1990 Farm Bill Forum 



Proceedings 



Farmers Union 

 Ken Siroky 



Member, Board of Directors 



If you're a baseball fan, you're probably famil- 

 iar with the legendary double play combination 

 of Tinker to Evers to Chance. These three gen- 

 tlemen made the relay o( a baseball into a 

 virtual art form and became the subject of 

 poetry. 



The relay of philosophical bunk that has passed 

 from Secretaries of Agriculture Benson to Butz 

 to Yeutter and expressed in excess production 

 to create the double whammy of low prices and 

 free trade is a debacle. 



Low prices and free trade are basic cornerstones 

 to economic policy that favor the efficiency of 

 volume over the efficiency of competition. This 

 means dri\-ing people out of agriculture in a 

 style that makes the Great Cattle Drive of 1989 

 pale in comparison. Economics is the pivot on 

 which issues great and small turn. 



Conservation of soil and water is no less a 

 victim than p)eople as the consequences of the 

 1985 Farm Act and its predecessors are realized. 

 It is naive to consider issues as single entities 

 but rather they should be regarded in the 

 context of related interests. Good soil and water 

 conservation, for instance, must be a partner to 

 good animal husbandry, good agronomic 

 practices, energy conservation, and chemical 

 waste and residue responsibilities. It must also 

 mesh with desirable human needs, both social 

 and physical. A good economic underpinning 

 will provide balanced favorable results in these 

 areas and others. 



The 1985 Farm Act does none of this. 



The sometimes lauded benefits to conservation 

 and wildlife by the farm bill through CRP are 

 illusionary. The program itself is a knee-jerk 

 reaction to previous farm bills and economic 

 policy that went further awTy than intended 

 and should not have happened in the first 

 place. It is something akin to the Chinese 

 practice of sending a bill for the bullet used in 

 an execution to the victim's family. When the 

 U.S. Department of Agriculture commits an 



atrocity it sends the bill for the mess to the 

 taxpayer, and no, I don't think the analogy is 

 too dramatic. CRP is merely damage control 

 and not constructive in any other sense. It is 

 corrupting and bankrupting. The government is 

 renting land per year for more than it is worth, 

 affecting neighbors adversely, and creating 

 untold loopholes for abuse. CRP is fertile 

 ground for political maneuvering and moving 

 people off the land, probably never to return. 



Some questions we must jx)nder are: Is border- 

 line bribery for the benefit of conservation the 

 message we want to send through CRP? Are 

 the wildlife benefits of CRP compromised by 

 drought year haying and grazing? Drought 

 years are exactly the conditions under which 

 wildlife would need additional feed and cover 

 provided by CRP land. Is conservation better 

 served by producers making a living from the 

 farm than from a government check? Is the last 

 bastion of the work ethic endangered by 

 interrupting the flow of many farms from one 

 generation to the next with government pay- 

 ments? 



To discover the true impact of the 1985 Farm 

 Act and its predecessors on conservation, we 

 have to evaluate the effects its economic policy 

 has on the way people in agriculture conduct 

 themselves. 



As the free trade, cheap food policy continues 

 to depress prices and make farmers and ranch- 

 ers live at a level below other Americans, they 

 react in predictable ways. They pursue a 

 relentless search for economic equality through 

 the volume efficiency game. Results of this 

 quest include larger farms, larger equipment, 

 more chemicals, larger cattle herds, increased 

 specialization, etc. Producers playing the game 

 of catch up found they couldn't and more and 

 more drastic measures are necessary. They find 

 themselves farming a deeper coulee and a 

 steeper slope. Bigger machinery makes it 

 impractical and uneconomic to preserve a 

 waterway, farm in narrow strips on the contour 

 or tolerate shelterbelts leftover from the repair 

 of similar disasters from the past. The monocul- 

 ture of specialization lends itself to chemical 

 abuse. Livestock people respond by over- 

 grazing and overcrowding, resulting in damage 



13 



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