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Show Page Utah Farm Bureau News 2 EDITORIAL NOTE: The f allowing editorial is part of a speech made by Claude W. Gifford, director of communications at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to Farm Bureau information workers from many states. Somehow, we have to make it important to the urban dweller that he has only 6 acres of farm land in the United States to sustain him. Thats all. Thats the average number of acres per person. He needs to see that it is mighty important to him that his 6 acres get the 34 gallons of fuel and the 192 kilowatts of electricity that is needed per year to produce his food and fiber. He needs to know that if someone is going to spend about 31 hours per year working on that 6 that acres - to produce his food and fiber to it. do incentive an someone had better have - - - -- The typical urban dweller has a in a beef cow, and a one-eighteen- th interest interest in a one-fift-h diary cow. Somebody out there is tending those animals. The urban consumer has a real stake in seeing that conditions are right so that the person who is tending those animals has an incentive to do it well ; Farm Bureau REFLECTIONS By Elwood Shaffer Sanctions and Constitution Try rolling the phrase ex post facto law around on your tongue. It has a sound of importance and makes you feel like a man of the world to use the term. The founders of our country used it They put it in the Constitution. Article I, Section 9: No ex post facto law shall be passed. What they meant was that you cant pass a law making something illegal, then punish a man who committed the act before the law was passed. Something is going on right now in Congress that perhaps isnt quite an ex post facto situation, but almost. One of the big points of discussion about the land use bill (S.268) now under study in the House of Representatives is a principle called sanctions. If included in the final bill, sanctions will require that all states pass land use planning bills that meet the requirements of the federal law within a given number of years, or else. Its the or else that seems dangerous, if not downright unconstitutional. Or else you lose part of your already approved highway, airport or school funds. If you go three years without such a bill, you lose 7 percent of each under one proposal made; four years and Shafferyou lose 14 percent; five years, 21 h of the money is lost percent. because as a state you didnt measure up to what Congress laid down as law in an entirely diff erent area of legislation. - One-fift- Whose money is that anyhow? The government starts out with no money. It taxes the citizens and sends the money back in the form of programs with federal financing. Those programs are set up by laws passed by the peoples elected representatives. The budgets to finance them are approved by our representatives. Once the program is approved and the budget is okayed, it seems like that money is due and payable. Though we approve of saving money on ex-travag- ent programs, perhaps even the President shouldnt have the right to withhold the money until he goes back to Congress and gets a change made in the law or the budget. But now a group of Congressmen-abo- ut half of them -- say that Utah cant have her federal airport money or her highway money or her school money unless she steps into line on land use planning. If that isnt an ex post facto law, it should be close enough to worry anyone who still believes in the Constitution. 1973 UTAH FARM BUREAU ITD NEWS Those six vital acres! ; September Postmaster: Please send :Perm'3579 to Utah Farm Bureau, 429 East Fourth South, Salt Lake City, Utah 14102. else the urban consumer will be the one who suffers through restricted food supplies. A farmer has an investment of $1,716 in that 6 acres. Not for an idle reason. The farmer has done that because he wants to make a profit taking care of that investment and the 6 acres. For this, the urban beneficiary paid the farmer $301 last year -$282 in direct cash, and $19 in government payments. The farmer took the $301 and paid out $227 in production expenses. That left $84 cash for the farmer who took care of the 6 acres, and who took h interest in die beef cow, and the care of the interest in the dairy cow. How much is $84 cash? Well, a 5 percent return on the $1,716 investment made on the urban clients behalf is $86. So the farmer out there looking after the urban clients interest in the 6 acres didnt even get back 5 percent cash on his investment - and he threw in his labor. Isnt it high time that the urban beneficiary learns more about this situation? With the urban dwellers livelihood depending on that farmer tending his 6 acres, hadnt he better see that the farmer has the freedom to do business within a reasonable set of rules? Hadnt he better see that that fellow taking care of his 6 acres be rewarded for his initiative, hard work and dedication. Doesnt the consumer have an interest in seeing that the caretaker of those acres has protection from sudden and drastic economic changes that affect how well the farmer can take care of the top six inches of topsoil where the food is grown? Doesnt the urban consumer have a vital interest in the farmer having enough return to keep his equipment in good shape to tend the land? Wouldnt it be a good idea if that caretaker of the 6 acres has the freedom to manage the business with a minimum of government interference so that he can manage the 6 acres to make them producone-fift- Published each month by the Utah Farm Bureau Federation at Salt Lake City, Utah. Editorial and Business Office, 429 East Fourth South, Salt Lake City, Utah, 14102. Subscription price of twentyfive cents per year to members Is included in mem- bership fee. year. subscription price: fifty cents per Non-memb- er Second Class postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah UTAH FAKM BUIEAU F EQUATION OFFICIALS Elmo W. Hamilton, Riverton Jay Child, Clearfield C. Booth Wallentine Elwood Shaffer.. . ...President .Vice President Executive Vice Resident Editor S. DIRECTORS: Frank Nishiguchi, Garland; William Holmes, Ogden; Jack Brown, Grantsviller Edward Boyer, Springville; John Lewis, Monticello; Jerald Johnson Aurora; Kenneth R. Ashby, Delta; Mrs. Willis' Whitbeck, Bennion; Stanley Jackson, Ogden. one-eighteen- th tive? Wouldn't it be a good idea if that farmer has a generous flow of useful information to help him remain efficient and effective? And isnt it important that there be transportation there at the 6 acres, unimpeded by costly strikes, especially at harvest time, to. keep those farm food products moving in from those 6 acres? And wouldnt it be simple justice that when the caretaker of the 6 acres has products to sell that he have reasonable equality at contract time to determine the price and terms of sale as an inducement to stay in the business and be efficient? New price-breaker- ? In recent months, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has proudly announced that it will no longer stockpile surplus grain, long used as the governments method of breaking farm product prices when they got too high. grain on the market Dumping of this CCC-hel- d has saved consumers money countless times in past years, at the expense of farmers. So, its a relief to see that club broken and cast aside, despite the protests of the baking industry which will now have to stockpile its own flour supply. But a new weapon against farm prices looms on the harizon-t- he export embargo. n feed When soybeans and other sources zoomed in price recently, the government had two choices. Leave things alone, and let the food buyer pay the higher cost of eating which world protein shortages and demands on meat high-protei- created. Or clamp a lid on exports, thus driving protein supplement prices down and once again subsidizing the consumer at the cost of the farmer. Uncle Sam chose the latter, of course. To the detriment of our balance of trade. And the soybean farmer, who had been getting $10 a bushel for his scarce beans, saw the price drop to about $6.70 right after the export embargo took effect. Who was the winner-Ut- ah livestock producers who got a break in feed prices? No, the meat buyer who once again escaped paying the true cost of production. If the Utah cattleman had been able to receive what the meat cost him to produce, plus a fair profit, the high cost of soybean meal wouldnt have hurt him. A few months ago, when it was hoped that this VIEWPOINT By Booth Wallentine UFBF Executive Vice President Farm story is easier, to tell If American agriculture ever had an opportunity to tell the farm story to our city neighbors, that time is now. Consumers are at last awake to the fact that farm abundance cant be taken for granted. We cant afford to miss this chance. Theres too much at stake. Some politicians say we should boost farm subsidies as an incentive for farmers to produce more food. If we let consumers think that, future generations will hold us accountable. Fact is, government bungling has had a lot to do With the current pinch on the supply of food. You know the facts. Government money managers have pumped billions of fresh new more paper dollars into our economy-billio- ns than our productivity will support. At the same time, red ink spending by government has fanned the fires of inflation. So the demand for food, spurred on by inflation, worldwide affluence and population growth, is highest ever. On the supply side, government price controls, environmental regulations, an extended period of low farm prices in the late sixties, and an unusually tough winter last year have held production below what it might have been. The result is higher food prices. Higher, that is, than most consumers want to pay. Not higher than most can afford to pay. The fantastic increase in camper-traile- r sales in Utah alone is proof of that (1973 sales are up 15 percent over 1972.) But if consumers want more food, a higher government subsidy level is not the way to go. Where there is government subsidy, there must be government controls. And where there are government controls, there is the opportunity for militant consumers to say, Why should my government allow an increase in the price of milk for my children? So lets tell our story. Lets tell consumers their best hope for continued abundance is the free market where prices are the incentive to farmers to produce more. Its true, the free market isnt perfect.... its just way ahead of whats in second place. years corn crop would reach USDA officials were saying 6 billion . . bushels, that no export limits would be necessary if the crop even totaled 5.9 billion bushels. Now that the most recent survey of com in the field is under 5.7 billion bushels, those same of- ficials are saying that export controls are not likely. Has their estimate of next years disappearance really changed that much? Or are farmers again being led gently into the paddle-line- ? One export embargo doesnt make a pattern. But one cant help wondering whether the federal government has found an effective substitute for g to keep the U.S. consumer happy and subsidized at a direct, cost to the farmer. grain-dumpin- out-of-poc- |