Friday, October 21, 1977
University Daily Kansan
13
Small farmer's discontent topic of Senate hearings
By ROGER HEDGES Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON—Can the U.S. Department of Agriculture's romance with the giant agribusiness industry, which developed into a torid love affair under former Secretary Earl Butz, be turned into the benefit of the nation's small farmers?
"We have strong indications the Department of Agriculture is changing its thinking, and we're hoping these hearings will help them make the change."
Sen. James Aboreuk, D.S.D., hopes so. But just in case the Carter administration needs a little more prodding in that direction, he is holding a series of hearings aimed at showing the widespread discontent that exists among small farmers, who believe that the government has deserted them but also has actively worked to put them out of business in recent years.
So far, past agriculture secretaries have been given funking grades by the people testifying before Abourezuk's subcommittee. At best, the Carter agriculture department, headed by Bob Bergland, is being given a caution F for effort.
Ostensibly, Aborekew's Administrative Practice and Procedure subcommittee is looking into the research priorities of the Department of Agriculture. Actually, it is also the department that dramatizes the abandoned feelings of the small farmer, who sees the acreage around his fields being gobbled up by giant corporate farms using the latest technology developed by the Department of Agriculture in the government's tax-supported land grant colleges.
"I DOUBT VERY much if there will be an attempt to introduce legislation to force a change in research priorities," Cory Rosen, an aide to Aboreukk, said this week. "The agriculture committee would never go along with it."
"RESEARCH HAS focused primarily on increasing the short-term per-unit return to investment," he said. "This has meant that farmers have been encouraged to use large amounts of fertilizer much more heavily in chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and rodenticides.
Abourezk set the stage for the hearings with his opening remarks, an attack on the relationship between the department and large farming interests.
To justify the heavy capital costs of the inputs, it has been necessary to increase farm size. While these practices have undeniably resulted in higher yields, there is increasing evidence that they have also been responsible for serious environmental problems, including soil and for the increasing decline in the number of prosperous small family farms.
"In other words we may have increased productivity at the expense of our social and biological environment, leaving our children a harvest of economic concentration, exhausted soil and polluted waters."
ABOUREZK HAS had no difficulty in finding surporters.
"The land grant colleges have tended to support, through their research, the larger operations," testified Ben Radcliffe, president of the South Dakota Farmers' Association. He said the direction of the benefits, in this case the contribution of the agribusiness corporations."
the farmers also are trapped by the lack of independent consulting services, Rad-
"If a farmer wants to know how much
SUA FILMS
Friday, Oct. 21
IDI AMIN DADA
SLO-PORTAIT-R
Director Barbert Schroeder. "The most controversial film of the year about the dictator of Uganda." $1.25. 3:30, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 22 PUMPING IRON
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
$1.25; 3:30; 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.
Admission
Midnight Movies: Fri. & Sat.
Arts Central
$1.25. 12:00 a.m. Woodruff Auditorium
ALICE'S RESTAURANT
Tim Bruce will show films of the
LONDON FILM
on Oct. 22
at 8:00 p.m.
COLLECTIVE
Forum Room
Monday, Oct. 24
THE FIRST TRAVELERS
Director Ib Melchior with Preston
Foster, Phil Carey, $1.00; 7:30 p.m.
Wooldruff Auditorium
Tuesday, Oct. 25
THE AMAZING
EQUAL DAY SHOW
By The London Women's Film Group & The Women's Street Theatre.
IT HAPPENED TO US
IT HAPPENED TO US
A film about the Abortion Experience. By Amalie Rothschild.
1:00, $3.00.木wooldruff Auditorium
Wednosday, Oct. 26
EIHDV
KANSAN Analysis
Director Fritz Lang with Spencer Tracy, Lang's first American film, $1.00, 7:30 p.m., Woodruff Auditorium
fertilizer to use on a field he takes a soil sample to the people who sell the fertilizer." he said. "Obviously, they have a vested interest."
It was Radliffe who made the most stinging attack on Butz.
"I DON'T THINK that we can ignore the fact that during the Nixon-Ford administration—and particularly during the tenure of Earl Butz as secretary of agriculture—the political and budgetary policy makers at USDA welcomed the idea to end government-funded firm opponents of any new research programs which would ultimately aid
family farmers in their struggle to survive."
Allen Thompson, an assistant professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire and a student of agricultural economics, argued that there was no connotation to the term farm as it was economically inefficient anachronism in a world of modern agriculture.
Virtually every government-backed farm program is stacked against the small farmer, Thompson said.
"The conclusion on economic viability is that small farmers face certain obstacles, certain disadvantages and certain extinction if no changes occur," he said. "Small farmers can be viable and do deserve the support of U.S. agricultural policy."
Jazz
Jazz
Jazz
926 Mass. (upstairs)
only at Paul Gray's Jazz Place
Tonite & Sat: The Gaslite Gang Dixieland Band! Bring your parents to hear this nationally famous group. Admission $2.00
Call 843-8575 for reservations.
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