing landowners more successful and richer, but to provide opportunities for large numbers of people. That promise is in the legislative history, and we want to see that that promise is now turned into reality. <v Narrator>Back in 1960, when Congress authorized the project, [inaudible] Representative for the Valley said this. We are seeking to make our great land resource available to more people, 6000 farms will be here, 27000 farm residents. Now, 20 years later, there are 200 farming operations in Westlands, at last count, the recorded owners of the land, number several thousand. It's true, but only a few are farmers. Who does own the land? some of the richest corporations in the country. They own land here and in other reclamation districts, nearly a third of Westlands belongs to 10 companies, among them Southern Pacific. One hundred and six thousand acres, annual subsidy, around three million dollars. Standard Oil. Who doesn't receive federal water, Boston Land Company. And a bank [inaudible] who do. How did a reclamation project intended for family farmers end up in the hands of a railroad, an oil company? <v John Whiterd>Because the costs were so great to develop that area, it was developed, some of it by large corporations and large tracts. But when the reclamation program was approved for that area in the 1960s, then we began the process, the reversal process of breaking those large tracts down.

<v Berge Bulbulian>Well, economically, I guess it had to be a closed system because it took large sums of money to develop and only the the big and the powerful could could afford to develop there. That's understandable. And I take nothing away from those people for what they've done for themselves and for the community. But the times have changed now. They had to be bailed out because their own efforts were going to fail in the long haul because of the lack of water. And we've made them richer than they were before, which is fine. I don't object to that, but I want them to to pay their share of the price for the fiddler. <v John Whiterd>Under the contract that these people signed to receive water and they have 10 years from that date to sell anything over 160 acres, their contracts agreeing to break those lands down have not yet matured. And those 10 year periods aren't up yet. In many cases. In the cases where they are, they've already sold out. Russell Giffin, who was a large farmer in the area, has sold out completely. They're gone. <v Narrator>Giffin once owned forty five thousand acres here. His contracts came to he sold off his land. And here is an example of one of those sales. On July 12th, 1974, just under three thousand acres changed hands. Three hundred and fifteen of it went to William and Judith Rogers. One hundred and fifty seven to each of their children, small units to Lee and Diana Moser, Verlin, Laura Pitts, the Malancias, the Witchers, the Barrentine's. "K" Industries, and in the largest transaction, 960 acres to an entity called Jubil Farms. The Bureau of Reclamation approved all of these sales, so presumably the intent of the law was being met here. Now, five years later, let's see what's going on out there.

<v George Balas>Where are the operating farmers? Where are the farmyards? Where are the houses where the alleged buyers of this land, the small farmers, their paper farmers? There were people who just allowed their names to be used on pieces of paper. So a large conglomeration could be put together and freeze out small farmers. And they had set it up in such a way that they thought that they were going to get around the law because the Department of Interior had never enforced the reclamation law any place from the beginning. <v Narrator>That land purchased by those people was leased back on the day of purchase. And since then has been farmed as one operation by Jubil Farms. And what is Jubil Farms? A corporation licensed and headquartered in New York State. The land controlled by Jubil receives a federal subsidy of around one million dollars each year. Apparently, the subsidy isn't going to small farmers living out here, but instead is being shared by Jubil and a group of absentee owners. Until recently, it was also shared by somebody else, a Japanese firm, Nishikawa owned 20 percent of a company stock. This isn't the only foreign investor who has reaped the benefits of the subsidy here, Southlake Farms is partly owned by a German firm, another farm by a company based in the Netherlands Antilles. Transactions like these brought a federal task force to California to find out what was going on in Westlands Water District.

<v Guest>I would like now-.

<v Narrator>They took testimony from farmers in Westlands and outside the district. The question came down to who should be receiving the benefits here? <v Guest>Why not give all this money that the welfare has given to families who can buy land in the Westlands districts and set them up to where they can form a better community, small businesses, and take an interest in what's going on around them. Otherwise, they're not even voters because they can stay in one place and vote. <v Guest>The people that own The New York Times in Los Angeles. What business have they got buying land when they don't even know how to how to plant a seed? There is a law. How come people that have money can break the law? If was out there speeding on the highway patrol me, I couldn't get away without paying a ticket. <v Narrator>Not just Westlands was on trial here, but reclamation as a whole. The task force called for a review of the 1902 law to see if its objectives are still valid, if they are, the law should be enforced. If not, it should be changed. Westlands became a national issue. Now both sides want their demands written into law. Small farmers reformers put their faith in the existing law with a few changes. <v Jesse De La Cruz>We want the sales to go through a lottery, because that's the only way we'll be assured that we will get a chance at buying the land, an opportunity to buy the land, and because if it's left up to the growers, the same thing will happen that's been happening for the last seventy five years. They'll sell to their relatives and to their closest friends. Of course, those that have the money,

<v Berge Bulbulian>I remember asking a high employee of the Westlands Water District if I were to go out there tomorrow. I said with several hundred thousand dollars in cash in my pocket, could I buy some land? And he hesitated a bit and he said, Well, maybe not tomorrow. But he said ultimately they'll run out of friends to whom to sell. Well, there was not an awful lot of land out there, and I don't think they'll run out of friends because they'll keep looking for friends to sell to. And there just won't be any opportunities from anyone from the outside to come in. <v Narrator>John Whiterd. <v John Whiterd>There was never any suggestion in any of the contracts that anyone has ever signed or in any history of government that that there would be a lottery to sell private lands. <v George Balas>We decide who's going to defend the country by lottery if we're going to distribute our responsibilities by lottery. It seems only fair that we distribute our benefits by lottery. And if a lottery is not involved, say, if we had a one acre limitation.

<v Narrator>George Balas. <v George Balas>The most extreme case and did not have any lottery and allowed Southern Pacific, for example, to pick all of the buyers of their land, they'll put together these deals that we've exposed over the last seven or eight years and then put them together in one way or another. So you have to have an objective method of distributing the land in the water. And the lottery is the only way to do that then in order. <v Narrator>What about that magical number, 160 acres <v Berge Bulbulian>Its 160 acre person, not a farm. Husband or wife, would have three [inaudible] and so on so that you could have an optimum sized farm and still do it within the 160 acre figure. However, we are proposing to make it even more lenient that it be 640 acres per person, but that nobody be permitted to own land within that district who is not actually operating the land. <v John Whiterd>We would like to see the United States government honor the terms of the contracts and the understandings that were present at the time that those contracts were signed and we would ask for nothing more. We think that the system, as administered for the past 75 years, has indeed been working.

<v Jack Stone>Now, in my particular case, I've wanted to sell the land to the fellows that helped me build this ranch. I think it's a pretty good ranch now, and I think they're the fellows that would. Would be eligible to own some of this land, have a better feeling of running the ranch, and we'd all be more efficient, we'd do a better job if I could sell this land to the people that are out here with me. <v Berge Bulbulian>What is happening is that there's paper shuffling. People are selling the land to people that they are choosing and then leasing the land back and continuing to farm that land. So you might change the names on the property, but you aren't changing the operators of the property. <v Carol Harris>They never said we couldn't lease. We've always leased three quarters of our ranches, leased. It always has been. <v Jack Stone>There wasn't anything in these contracts that I signed that said anything about leasing. The word lease wasn't in there at all. How can they now change the plan and stop me from using a tool like leasing? That's very important. So how can they change an agreed upon contract?

<v Narrator>What they seem to be saying. The big farmers and their supporters is that they would like things like pretty much as they are. <v Philip Levine>If I was a landowner in the Westlands I'd be the last thing I'd want is to have the land broken up. Land, which now has a value of twenty five hundred dollars, would be sold for seven hundred and fifty dollars. <v Narrator>Economist Levine <v Philip Levine>that represents close to an eighteen hundred dollar per acre loss to those people who own land. Now, if you add this up over the entire area of the Westlands this comes out to well over a billion dollars at landowners in the Westlands stand to lose if the land is broken up, if they lose it. <v Speaker>[People talking]

<v Jack Stone>How's the garden club going? <v Guest>Oh, it's nice. <v Jack Stone>You're now real estate, right? Real estate is is going good now. <v Guest>Very good. <v Guest>It's the only hedge that we have against inflation right now- is land. <v Jack Stone>The Senate bill that they just passed out of committee and will pass the Senate, I'm sure. Right. Gee, it sounds great. keep that going that one. <v Guest>We're going to need all the help we can from our legislators. I think that's that's what that's what it's all about <v Jack Stone>In the Senate. It's a lot easier. It's when you get into the House for all these city folks from San Francisco and all those odd places- <v Guest>There's only a few of us left out here in the country, we don't have the votes that we used to have. It's our battle and we have to fight it. <v Jack Stone>Tough to let those people in the city know what we're trying to do.

<v Jack Stone>And I think it's [inaudible] if we can keep going this way. All right. Sometimes you'll go to Washington and and you'll think this is a disaster. Everybody you talk to is talking like it's going to have a three acre farm and everybody's going to live out there and be happy and raising their little cows and chickens. And you just know that's not going to work. And then another time, you go back there and they're talking the real economy and they're writing bills that will make it work. <v Guest>This is ready. <v Jack Stone>So we can farm properly and efficiently. So last time I went back there, it was great for having this Senate bill being written. It sounds it sounds wonderful. <v Jack Stone>No, I, My wife won't let me live like a rabbit, so I don't eat like one. <v Mrs. Stone>Oh. Come on. <v Jack Stone>This is revamping the reclamation law of 1902. They're going to rewrite it in such a way that we can live with it. [music plays] <v Speaker>[Memphis by Johnny Rivers]

<v Narrator>It looks like the battle that began here on the land will be settled in Washington. Right now, there are over a dozen bills before Congress that aim to reform reclamation, and the House Interior Committee is asking a lot of questions. Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus. <v Cecil Andrus>Mr. Chairman, let me point out that the Reclamation Act of 1902, which launched a much needed social and economic program some 77 years ago and it served the nation well, now requires reform to keep pace with the changing economic and social conditions. Now I recommend to you substantial changes in the reclamation law. We recommend a significant increase in the acreage entitlement from the current hundred and sixty acres to a new maximum of nine hundred and sixty acres. If we do not have some provision which corrects the residency or lack of residency situation, then, Mr. Chairman, we will continue to have speculative ownership. We have absentee owners. We will have corporate entities deriving benefits from a federally subsidized program that was designed to put the family farmer on the farm. Some projects, although they're a minority, have been allowed to develop in ways inconsistent with the original program. Goals of the 1902 act, the most serious problem appears to have occurred in California. A list of the top 10 owners in Westlands service areas have closed.

<v Guy Martin>Westlands over a period of time has violated the spirit and intent of the reclamation law by-

<v Narrator>We asked Assistant Secretary of Interior Guy Martin. If the law had been broken in Westlands? <v Guy Martin>No one ever anticipated that the original purpose of the reclamation law was to allow farms in excess of 100000 acres to be created or certainly farms over ten or twenty thousand acres. And there are a number of farms in Westlands that are exactly that size. There's also a very common feeling that by coming along and as we characterize it, honestly, beginning to enforce the law as it was intended, that we are in fact invading the contractual rights of people that sign contracts while the law was interpreted differently and far more leniently by other people. I don't believe that's true. Reclamation law in many respects is a throwback because it is not an agricultural program, but a social program that's designed to establish family farms by the use of a federal subsidy. The real question for us now is whether or not we to have one program in the federal arsenal of programs which helps small family farmers to become established and to do so by helping them with the price of water. Now, we think that that's worth it. We have plenty of ways in this country for people to invest in agriculture and live somewhere else and reap the profits. But we don't have very many programs where an individual gets assistance from the federal government to actually operate a farm for their families benefit. <v Jesse De La Cruz>It's my family working here. It's my married son's wife and and their children. They're doing the picking this year. We have the same dream all, farm workers had that we wanted a farm. And being farm workers, we knew we could handle it. We know what it takes to raise a crop and we can work as hard as anything, you know, if it's ours and we've had to work hard for other people. So why shouldn't we work longer hours and harder on our land? This is why it's very important to us to get some of that land in the Westlands district.

<v Guy Martin>We think it's not only valuable to have people on the land, but it's valuable to have at least one federal program which truly sponsors family farms, which in our opinion means farms a reasonably modest size, which are actually operated by the people who who own the land, rather than an individual who lives in a distant city and is simply an investor. <v John Whiterd>If the Congress ever sets the precedent of putting itself. In the position of deciding how big a farm has a right to be, whether it receives a subsidy or whether it doesn't, then those same people tomorrow may decide that security is the biggest farm we ought to have a year later. Three hundred twenty. The only absolute in this game becomes zero. And you wind up where India and many other countries of the world have already arrived, where you farm little plots. <v George Miller>People argue over the size of this farm. The size of the farm isn't an issue. The issue is who's going to farm the land and is it going to be the family farmer? Is it going to be the small family corporation or is it going to be just massive economic holdings that are subsidiaries of the of the oil companies, of other energy companies, of the railroads? Is that who's going to farm America or are people going to farm America? And I think that's the issue. And this reclamation law can be a tool for that. And that's what the original purpose was.

<v Narrator>Who is going to farm America? Well, that may be decided by who finally gets to farm Westlands. Because Westlands has become another battle, maybe the last one in the long war between agribusiness and the small farmer. Because of the conflict here, we Americans have a chance to decide who we want to farm our land. <v Host>This program was produced by Carol Mon Pere and Sandra Nichols in association with KTEH Television, they are solely responsible for its content.