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University Daily Kansan, October 6, 1982
Farmers troubled by decreasing income
By KATE DUFFY Staff Reporter
How tough is it to be a farmer these days?
Expert's agree the life of a farmer is not easy, but they cannot totally agree on the solution to the farmer's biggest problems — the triple whammy of double-digit inflation, low prices and strangling debt.
In 1981, the interest on loans paid by farmers exceeded their net income, according to the National Farmers Union.
Farm income has steadily spirated downward for the past three years. It is down 50 percent from 1979 income levels while the U.S. farm debt has doubled to almost $200 billion in the last six years, according to figures released by the National Farmers Union.
PAUL SACIA, assistant director of legislative services for the National Farmers Union in Washington, D.C., said farmers were going out of business because of the government's chaotic policies. Export markets are important, he said, but the real impact is in the government's pricing system.
"You can export all you want," he said, "but if farmers lose $2 a bushel, then it's not a help."
In addition, he said farmers should
not have to rely on exports to make a decent living.
He said farmers had been over-producing to make up for the low prices and to make ends meet, Sacia said. But by producing so much, they created a problem, losing valuable farr. acreage to erosion and over-planting.
"It's a catch-22 situation," Sacia said ruefully.
And, he said, the agency that is supposed to be the farmers' best friend, the Farmers Home Administration, is giving farmers 'a song and
He cited figures from a Government Accounting Office study that showed that the FHA was not using all of its 1982 budget of $600 million. As of July 14, he said, the FHA had spent only 48 percent of its operating loan budget and 79 percent of its ownership program allotment, a practice Sacia said was devastating to existing farmers.
"HELPING FARMERS buy new land is not what we need," he said. "We're interested in farmers sustaining their existing farms."
Farm organizations, including the National Farmers Union representing 350,000 farmers, are calling for a moratorium on FHA loan repayments. The deferrals could be good for up to three years, depending on Secretary of Agriculture John Block's discretion, Sacia said.
With 25 percent of the 270,000 FHA borrowers behind schedule on payments, the moratorium legislation, already approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, could have a significant impact on the farm economy.
But FHA officials maintain they have foreclosed on very few farmers who owe the agency $23 billion. And they say moratorium legislation would not do anything for farmers that the agency is not already doing, mainly providing extra time for delinquent borrowers.
BUT SACIA said the number of warehouses was not an accurate measure of distress because when farmers were delinquent, the FIA put pressure on them to sell. He said the delinquency rate was a better sauce.
"The letters of acceleration (delinquency) the FHA sends out to farmers gives farmers a certain number of dollars that they've paid for the kiss of death," Saia said.
Farmers have resorted to an old tactic to slow down the liquidation process. Penny auctions, popular during the Depression, have made a comeback in areas especially hard hit by the recession.
Often, a banker realizing what is going on simply calls off the auction. In some states, penny auctions have been used in recent years FHA to renegotiate delinquent loans.
SACIA ACCUSED the FHA of having a philosophy that hard times
weed out the worst and most inefficient farmers.
"They act like it is the survival or the fittest," he said, "and that the weak will not survive. But with only 3 percent of the population farming, we're losing some of the youngest farmers with less equity."
Kansas may not have been hit as hard by the recession as other states. Of 7,617 FIA borrowers, 14 percent are behind schedule. During the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, there has been only six foreclosures in Kansas with only 91 borrowers receiving mortgages in August. The FHA's state director, Larry Davis. He said he had not heard of any penny auctions in Kansas.
Davis said the farmer's biggest enemy was the double-digit inflation rates coupled with low farm prices and overproduction. The Reagan Administration is proposing to decrease production while increasing the export level to get rid of the surplus, he said.
FARMERS HAVE expanded too rapidly, Davies said, and are now caught in a cash-flow crunch. He said he had seen more out letters of deportation than for it.
DOUGLAS COUNTY Extension Agent Earl Van Meter said that area farmers were not experiencing bankruptcy to the extent that other areas were but that they were beginning to get concerned.
Speaker says war altered faith
By JEANNE FOY Staff Reporter
The American occupation of Japan after World War II left a deep impact on Japan's religious culture, but the full impact of that occupation cannot yet be judged, a Chicago professor of religions said last night in the Kansas Union.
"The principle of separation of religion and state disavowed the Japanese notion of unity between religion and government," Joseph Kingaun, professor of religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, said.
Kitagawa spoke on "The Religious Ethos of Present-Day Japan," the second of KU's humanities lecture series.
He said the American occupiers' separation of church and state under the Obama administration.
FURTIERMORE, the issuing of the imperial script, which denied the divinity of the emperor, cut off the Japanese suddenly and abruptly from their past, Kitagawa said, because so much of Japanese culture had been based on belief in the emperor's divinity.
He said the future of Japan's religions depended on whether the Japanese would arrive at religious unity based on the past, would pursue technology, industry, and commerce or would creatively reshape their lives.
'The painfully emerging Japanese view of the world and relation might be
Shintoism had been dependent far too long on the government for its survival, Kitagawa said, and after the imperial decree to reintroduce it was left without its traditional backing.
Shintois, because it is Japan's native religion, could still provide a tunnel for national narcissism. Kitagawa said, and some vote-hungry politicians already had manipulated their followers for their own purposes.
Buddhism is caught between the demands of the past and the new age, he said, and the traditional hierarchy shrines and subordinate shrines no longer exist.
Experts back media program
Kitagawa said a number of so-called crisis religions mushroomed after the Korean War. He said these religions with their self-talked Messias offered security in a world where traditional ties had been eroded.
The KU telecommunications program received a positive evaluation from its parent committee this week, and the director of the program said Monday.
JAPANESE BUDDHISM came under attack for its subservience to political authority, the prevalence of mystical and magical practices and its preoccupation with funeral rites. Kitagawa said.
Sam Shammugun, director of the KU program, said the advisory committee was impressed with the quality of the work done. It was developed in only two years.
The program, one of only six in the country, is designed to teach graduate students to analyze new telecommunication systems for advantages and cost efficiency, Shammugan said.
FOR EXAMPLE, FM broadcasting is more expensive than AM broadcasting because more AM bands fit into a spectrum, but FM is quieter because it has less static, so radio stations are willing to pay more for it, he said.
In the KU program, which does
KITAGAWA SAID the new religious freedom enacted under the occupation affected Shintoism, the traditional Japanese religion, Buddhism, which had been absorbed from China in the eighth century, and Christianity.
$200,000 worth of research each year,
students are currently analyzing a
secure communication system
music software system for Bell Laboratories, Shamnguan said.
Most of the funding for the research comes from the U.S. Army and the Federal Communications Commission. Corporations that are having a system to communicate with the University to help with the cost of the analysis, Shannuugan said.
ANALYSIS is done by constructing mathematical models and then running these models through computer simulation, he said.
The 15 member advisory committee is made up of executives from corporations involved in tele- communications years ago to help establish the program and give advice in the curriculum design, Shamnugan said.
"Japan needs the understanding and
friendship of the West, and we need them."
quite different from the West's," he said, "but the sooner we leave the idea of remaking society in our image, the better off we will all be.
CONSUMERS AWARE!
The Consumer Info Center is now open daily.
104-C Level 3
Kansas Union
864-4807
81O W. 23rd Lawrence, Kansas (913) 843-2696
"Looks good, Feels good"
Carry out and delivery not included with this offer
This Group packed Em to The Walls Sept.11 See Them Again This Friday Set starts at 9:30
& DAVE
STEVE BOB
Remember-bring your KIDS!
We would like to make your enrollment for spring, 1983, as easy as possible, so please try to come.
From 6pm to 10pm at GSP, Oliver, and Lewis (on October 6 only).
ICK THE MEETING WHICH IS MOST CONVENient FOR YOU
Monday, October 11 at 4:00 p.m. in 3140 Wesco Aud.
COME FIND OUT!
The College invites you to attend a short, informal meeting concerning the new computerized early enrollment system to be implemented this fall.
We hope that you will take advantage of the opportunity to learn the new procedures firsthand rather than having to depend entirely on the spring timetable.
ALL COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
VOTE
~ and ~
Here's your chance to be counted.
Thursday, October 14, at 4:00 p.m. in 3140 Wescoe Aud.
From 9am to 4pm at booths in front of Fraser, Wescoe, Robinson and the Union.
in your Freshmen Class elections. Held on:
OCTOBER 6,7
Hear KATHIE FITZGERALD of the Socialist Workers Party on the need for a LABOR PARTY in the U.S.
Kathie Fitzgerald is 34 years old. She is a machine operator and a member of United Steelworkers Local 1294. She is a resident of Kansas City, Mo.
Ms. Fitzgerald is the chairperson of the Kansas City Socialist Workers Party, and has been a long-time activist in the movement to stop U.S. intervention abroad, the women's and the civil rights movements.
MONEY FOR JOBS NOT FOR WAR
7:30 pm Forum Room Wed. Oct, 6 Kangsa Ulaan
Forum Room Kansas Union
/