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The New York Times
January 16, 1985
HEADLINE: STOP CODDLING FARMERS
BYLINE: By James Bovard ; James Bovard writes frequently on agricultural issues.
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY: Agricultural policy is probably the Reagan Administration's largest domestic failure. Federal spending for agricultural price supports soared sevenfold between 1980 and 1983. The total cost of farm programs exceeded $50 billion in 1983, yet farm bankruptcies are near record highs, farmland value is falling and farm income is 20 percent below 1979 levels. The more the Government has spent, the worse off farmers have become.
One commodity program after another has lapsed into economic absurdity. Honey price supports will cost $94 million this year - the equivalent of the market value of the entire honey crop. The Agriculture Department spent the equivalent of nine-tenths of the value of the rice crop last year in subsidies. Payments for wool production are twice the value of the total wool produced.
Current policies are a tangle of contradictions. Some programs bribe farmers to increase production, others bribe them to reduce production. Some drive up the price of land, others provide cheap credit for a lucky few to buy land. There are programs that drive up domestic grain prices, and export programs that reduce prices for foreigner buyers.
The Agriculture Department is trying to insure farm prosperity by reducing crop production. Last year, it paid farmers $10 billion to idle over 70 million acres. But, while the department pays American farmers to cut back their acreage, other countries have increased production and reaped the benefit of America's cutbacks. Our agricultural export volume has fallen 10 percent since 1980 as Argentina, Australia and Canada have moved into world grain markets that we are abandoning. Farmers are suffering because Congress has set crop price support levels above world market prices. As a result, farmers cannot sell their crops on the market and end up producing for Government storage rather than consumers.High price supports are the equivalent of unilateral economic disarmament - trade suicide in the race for exports. Exports accounted for more than half the United States' cash receipts for crop sales in 1982, yet Congress still makes policy as if America were an island. Soybeans have been the fastest growing farm export in recent years, mainly because soybeans have had less Government ''protection'' than other crops. Soybean price supports are set at the average of the previous five-year market price. This program, which should serve as a model for other commodities programs, provides a price floor for producers without interfering with the market.
Congress still justifies farm welfare by singing odes about the family farmer. But the Agriculture Department reported last year that one percent of the nation's farms earned 60 percent of net farm income. Memories of an idyllic past are no justification for pouring millions into the coffers of agribusinesses. And agricultural programs are clobbering consumers. Dairy price supports and marketing restrictions add 18 cents to the price of a gallon of milk. The sugar program is holding domestic sugar prices at four times world prices - and providing average benefits of almost $100,000 apiece for domestic sugar growers. The Senate Budget Committee estimated that in 1982, for every dollar in direct Government payments, farmers received another $4 in indirect payments from consumers because of Government- caused food price inflation.
If agricultural programs are not thoroughly overhauled, their cost will skyrocket even further. A new hormone is increasing milk production in dairy cows by up to 40 percent - and could add $8 billion to Federal dairy program costs. A new strain of rice is boosting yields by 35 percent - and could add billions to the cost of the rice program. And if our price supports continue above world market prices, exports will continue falling, and a permanent depression could settle on rural America.
American agriculture has been hurt by the strong dollar, but Congress and the White House have done far more damage. The sooner we end farmer welfare, the healthier agriculture will be. Four years of megabuck handouts have impoverished farmers, hurt consumers and skinned taxpayers. That agricultural policy is best which interferes least.B
TYPE: OP-ED
The New York Times
January 31, 1985, Thursday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section A; Page 22, Column 6; Editorial Desk
LENGTH: 196 words
HEADLINE: FOR SHEEP FARMERS, NO PASTURES OF PLENTY
BODY: To the Editor:
Many farm policies may be counterproductive, but James Bovard (''Stop Coddling Farmers,'' Op-Ed, Jan. 16) is wrong to cite the wool program. It is based on the National Wool Act, first passed in 1954. Congress, realizing wool is an essential commodity not sufficiently produced in the U.S. for domestic needs, enacted legislation to assist sheep farmers.
Among farmers this is known as the wool incentive. Funds are paid to producers based on product price in the open market. A national average price for wool is determined, for the market year, and then the incentive price is established. No farmer is automatically brought to the incentive price, but is proportionately reimbursed based on his wool's selling price.
The money in the program is from duties collected on imported wool. Also, a small percentage of the payment to the farmer is diverted into an industry self-help program, which includes promotion of American lamb and wool.
The Wool Act is a viable program that benefits sheep farmers in an era when there are many forces working against them. It ought to remain in effect.
EDWARD M. BLUNDELL
Germantown, N.Y., Jan. 17, 1985
TYPE: LETTER
SUBJECT: AGRICULTURE; FEDERAL AID (US); PRODUCTION; WOOL AND WOOLEN GOODS; SHEEP; LIVESTOCK; FARMERS; RANCHES; CROP CONTROLS AND SUBSIDIES
NAME: BLUNDELL, EDWARD M; BOVARD, JAMES
GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES
LEVEL 1 - 82 OF 160 STORIES
Copyright (c) 1985 The New York Times Company;
The New York Times
January 26, 1985, Saturday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section 1; Page 20, Column 5; Editorial Desk
LENGTH: 281 words
HEADLINE: NEW FARM BILL SHOULD FOCUS ON CONSERVATION
BODY: To the Editor:
James Bovard's essay on farm price supports (''Stop Coddling Farmers,'' Op-Ed, Jan. 6) clearly states the faults of our farm policies. I share his optimism that a market- oriented approach will improve the situation for Government and the agriculture industry. As one still having some vestiges of liberalism, I have two points to add.
First, using soybeans to exemplify market success without much Government protection ignores the substitution relationship between soybeans and other crops, such as cotton or tobacco. Farmers will plant whichever crop has a price advantage. Tobacco and cotton prices are strongly supported through loans and diversion plans.
Hence, the soybean supply is kept in check, and prices are stabilized by frequent switches to other crops. In effect, Government programs for other crops regulate soybeans too.
My second point is a concern for soil and water conservation. Present rates of erosion and water use could cause serious limits to American farm productivity in the next five years. The 1985 farm bill should specify long-term diversion contracts for highly erosive acres.
It should also have tax incentives for water conservation. The Midwestern depletion of the Oglalla Aquifer is so serious now that wells require deeper drilling and more energy to pump. Soil and water conservation incentives will boost farm efficiency and profits. The market is now suffering for lack of public interest. It needn't. Why not create a win-win situation for farmers and the people they feed?
GERALD W. STARR Hanover, N.H., Jan. 17, 1985
The writer is a graduate student at Dartmouth College's Resource Policy Center.
TYPE: letter
SUBJECT: Terms not available
LEVEL 1 - 83 OF 160 STORIES
Copyright (c) 1985 The New York Times Company;
The New York Times
January 25, 1985, Friday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section A; Page 26, Column 4; Editorial Desk
LENGTH: 300 words
HEADLINE: AS AGRIBUSINESS COMPLETES ITS TAKEOVER
BODY: To the Editor:
How ironic, yet appropriate, it was to read James Bovard's inaccurately titled Op-Ed article ''Stop Coddling Farmers'' (Jan. 16) on the same day that my own father, a farmer in northwestern Ohio, held his closing- out farm equipment sale in retiring from farming.
Mr. Bovard accurately ticks off the myriad problems facing the American farmer, including high farm bankruptcy rates, decreasing farmland values, decreasing farm income and convoluted farm policies. However, no one need fear having to deal with this tangled mess into the indefinite future.
The key to solving the problem(s) is contained in Mr. Bovard's analysis where he states that last year ''. . . one percent of the nation's farms earned 60 percent of the net farm income.'' The movement toward large, agribusiness farms is squeezing out the small farmer at a rate faster than ever before, and one should expect the total number of farmers to continue to decrease.
What one should expect to increase dramatically, however, are consumer prices for farm products.
At about the time the Federal Government brings an end to ''farm welfare,'' the few remaining ''big farmers'' will be nicely positioned to control and set prices for farm products, regardless of agricultural policy or any other effort made on behalf of the American public. Government price supports will appear to have been a pittance by comparison with the value received for farm products, and agribusiness will not stoop to bother with Government programs.
Far from being coddled, today's farmer is getting it in the neck, not the pocketbook. I believe, and I think my father would agree, that a better title for the article would have been ''Stop Coddling the American Consumer.''
THOMAS A. EYESTONE Clinton, N.J., Jan. 17, 1985
TYPE: LETTER
SUBJECT: AGRICULTURE; FARMERS
NAME: EYESTONE, THOMAS A; BOVARD, JAMES
LEVEL 1 - 84 OF 160 STORIES
Copyright (c) 1985 The New York Times Company:
Abstracts
WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 24, 1985, Thursday
SECTION: Section 1; Page 30, Column 4
LENGTH: 48 words
BYLINE: BY JAMES BOVARD
ABSTRACT: Article finds Federal regulations 'sentence' half-billion fresh lemons to rot each year; holds Federal marketing order is driving up lemon prices 30% to 40%, driving down per-capita fresh lemon consumption and scarificing lemon growers to Sunkist--dominant power in lemon industry (M)
TYPE: EDITORIAL COLUMN
SUBJECT: CITRUS FRUITS; LEMONS; CROP CONTROLS AND SUBSIDIES
ORGANIZATION: SUNKIST
NAME: BOVARD, JAMES
LEVEL 1 - 85 OF 160 STORIES
Copyright (c) 1985 The New York Times Company;
SUBJECT: AGRICULTURE; FARMERS; PRICES; CROP CONTROLS AND SUBSIDIES
NAME: REAGAN, RONALD WILSON (PRES); BOVARD, JAMES
GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES