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Show Page 2 Published each month by the Utah State Farm Bureau Federation at Salt Lake City. Utah. Editorial and Business Office, 629 East Fourth South, Salt lake City, Utah. POSTMASTER: Please address PO Form 3569 to PO Bos 1668, Salt Lake City. Utah cents per yeor to members is included in 841 II. Subscription price of twenty-fiv- e membership fee. Entered as second class matter March 24, 1948 at the Post Office a) Salt Loke City, Utah under act of March 3, 879. 1 1 UTAH STATE FARM BUREAU FEDERATION OFFICIALS Elmo Hamilton Riverton, Utah S. Jay Child, Clearfield, Utah Mrs. Willis Whilbeck. Bennion, Utah V. Allen Olsen Kenneth J. Rice .' D D W. President Vice President Chairman, Farm Bureau Women Executive Secretor y Editor DIRECTORS , Alden K. Barton Mark Nichols Dr. W. H. Bennett Glenn T. Baird, Jr Dr. D. Wynne Thorne Soil Lake City Suit Lake City Logun Loyan Logun DIRECTORS Mrs. Willis Whilbeck. Farm Bureau Women; Mrs. Paul Nelson, Farm Bureau Women; Jan Turner, Form Bureau Young People; Fronk Harris, Beaver; A. Alton Hoffman, Cache; Lloyd Olsen, Cache; Ferris Allen, North Box Elder; William C. Douse. Carbon; S. Jay Child, Davis; Joseph Kemp, Duchesne; Kenneth Brasher, Emery; Carl Hatch, Gar field; Richard Nelson, Iron; Roy Bowles. Juab; Isaac Chamberlain, Kane; Leo Robins, Millard; Mork Thackeray, Morgan; Ambrose Dalton, Piute; Robert Rex, Rich; Elmo Hamilton, Salt Lake,-- Arion Erekson, Salt Lake; Ashton Harris, San Juan; Lee Barton, Sanpete; Grant Money, Sevier; D. O. Rob erts. Summit; Jack Brown, Tooele; A. DeMar Dudley, Uintah; Don T. Allen, Utah; Eldon Money, Utah; Emer Wilson, Wasatch; Don F. Schmutz, Washington; Hugh King, Wayne; William C. Holmes, Weber; Carl Fowcts, Webct; John P. Holmgren, South Box Elder; Gay Pettingill, Utah Horticultural Society; John Roghaar, Inlermountuin Farmers Assn.; Virgil H. Peterson, Utuh Suyur Beet Growers Assn.; Tom Lowe, Utah Canning Crops Assn.; Joe I. Jucubs, Producers Livestock Marketing Assn.; J. R. Garrett, Norbest Turkey Growers August, 1967 UTAH FARM BUREAU NEWS Assn.; H. M. Blackhurst, Country Mutual Lile. Secretary Freeman Visits Utah Agricultural Leaders Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of Agriculture in President John- cabinet was in Utah August and 15. Mr. Freeman appeared in a meeting before agricultural leaders in Salt Lake City on the evening of August 14 and visited the watershed conservation area in American Fork Canyon on the 15th.-O- n Monday evening, he spoke briefly to a group of Department of Agriculture employees, educators, and farm leaders in the auditorium in the Sate Office Building. Some of Mr. Freeman's comments and expressed attitudes on problems now confronting farmers were particularly interesting. He doesn't want to " stack up all these people in the cities," which raises sons 14 EDITORIAL Senate Unanimously Passes "Political Perversion Poor Scholarship" Marketing Rights An event took place in the Congress of the United States on July 10 that ought to give people interested in agriculture and good government cause for some serious reflection. Congressman Paul Findley of Illinois took the floor of the House of Representatives on that date and charged the Secretary of Agriculture with "political perversion of scholarship and his Director of Agricultural Economics with "poor scholarship. In the world of politics charges and counter-charge- s fly back and forth, but this was not an ordinary "tit for tat" exchange in debate. What Paul Findley was referring to was testimony given by the Secretary of Agriculture in which he said universities concurred in the that experts from nine land-grastatement he made to the Senate Agriculture Committee on April 3, 1967. Representative Findley obtained the names of die universities and wrote to the individual "experts who were supposed to have endorsed die Secretary's statement These experts would not confirm the claimed endorsement Two of the universities named. Harvard and Stanford, aren't landrgrant universities nt atalL The part of Secretary Freeman's testimony referred to is as three alternatives follows: "There are three basic options before us. One is to swap the present voluntary programs for no program at alL Pending in Congress now is a bill sponsored by the farm organization I mentioned previously. I point out to you that studies of our Department economists indicate that the "no program approach" will cut farm income by 13 below present levels. I point out further that this conclusion is concurred in by experts from nine land grant universities." Congressman Findley was able to determine in conversation with the Department of Agriculture that the bill Freeman was referring to was the Farm Bureau bill, the Wheat and Feed Grain Act of 1967 and that it was this bill that he had labeled die "no program approach." Said Mr. Findley, who with 19 other congressmen is a sponsor of the bill, "To label our proposed legislation as a 'no program approach' is not merely inaccurate, it is a gross distortion of the facts. What stands out clearly is that Mr. Freeman misrepresented the nature of the Farm Bureau program and that he claimed endorsement of outstanding scholars and economists which they had not given. You expect some of this kind of thing at different times in political life: But of that small group of men who stand in the high place of the cabinet of the President of the United States, we should be justified in expecting them to stick to the truth in testimony before committees of the Congress or anywhere else. That a member of the President's cabinet would stoop to misrepresentation of this kind is difficult to understand and impossible to reconcile with the standards that ought to be kept by men in high positions. It is fortunate that a man of the tenacious. nature of Congressman Findley would go to the work of exposing the true nature of the Secretary's testimony. Bill The Senate on August 4 unanimously passed the Agricultural Fair Practices Act of 1967 (S. 109). Approval of the marketing rights bill came after its chief sponsor. Senator George D. Aiken, (R.) of Vermont, told the Senate this bill is important to the freedom of our farmers and to the future of agriculture." It is designed to protect the agricultural producer's right to decide, free from improper pres sures, whether or not he wishes to belong to a marketing or bargaining association, he said. Because of the increasing concentration of the marketing and distribution of agricultural products in the hands of fewer buyers, most farmers feel very strongly that they should have the right to organize and compete without fear of reprisal or of unfair trade practices. They believe that the wider use of contract marketing has created a greater need for the strengthening of their own bar gaining position in order to secure prices and other benefits to which they feel, and rightly so, they are entitled. The bill provides farmers with an opportunity to improve their own lot through their own action." FARM BUREAU has strongly supported the marketing rights bill. It is hoped that the House Agriculture Committee will hold hearings on the bill soon. Forty-fiv- e members of the House have introduced it. Reserves Government-Hel- d Of Food Aren't Needed Government controlled reserves of food are unnecessary to protect consumers, the American Farm Bureau Federation said on August 10. A Farm Bureau spokesman told a House Agriculture Subcommittee hearing that government-controlle- d reserves are bad from the standpoint of producers, expensive from the standpoint of tax- payers, unnecessary for the pro- tection of domestic consumers, and not necessary for exports or foreign relief." The case for government reserve stocks rests on the assumption that the reserves farmers and the trade are willing to carry will not be fully adequate to protect consumers," he declared. We have too much confidence in the market system to be a party to selling it that short. He said privately held reserves are only a first line of defense against shortages. THE CONSUMERS real assurance of adequate supplies of farm products is to be found in the productive capacity of American agriculture, the geographical dispersion of major areas of farm production, the fact that we have a livestock economy, and the capabilities of our processing and transportation industries." The Farm Bureau spokesman reserves arc government-hel- d bad from the standpoint of pro- ducers for a number of- reasons It And he added: - YERNMENT-HEL- D stockpile is highly disruptive to a system since there is a constant danger that the government will break the market by releasing its stocks. From the standpoint of producers, government reserves of agricultural commodities constitute a device to manipulate markets politically, to coerce cooperation with government supply management programs, and to impose price ceilings on farm products. Government-hel- d food reserves would not be needed to assure that the United States will be able to relieve famine conditions that may develop anywhere in die world, he said. The characteristics of our agricultural economy which make reserves unnecessary for domestic consumers, also provide us a very great capacity to extend food aid to other countries, he declared. THE FREE WORLD consumers abroad whether cus-saturners or aid recipients have a vital stake in our having a dy-, namic, progressive, market-directe- d agricultural economy rather than in our succumbing to the lure of government supply id man-mark- agement et the question, what does he propose to do with them? People have thronged into the cities by choice. If they are not to be there, who and under what authority will put them somewhere else? Where will they be put, and bow will they earn a living wherever they are put? Mr. Freeman agrees with Farm Bureau on two interesting points. He is against a limitation on government payments to farmers for land taken out of production in soil bank or conservation reserve acres. The Secretary seemed quite emphatic on this point which caused some to wonder why he supported the sliding scale of payments within the Wool Act when it was up for renewal in 1965. He expressed the point that the objective is to get land out of the production of crops and feed. If you are going to do that, "why penalize your best customer?", he said. The other point the Secretary agrees on is that the family farm is not disappearing. He said there are actually fewer big corporation farms now than at any time in the past. This is a fact which Farm Bureau has pointed out many times when unwise farm programs have been advocated on the grounds that they were necessary to save the family farm. Actually, as pointed out by the Secretary, family farms are growing larger, but are not disappearing. Other comments made by the Secretary were not quite so susceptible to agreement. On imports he says they are not hurting very much. The President has acted on dairy imports actually cutting them back farther than recommended by the Tariff Commission, and since this presidential act has taken place, he sees no need for S612, the bill which would place a limit on the total amount of dairy imports that could come into the country each year. To the question, why did it take so long to act on dairy imports, Mr. Freeman said we were engaged in sensitive tariff negotiations with other nations, and to have taken hasty action drastically cutting dairy imports could have hurt our efforts in connection with the tariff negotiations. The Secretary denies that placing an embargo on the export of beef hides hurt very much. He claims that the embargo was soon suspended and we exported more beef hides last year than ever before. Mr. Freeman denies that the government has a cheap food policy. He says that he became Secretary of Agriculture to work for the farmers. Some of those present found this a little difficult to reconcile with the facts when they remember the Increase In the import quota on cheese taken soon after the "petticoat boycott," and the suspension of the buying of pork, butter, and lamb for our Armed Forces. Appointed to Women's Group Mrs. Harold Peterson of Salina has been appointed to represent District 5 as a member of the Utah Farm Bureau Women's Committee. Mrs. Peterson is Farm Bureau Women's chairman of the Sevier County Farm Bureau and for many years has been a most active worker in Farm Bureau. Her appointment came as a result of board action in the meeting at Fish Lake when it was authorized to enlarge the committee to include one member from each of the six Her districts. membership recomappointment came on the mendation of the Farm Bureau Women's Committee. Mrs. Peterson is well qualified to fill this |
