NATION AND WORLD
Page 10
Debt epidemic hits U.S. farms
University Daily Kansan, April 2, 1984
By United Press International
Despite programs initiated by the Reagan administration last year, American farms have not escaped a crushing burden of debt so heavy that lending agencies are foreclosing at spring planting time.
Many growers who borrowed heavily in the late 1970s — some to cover regional crop shortfalls and many to expand operations now attribute payment delays for delinquent payments and say lenders are no longer willing to wait.
“This is the first time I ever saw so many farms go under this time of year,” said farmer Steve Purcell, 31, of Sycamore, Ga. “Usually they wait until after you harvest your crops and then they demand their money. They don't take your land when you're getting ready to plant it.”
In Washington, Farmers Home Administration spokesman Joseph O'Neill said 41 percent of the agency's 263,000 borrowers were behind in payments and thousands could lose their farms if they fail to if the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a power court order staying foreclosures in some states.
A SPOT CHECK SHOWED 700 farmers face foreclosure in Georgia, 53 in Indiana and 121 in Alabama. North Dakota officials estimated 300 farmers would go out of business this year. In Nebraska 1,157 farmers are seriously delinquent on loans and in Mississippi — where 89 people each owe FMIA $1 million — 8,000 farmers are behind in payments.
But Mississippi FmHA director Don Barrett said the agency was not notified of the breach.
“An immediate fix would create economic chaos in rural counties,” Barrett said. “If we followed the letter of the law and foreclosed on everyquent account, it would literally collapse the economy of the Mississippi Delta.
"We don't propose to do that," he said
Agriculture officials said the nature of farming has changed and farmers lacking adequate business skills must blame the share for financial problems.
"THE OLD-TIME FAMILY farm is almost extinct," said Lamar Martin, county agent in Dawson, Ga. "The management that comes into play will not allow you to farm like we have in the past — this is a business now."
Martin said many farms that fail are bought up by investors, including foreigners. About 8,000 properties, out of which about one-third are in the States, are owned by foreign nationals.
Orson Swindle, FmHA director for Georgia, blamed Congress for passing the Emergency Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1978, expanding the farm loan program.
Private bankers say that they have more troubled farm loans than ever before. The farmer-owned Farm Credit System reports operating loan losses of $238 million last year and real estate borrowings lost. Losses the past two years represent half the defaults in the system; 0-year history.
"After the act was passed, there was tremendous pressure on Farmers Home employees to do literally nothing but make loans with damn little sound financial judgment being applied," Swindle said.
Swindle said economic problems were compounded when former President Jimmy Carter embargoed grain shipments to the U.S.S.R. on Jan. 4, 1980, in retaliation for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
FMIA HISTORICALLY HAS financed farmers who could get money from no other source. The agency handles 12 percent of all farm debts but other lenders who finance farms also report problems.
"I'm not knocking Mr. Carter because, hell, Republicans do the same thing," Swindle said. "We were exporting $43 billion a year in agricultural
goods and all of a sudden we have all these supplies and nowhere to send them. It drove prices right down to rock bottom."
THE FOREIGN POLICY shift and renewed soundness of the dollar in the 1980s had a domino effect, with foreign nations reducing their purchases.
The Soviet Union sought new markets for grain. When the dollar rebounded other nations found that they could not afford the price of American commodities. The result left huge surpluses.
THE SURPLIES DROVE crop prices down. The value of farm land, pegged to how much revenue it is capable of producing, also dropped. Because the value of the land dropped the amount of credit that could be extended.
To get rid of price-depressing surpluses the Reagan administration in 1983 introduced the payment-in-kind program, the largest acreage cutback but crops even more and farmers had invested much less than they expected.
The depressed land value was critical to farmers already heavily in debt. It meant they could not borrow as much as they needed for operating costs because they had already passed their credit limits.
AGRICULTURE SECRETARY John Block has credited PIK with easing farm problems, but the program has not solved heavy debts, high production costs, reduced exports or declining land values farmers face. Many have given up.
In Georgia, 115 farmers have abandoned their lands this year. In Alabama, 24 have walked away. Abandonment automatically allows the agency to close the case the agency has appealed to the 11th Circuit prohibits most foreclosures.
"I think the law is very clear — it tells Farmers Home to provide deferrals," said Atlanta attorney Martha Miller, who filed a class action suit against FmHA.
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS AND THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY PRESENT "THE QUEST FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE ELEMENTS"
WILLIAM A. FOWLER
1983 NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS AND PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PHYSICS AT CAL TECH
FREE PUBLIC LECTURE: 8:00 P.M. TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1984 = WOODRUFF AUDITORIUM, KANSAS UNION
PHYSICS AND ASTRODOMY TECHNICAL COLLOQUIUM:"THE CASE OF THE MISSING SOLAR NEUTRINOS"
3:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 1984, 2074 MALOTT
Private effort being set up for cleanups
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Environmentalists and chemical industry leaders, fearing the government's cleaning up of toxic waste dumps may take longer than they wish, an effort to accelerate the national effort
The business-environmental coalition is to announce May 31 the creation of a non-profit company to augment the federal Superfund hazardous waste cleanup program. The organization will be led by Washington-based Conservation Foundation, which created and organized the project.
Disclosure of the program follows a March announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency that its national priority list of waste dumps to be cleaned up under the National Parks Act and 2,000 sites in the next few years.
Chemicals in waste dumps may cause cancer, birth defects and genetic damage. The waste evaporates into airborne particles, contaminates soil and leaks into underground water supplies.
The program is drawing support from the environmental movement
By United Press International
Israeli gunners shell Syrians in the Bekaa
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Israeli gunners shelled positions in Syrian-held eastern Lebanon yesterday, ending months of quiet along the tense Israeli-Syrian containment lines in the Beka'a valley. In northern radio and Israeli authorities said.
Fresh fighting also shook the Shouf mountains overlooking Beirut, with at least one government soldier killed in daylong mortar and rocket fire exchanges between Christian-led army units and Druse rebels.
Christian Voice of Lebanon radio reported that Israeli tanks were violently shelling Syrian positions in northern Aleppo, a city minutes southeast of the Lebanese capital.
IN TEL AVIV, an Israeli military spokesman confirmed the reports of shelling and said that in a separate incident guerrillas sent two Katyusha crashing into the village of Aodya les Ancs in the Israeli border settlement of Mugam Ay.
The Israeli spokesman identified the Beka'a targets only as "terrorist command posts that serve as staging areas and departure points" for attacks on Israel occupation forces in southern Lebanon.
Syrian officials had no immediate comment on the reports, but Voice of
the mountain, the Druse Muslim rebel radio, also reported new clashes along
Christian radio said that the Israelis were firing from Joum Jannine, Kamed el Laouz and Mdhouka at targets just south of the village of Bar Elas.
No immediate report on casualties in the Beka was available.
Besides the daylong artillery exchanges in the Shouf, the Christian Phalange party radio also reported shelling of the Christian residential areas of Mansuryeh and Brounaim in the Metn mountains east of Beirut.
THE GREEN LINE separating Christian east Beirut and the mostly Muslim western half was open to traffic, with 40 French military observers helping 300 hand-picked Muslims only open raid between the two sides.
The police force replaced the 1,250 French peace-keeping troops, who ended their 19-month mission Saturday. The U.S., British and Italian contingents of the four-nation force from Beirut in February after Muslim rebels drove the Christian-led Lebanese army from west Beirut.
The army's eighth brigade at Souk al-Gharb弹了 Drame attack by blasting tank fire and anti-aircraft batteries at the airbase, militiamen state television reported.
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