It happened slowly. But looking back at Western Kansas over the last 30 years, it has been a steady and slow decay of "life as we knew it." I doubt we can reverse things, but we can know who did this to us and hold them accountable. And we can start to turn the ship around back toward pro-family farm policies.
Everybody on the Great Plains knows something horrible has happened over the last 30 years, but they really don't know what happened or why. They just see their downtown buildings boarded up, the abundance of thrift stores, and young people who turn to methamphetamines rather than working at McDonalds.
I KNEW Earl Butz was no good, and I was just a kid. Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
The old New Deal farm policies aimed for high crop prices at the elevator. This was done by limiting production by having farmers set aside ground, and also by allowing farmers to hold their grain in exchange for "non-recourse" government loans. The farmer could then wait for grain prices to go up, and then sell, and the government non-recourse loans would keep the farmer afloat.
The inflation crisis at the supermarkets made city dwellers so angry, that Nixon and Butz began to change the entire purpose of the New Deal Farm Programs. As Pollan points out, the New Deal policies were sort of like the biblical idea set forth by Joseph in the Bible. Don't flood the market with surpluses, but store the grain during the "fat years," and sell it during the lean years. From FDR until Nixon, the idea was support
the ACTUAL price of the commodity at the elevator, and limit production.
Butz changed everything. The Republicans told farmers to plant "fencerow to fencerow," and convinced them that they would profit through increased production. Farm subsidies shifted from the non-recourse loans to direct farmer subsidies. In other words, the farmer was told to produce as much as possible, and to sell it right away at harvest, no matter what the price. The subsidies would make up for any price deficiency.
This massive shift away from grain storage with non-recourse loans, and limiting production, had bad consequences for small farmers. The Nixon policies led to what Pollan calls "the overproduction trap," as farmers raised more and more bushels, but got less and less at the elevator.
This march away from New Deal policies did several things. First, it kept food cheap at the supermarket, to prevent shopper discontent. Second, it made grain so cheap that a handful of corporate agri-giants could buy it for less than the price of production, and make a huge profit from the grain or corn, using it either as food for feed lots (corn), or for thousands of new, inexpensive food products (e.g., Doritos).
Finally, this "overproduction trap" drastically reduced the number of farmers. Butz told farmers to "get big or get out," and you had to have a huge mechanized operation to make money with such low grain prices.
Limiting the number of farmers was very important to "the powers that be." Farmers are some of the most politically active hell raisers out there, and too many Mary Elizabeth Lease-types led to political instability. Lease famously told Kansas farmers in the 1890's to "raise less corn and more hell." As farmers proved many times, best exemplified by the rise of the Populist Party in the 1890's, farmers were dangerous to "the powers that be."
After "Freedom to Farm" became law, wheat went from a high of $6.50 in 1996 to $2.25 in 1999. The "overproduction trap" wreacked havoc. As Thomas Frank puts it
...the crisis got so bad so fast that the federal government resumed making massive payouts to farmers in order to stop the bleeding---not as price supports this time, but simply on the basis of production, so that that the larger farms, the ones that needed the money the least, got the most. In Kansas in 2000 and 2001, such federal handouts were actually greater than what farmers earned from farming itself. For ADM, Cargill, ConAgra, and the rest of the food trust, "Fredom to Farm" couldn't have been better if they had written the law themselves." (p. 65)
Seeing the decline in Western Kansas over the years, I knew something had happened, but I didn't know WHAT happened until I read Thomas Frank's book. And five years later, chapter two of Michael Pollan's book brilliantly explains "what happened."
And the most remarkable thing is that 99% of people on the Great Plains don't know this story, because it has never told or repeated. I have tried for years to find books about the food monopoly and the death of the family farm, but there's nothing out there. It's like a conspiracy of silence.
And what have Democrats done to fight this repeal of the New Deal farm policies? Not much. Sure, there is the occassional Jim Hightower populist, but there really are no Democratic elected officials out there teaching and persuading "We the People" about "what happened." And in presidential elections, the Democrats get about 30% of the vote on the Great Plains if they are lucky.
Back when Democrats cared more about farmers (there were more farmers then), Jack Kennedy would get 44% in my home county, Barton County, and Harry Truman, 46%. Today, John Kerry and Barack Obama are ballot box disasters out here, snaring 29% of the vote, maybe 31% if they get lucky. What Republican farm policies have done to the Great Plains is pathetic. But the Democratic party has done so little on this issue, conceding the Great Plains in every presidential election.
Of course, the five or six corporate corporate agri-giants give tens of millions to politicians, and Farm Bureau doesn't seem like a big voice for small farmers any more. I remember being at the annual Democrat "Washington Days" gathering in Topeka a few years ago, and reading in the program that one of the sponsors was "Archer Daniel Midlands," and I thought "Why are Democrats taking money from them?"
I guess I was naieve. Randy Yowell's hapless congressional campaign may have been the last time a Democrat congressional candidate gave us "the straight stuff."
Yes, today, there are a few pockets of resistance: the Farmers Union, various "organic farming websites," the farm journalism of A.V. Krebs. The recent work of Thomas Frank and Michael Pollan is encouraging. The "Land Institute" in Salina is doing some good things. But mostly, it's just silence out here on the Great Plains, that "high, lonesome sound."
You're absolutely right Marty. Unless and until Democrats begin to talk about farming and why GOP policies have decimated family farms, we'll never be competitive in the First district. It has always amazed me that year after year and election after election, farmers continue to vote against their own interests. Democrats are to blame as well. We just don't know how to talk or relate to farmers. Josh Svaty is the only Democrat I know that really gets it. Unfortunately, the damage may be already done. I don't know how you reverse the decades of decay in the Great Plains and bring back the family farm.
Ryon, thanks for the feedback. I saw Josh recently and we talked briefly about the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Josh is totally plugged in to what is going on, and is also a person of faith.
I do think the "Food, Inc." film and the Pollan books are bringing these issues to a higher level of visibility than we have had in a long time. People are starting to ask: Where does the food in the supermarket come from?
Don't be Down on the Farm by U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) Here's the link http://www.glaserfoundation.org/program_areas/pdf/Dont_be_Down_on_the_Farm.pdf
Wow, Gus, thanks for sharing this article. This Byron Dorgan looks like he's the real deal. Pat Roberts would NEVER write something like this.
I did some reading on Byron Dorgan, and I am sad that he is leaving the U.S.Senate. North Dakota has elected Democrats to the U.S. Senate for years, so why can't Kansas? The Kansas Democratic Party needs to focus on these family-farm issues and rural issues more.
I think part of the problem is that democrats lose people on the moral issues like abortion and gay rights. Many rural people have strong religious values but the democrat party establishment seems more concerned about pleasing Hollywood and big city liberals than midwesterners. Those people hate the midwest and call this area "fly-over" country.
Thanks, Marty, for a very good analysis of the farm programs and the dillema they have caused for family size farms. (What is a family size farm?)
Why do farmers throw their lot in with the big corporations? When farming changed from labor intensive to capital intensive, the farmers began courting big money and partnerships with corporate interests.
You are right about Butz. His policy favored a reduction in family farms and the concentration of land and resources into fewer and fewer hands.
Thanks again for pointing out some of the unknown facts about the revolution in farming. The invasion of outside capital has done more damage to family farms than most anything else.
Now, I gotta get out of this chair and go tend to irrigating my 'surplus' corn crop and get the wheat header on my combine so I can start harvesting my wheat crop. The present price of wheat is in no way determined by the cost of production. It is more determined by the profit margin desired by all those entities between the producer and the consumer.
Byron Dorgan hits the issue squarely on the head when he talks about the social and community implications that family farms have. He talks about marketplace forces and speaks in market terms:
When we purchase food at the supermarket, particularly produce, we always buy American. All you have to do is look at the label. At least you can be assured that it (supposedly) hasn't been sprayed with DDT as it might if it were imported from Chile or Mexico. We purchase meat, dairy, and eggs that have been raised without additional hormones, antibiotics, or other chemicals. And we try to purchase from community markets that label where, and how far away from the market, the food was produced.
Still, the food industry hates those measures. There was a bill pending in the Kansas House a couple of years ago, supported by the dairy lobby, that would have outlawed stores from carrying any dairy product that carried a label that made any mention of hormones, antibiotics, etc. It obviously died, but not for lack of trying.
If we want to start saving family agriculture, then it's up to the market's consumers to demand more information about where their food comes from.
Fortunately, there's a growing movement to do just that.
Read the label. Ask for the information.
Marty, Certainly higher commodity prices help but that also drives up the cost of land which makes it harder for farms to expand plus it encourages more outside speculators to get into the business. I know up in Iowa outsiders from California can outbid any local farmer when land comes up for sale.
Plus, what exactly IS a "family" farm? My father owns a farm but never actually lived on the property until recently. Other people own farms but much of the families income comes from off-farm sources like regular jobs or doing contract work. Other people have "hobby" farms where they own a few acres and maybe raise a few goats or something.
So farming is a very complicated issue.
Thankfully, some decent journalism here, I'd say; which is a very helpful, appreciated start to educating us on this (grass) root issue. Contrasting 'journalism' in Central Kansas if not purely propaganda is rife with misinformation.