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The
roots of the current farm crisis reach back into the 1970s. At that
time farmers were rushing to buy and rent more land and machinery to
take advantage of a huge increase in the export of agricultural
products overseas being orchestrated by the U.S. government. Banks were
anxious to lend money, and to most farmers it seemed as if the
prosperity would go on forever.
It didn't, of course, and when the bubble burst in the late 1970s and
early '80s, the effects it would have on American farmers would be
devastating. Many of the foreign countries importing U.S. produce had
gone bankrupt, and at the same time the value of the U.S. dollar rose,
making American goods more expensive in foreign markets in relation to
competitors such as Canada, Argentina, and France.
Faced with a collapse in prices for their crops and livestock, farmers
were unable to pay back the loans they owed to the banks. While farmers
owed nearly $50 billion to the banks in 1970, by 1985 farmers were $215
billion in debt, the interest on which was a staggering $20 billion a
year.
forced off the land a week!
Families who had worked the land for generations were forced to turn
their farms over to the banks and moneylenders, sometimes doing so only
at the gunpoint of the county sheriff's shotgun.
Many farmers responded to this crisis by coming together in militant
protest. Militant tactics from the farm struggles of the l930s were
resurrected to combat the foreclosures. Among them was the "penny
auction," where farmers would gather at the auction of a
foreclosed farm and "persuade" anyone from making any bids more
than a few cents, and then returning the land and machinery to the
foreclosed-upon farmer.
A new tactic employed by militant farmers was that of the tractorcade.
In many states, farmers decided to converge upon their state capitols
on their tractors and drive home in a dramatic way their desperate need
for relief.
In Minnesota, for instance, 17,000 tractors drove to the steps of the
state capitol building demanding action. And in 1979, tens of thousands
of farmers from across the country converged upon Washington, D.C. Peanut
plantation millionaire Jimmy Carter dismissed the protesting farmers as
simply being "greedy."
Numerous militant farm organizations began to spring up as a result of
these protests, such as Groundswell, the Family Farmer Survival
Association, and the American Agriculture Movement.
In addition, under the pressure of small farmers, many of the
traditional farm organizations, such as the National Farmers Union, the
National Farmers Organization, and the Farm Bureaus Federation began to
raise their voices in support of government relief to farmers.
Betrayed by political "friends"
What followed this wave of protests and militancy, though, can probably
be best described as a wave of betrayal. The main betrayers, of course,
were the Democrat and Republican politicians-who had held the farmers
up as a model of "family values" in their election campaign
speeches-and turned their back on the farmers as soon as they felt they
could get away with it.
The farm bills and programs they enacted did little for the family
farmers who needed it, and instead ended up helping the agribusiness
giants. Instead of a moratorium on farm foreclosures or real economic
aid, they handed out tax breaks and welfare to the likes of Cargill,
Archer-Daniel-Midlands, and Purina.
One absurd program these politicians did enact was to provide farmers
with subsidies or tax breaks if they took a certain number of acres out
of production. The idea was to reduce the amount of crops harvested,
and force up the prices.
This was at a time when thousands were dying of starvation around the
world, and when even in America there were thousands of children with
not enough food on their plates. Nothing illustrates the irrationality
of capitalism more than paying bankrupt farmers not to raise food in a
world where people are starving.
But in addition to the politicians, there stood in the ranks of the
betrayers many of the leaders of the farm organizations. Although there
were some notable exceptions, most of these leaders came to their
members in tailored suits claiming that farmers needed to set up their
own lobbying groups in order to get what they needed from Washington.
They then exaggerated the benefits of whatever farm legislation was
passed to make it look like their members were getting something for
all the money they were paying in dues. In reality, a couple of
tailored suits were all that the money bought.
The decline in farmer militancy that resulted from this misleadership
was seized upon by the ruling class and their media as proof that the
farm crisis had ended.
And although prices did inch up a little here and there, and the number
of farm foreclosures fell as the weakest of farmers were pushed off the
land, this represented simply a slight decrease in the severity of the
crisis, not its end.
Farmer debt still totaled up to almost $200 billion, and this figure
has continued up to today, just slightly less than its mid-1980s peak.
Also the number of farmers overall has continued to fall; despite
having hit an all time low in the mid-1980s of 2.1 million, today the
number is even lower, at 1.9 million.
Rise of factory farms
Aggravating and contributing to this situation is the continued rise of
factory farms. Even though the vast majority of farms in America are
still small family farms, in certain sectors of agriculture-such as
pineapples, strawberries, grapes, exotic fruits, poultry, pork and
vegetables-factory farms are becoming the norm.
Where I come from, for instance, in western Wisconsin, poultry used to
be a common source of supplementary income and food for most farmers.
Today though, massive chicken sheds that have price tags of $200,000
and that turn out up to 60,000 chickens a month have completely taken
poultry out of the hands of the small farmer.
Another serious problem is that even when prices do rise somewhat, as
they did in the early and mid-1990s at times, it's often offset by the
continuing rise of operating and maintenance costs. The giant farm
implement manufacturers, which in the 1970s were caught engaging in price
fixing deals, have now eliminated the risk of getting caught by simply
merging.
While once upon a time there were dozens of farm equipment
manufacturers, today you can count them on your hand and have a few
fingers left over. The result is that a new, top of the line,
eight-wheel tractor now costs as much as a Rolls Royce!
Since no family farmers can afford such prices, they are forced to try
to keep running machinery that is decades old. In my county it's quite
common for farmers to be using equipment that is 30-35 years old.
Growing up on the farm, I remember spending as much time repairing
machinery as using it.
In the 1990s farmers have been responding to the ongoing crisis in an
uneven and contradictory way. Again, misleadership plays a big role here.
Additional millions are being tossed into the lobbying shredder by the
bureaucrats sitting on top of the farm organizations. On the few
occasions a protest has been called by these bureaucrats, they use
every excuse possible to either cancel them or direct them in a
worthless direction, such as campaigning for left-sounding Democrats.
The American Agriculture Movement (AAM), which during the late 1970s
and early '80s had been the most militant of the farm organizations,
has been both marginalized by the more traditional and conservative
groups, and has been wrung free of many of the militant farmers who
once proudly filled its ranks.
While in the 1980s the AAM took the initiative of founding the North
American Farm Alliance and the North American Farmer newspaper to link
together the struggles of farmers on both sides of the border, today it
organizes demonstrations on the Canadian border demanding government
policies that will keep Canadian grain and beef off the U.S. market.
Frustration with these farm organizations has led some desperate
farmers to look to the dangerous right-wing demagogy of the likes of
Lyndon LaRouche and Pat Buchanan. In the last presidential elections,
for instance, Buchanan won the Republican primary in Iowa with the vote
of thousands of angry and confused farmers. Thus we see the desperate
need for an organized socialist alternative to which farmers can turn.
The fact that family farmers still run 99 percent of the farms, are the
largest owners of land in this country, and still produce the majority
of agricultural produce, makes them an important ally of the labor
movement.
What is needed today is a strong alliance between farmers and labor
that is independent of the misleading Democrats and Republicans, and
that is equipped with an internationalist perspective recognizing the
need for solidarity with all working people, regardless of borders.
Such a force can and will wrest control of this country from the hands
of big business, and put it in the hands of those who through their
sweat and labor truly deserve it.
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