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Show D, 0. MM DEFENDS WORK OF FARM BUREAU AND UPHOLDS ATTITUDE OF THE FARMERS . Editor Standard- In your issue of August 15. there Is an article underlie unde-rlie heading of "Methods of Farm Bu I icau Questioned by H. M. Monson." After a careful perusal of the article the conclusion i- forced upon one thai the article was not written with the in I tentlon of informing (ho public upon the methods of the farm bureau or the lack of necessity for a raise in the price of milk at this time, but was primarily pri-marily intended to prejudice the consuming con-suming public against the bureau as an I organisation, Impuning its motives, nnd j holding its officers up to ontumely. The author's information regarding I the methods of the bureau, it.s aims (and practices, are so limited and the I broad inferences regarding the narrow-, narrow-, uess and selfishness of Its officers and i members together w ith a comparison he makes between the farm bureau I and bolsheviklSm is so plain to even the most unpbservlhg, 'hat no other conclusion can be reached. His statement that farmers have no use for business men in general is so palpably false that he lays himself J open to the suspicion lhat he intends to sow discoid in the very field Where I ihe bureau has preached greater co-operation. co-operation. No better illustration of his lack of information on bureau methods could ! be pointed out than that contained in his advice to the bureau lo the effect, that they should have interested them I selves in studying where economy could be made and efficiency practice l rather than attempting to raise the price of milk. If he had the slightest knowledge of the work of the bureau, I he would know that his advice has! bem anticipated by four or five years jand that nine-tenths of the energy of I the bureau is directed in these very-channels very-channels and with astonishing results I too. But these economies have, by i no manner of means, been sufficient j to offset the disadvantages resulting from the rapid raise in everything iha'. 'enters into agricultural production. He attempts to anticipate an objection objec-tion that ruay be made by saying that, In all probability, this proposal will be met with a statement that the price of hay is the cause of the raise in the price of milk, and (hen suggests t hat i more ha be raised, as though th ! farmers had deliberately chosen to make bay scarce, that the price of milk thereto maj be raised. He ought to know that it is a physical impossibility to anticipate a shortage in any crop, or lo provide for more than ordinary demand, de-mand, and if he had any information about farming as a whole, he would know that the question of the choice i hay or any other crop for a matter of that, is largely determined bv elements ! outside of the control of the farmer, such as, for instance, soil., the price of I land, availabilitv of water, growing .season, markets, crop pests, frosts, etc. i To show that he know s nothing of Ihe patriotic endeavor of the farm bureau to look after our home country first. 1 have but to mention the fact that there is now, and has been for months past, an insistent demand from Salt Lake and Cache county for all the market milk produced in this county at a price .considerably in demand of that paid1 by the local market. It has been the labor and endeavor of the bureau to not only increase our local supply un der the adverse conditions of the past few years, but at the same time to see j that that supply is disposed of in our! i local markets even at a cost of some sacrifice on the part of the milk producers, pro-ducers, and the producers, it might be j said, have made the same effort. He asks the question if the bureau lodes not know that every advance ' made in the price of farm products must of necessity be met wtih a raise I In the prices of other commodities so! that the producers thereof of may, I I in their turn, be able to buy farm products. prod-ucts. If the farmers were the first to star.: this cycle or raising price? there might ' be some logic to his argument, but as he knows and as every one knows, price raising began in other quarters, and reached agricultural products last. The ratio for instance in the increase j of price on the hide the farmer cells ,and the shoes he buys in return have been decidedly to the farmer's disadvantage, disad-vantage, and the same is true of almost 1 every other product he has to sell He advises the bureau to look to the methods meth-ods of distribution to see if some im ! I provements could not be made th rein ! to offset a raise in price of agricultural ; ' products at. this time. This is a fertile field but to be offective as a means of' reducing the high cost of living, it ; must be done at once, and that means a sudden change in our whole system of handling farm products from the! producer to the consumer. If this were j attempted, Mr. Monson would be the j lirst to cry "revolution " The Farm Bureau, however, has had 'this matter under consideration for a long time. Its members feel lhat a 1 change is absolutely essential and Its efforts are directed to a gradual bring Ing of this condition about And then he complains that the various instances instan-ces of the so-called "price fixing'! mentioned in his article even though j I hey were arbitrary would not be so; bad if an explanation were given. What does he call an explanation? Is directness and simplicity no longer a virtue In the use of the English language lan-guage ' ould two columns of glU tering generalities and one about freight rates, pool.-, sea-board prices and tariffs have been plainer than the simple statement that "after careful and thorough investigation into the cost of producing market milk it has been found necessary to raise the price?" In speaking of explanations, can Mr Monson explain why he look the Farm Bureau to task for the raise in price of market milk when as a matter of fact the prise was raised to the consumer con-sumer two weeks in advance of the action taken by the Bureau. Did he intend to mislead the public and place the blame upon the Bureau when the action was taken in other quarters ? ! he aware that on an average the producer receives but 23 1-2 cents per gallon out of the 50c paid by the consuming con-suming public and does he think this proposition high enough to warrant his criticism? Returning then, to the question of j Bureau's methods with regard to the 'so-called fixing of prices in general, the Farm Bureau feels that it has followed fol-lowed a policy that Is both economically economical-ly sound and patriotic Two or three rears ago the writer, in (he name of the Weber County Farm Bureau, directed di-rected a communication to the National Nation-al Food administration on this very question, asking advice from the government gov-ernment that had the interest of not only the producer, but the consumer at heart. The replj was this in substance: sub-stance: "Figure your costs, add a reasonable reason-able profit and make that the price to the dealer." To use the tomato deal, which he refers to as an illustration of the ap plication of this principle, the Farm Bureau figured the cost of producing tomatoes and asked for a six per cent profit on the product fin the same product, according to the federal trade commission's report, the canner receives re-ceives a profit of lrom 24 to 32 per cent. As a matter of fact, the general advance in the price of this product during the war netted the producer only 2 3 cents per can while other Interests profited 9 3 3 cents per can Speaking of this particular instanro of price fixing, which I served as an excuse for Mr Monson a attack, some detailed figures with respe t to the cost of producing market milk may b5 given to corroborate the statement al-p al-p ady made and to show that instead of being revolutionary and anarchistic in its tendency, the bureau has been too conservative tor Its own good and for the interest of the public If sound public policy had dictated the nvik price made by the bureau it would have averaged around 2S cents in place of 23 1-2 cents. This would have induced an Increased supply and mi a better quality than at present and would still have left 22 cents per gallon gal-lon out of the consumers 50c as remuneration re-muneration for the dealers for the mere service of delivery. In making up the cost sheet re-j re-j ferred to ever) combination of ration common to the dairy business was fig. ured and an average of all was taken as the basis of computation and instead in-stead of hay being figured at 535 per ton as at present it was figured at ??.". Thirty minutes was allowed for I the care of each cow per day and 30 cents an hour as the pay for this la-Ibor. la-Ibor. Figures which I think no one will consider outrageous. Receipt per Cow 6(fc) gallons milk n 2: 2c per I Kllon oo j Fertilizer 12.00 Calf i5on Expense per Cow Average cost of feed per cow for 5 months feeding period f St 9S ! Average cost of feed for 6 months pasture period (3 50 Yearly labor cost 54 75 I Housing, taxes, depreciation .. 9 20 $192.43 Deficit $ 24. 43 - the result of the condition shown i by this table there are dairy herds all I over the county for sale, and anyone Who feels, as Mr Monson does, thai I the dairy business would be profitaole even without the raise in question has I an excellent oppoitunlty to begin bus-I bus-I iness at om e (Signed) D. rj. McKAY. I President, Weber County Farm Bur-I Bur-I eau. |
