November 19, 1970
Page 38127
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I know of no other American industry where the Federal Government plays such a major role as in agriculture, nor of any other segment of our population where Federal policy has such a direct economic bearing than in the farm community.
We have found, in the past, that such Federal support is necessary, to protect not only the agricultural community but the rest of our economy as well from the uncertainties of a fluctuating market.
Today, our farm economy is in trouble. The constantly improving efforts of farmers, and the advance of agricultural science and technology, promise ever-increasing production of farm products. But the price the farmer receives for his products seems always to fall. In August of this year, prices for raw farm commodities dropped more than during any single month since October 1948. In spite of a considerably larger gross income, inflation and rising production costs have left the average farmer with little more net income than he was earning 5 years ago.
Our farmers deserve and need better treatment. Most Americans eat as well or better than people in any other nation. And we pay less out of our dollar for food than citizens in any other industrialized nation.
Yet in spite of the growing rural crisis, which has forced countless farmers to flee to the overcrowded urban areas over the last two decades, the bill which we have before us now, H.R. 18546, would force farm income to decline even further, while prices continue to rise.
The conference bill has concentrated a wide, almost arbitrary, authority in the office of the Secretary of Agriculture.
The bill has abandoned the concept of parity. Although the word parity appears on paper, it is set at a rate for feed grains so low as to be virtually meaningless. This in spite of Mr. Nixon's comments 2 years ago that a parity rate of 74 percent was intolerably low.
Advance payments have been eliminated.
Set-aside programs for wheat and feed grains are unlimited, subject to the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture.
In short – in the aftermath of a 1968 Republican campaign pledge to provide "a more direct voice for the farmer in shaping his own destiny," – we now have a bill which will lower farm income at an estimated cost to farmers of more than $1 billion over the next 3 years.
Is it of no concern to the administration that hundreds of thousands of small farmers, who cannot today make ends meet, will be driven off the farm?
It would appear not.
Are we to sacrifice the small family farmer for the sole sake of efficiency, at the cost of more overcrowding of our cities which today are struggling to cope with millions of displaced farmers and farm workers?
I hope not.
The social cost of such a policy is certainly not worth whatever relatively small amount the administration hopes to save on this bill.
In voting on H.R. 18546 we face a difficult choice.
The bill passed by the Senate was modest, yet sound. The Senate committee, especially its chairman, is to be commended for its work on the Senate version of H.R. 18456.
A return to conference would mean further delay in getting this year's farm program underway.
Yet I will support this step as more acceptable than the present conference bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
There are critics of the farm program who say that it is obsolete – that parity should be abandoned, that the structure should be made less rigid.
Some criticisms of the program are no doubt valid.
Yet we cannot abandon parity of income as this bill would do. We must insure that the health of the farm community, on which we all depend, improves with the rest of our economy.