Factory Farms
PATTON, JAMES G.
Factory Farms Land Monopolies Threaten Existence Of Small Farmer and Family Farms By JAMES G. PATTON President National Farmers Union OUR time is a time of great events, and a time of change. I...
...It seems to me the answer is easy...
...1980 and 1930, reaching a peak of 42.4 per cent of air farmers In the last named year...
...Thus, tJu last 30 years have shown a steady tendency toward displacement of the fanner loko always has been regarded as the backbone of ¦ American agriculture and the embodiment of the ideal of Jeffersoninn democracy...
...If these figures mean anything, they mean that the people have a choice bet we n kinds of government action, and that it is the most potent economic weapon they have...
...A great field for invention and development is open here...
...In 1040 there were 100.531^ more than double as man) Moreover, farms of between 500 and 1,000 acres in sise increased) in number from 125,295 In 163,694...
...Instead of 5,000 tenants being helped to purchase farms and get established on the land, as is being done this year, us many as 50,000 a year should be helped to do so...
...The way already has been shown by our experiments of the last decade...
...T*HUS, if we stand at a cross-roads in history, as I think we do, it should be a source of encouragement and optimism to us that we know, surely, that we> can use the power of government to right economic wrongs, to doctor economic ills...
...t C1MULTANE0USLY, smaller farms were di creasing in number...
...A main argument for the so-called "efficiency" "of the big farm is that it can take advantage of new machinery that cuts production costs...
...The Other trend is a turn down ward ia the percentage of farm tenancy fur the first time in statistical history...
...Hut by 1940, the farms #f more than 1,000 acres in size included wore than double the land included in any of the other main types of farm...
...On the other bane*, I am not overconfident »f attaining the objectives I have mentioned briefy here...
...A healthy, living relationship between the citizen and his government is vital to the successful func-tioning of democracy in an economy as complex as...
...On the other hand, the Farm Security Administration system, through rehabilitation and tenant, purchase loans, actually was helping to establish tenants on the land as ftfmily-type farm owners...
...How can these apparently contradictory trends be explained...
...The real points of disagreement come when it is proposed to do something to reverse this trend...
...What they need is wisely adjusted credit that includes the furnishing of technical advice and help, and the opportunity for group action through cooperative devices...
...Then, suddenly, in 1935 the percentage dropped to 42.1...
...The first step, then, might wtll be a ringing declaration by the Congress that it shall be the national policy to preserve the family-type'farm as the basic unit of American agriculture, and to promote its welfare...
...They showed once and for all that the people- as a whole, ca use government to correct wrongs., And I think now it will never be possible again - for government' to evade responsibility for se^on as it>did during the late twenties and early thirties.- g Jcjjl It is unnecessary, I think, to cite long tables of statistics to prove further the case made out above...
...Defeatists have long pointed to the "low costs" of large farms us an argument to show that the family-type farm is doomed...
...If we...
...On the other hand, at the same time this grim irtjueezing of family farms was going on, an apparently contradictory trend occured...
...Such are the main outlines of some of the program that need to be invoked by the government in order to realign our agriculture, to make it truly an American agriculture of the kind envisaged by Jefferson and the other founders of our democracy...
...Between IMS and 1940 the most striking increase in any category of farms in the United Stales was of farms 1,000 acres or more in size, la 191* there were M;135 of these farms...
...There is no reason why they cannot form cooperatives to cut marketing costs, to cut the costs of things they have to buy, to divide the use of pure-bred boars and bulls, and to perform numerous other economic functions that would put them on a competitive basis with large farms...
...It is that government is a powerful economic infraenerthnt can have decisive effects...
...This would mean that the principles followed by the Farm Security Administration both in its tenant purchase and rehabilitation programs would be expanded and made the dominant agricultural credit principles of the country...
...Such a program could also go far toward extending modern soil conservation practices among farmers too poor to follow them now, and could well promote production for abundance far more satisfactorily than a crude across-the-board reliance on the price system or straight-out cash benefits...
...These programs might well follow the model, iu some respects, of the Soil Conservation Act, requiring enactment of legislation by the State in order to participate in the benefits of the national program rinse acts could well protect both tenant and lam1 lord by spelling out and enforcing model landlord-tenant relationships...
...TP1I1S cooperative machinery ought to be backed * wholeheartedly by government credit...
...And it also "eems tort*Hot these figures should dispose of fruitless arguments about bureaucracy and government ¦wddling and all of the other complaints that imply thatall government action is bad...
...The moral, it seems .to me, is just as plain as the answer...
...State programs supplementing the national ale needed...
...Only a relatively small number of average family farmers own more than 230 acres...
...In .1910 there was more land included in all of the farms of between .100 and 175 acres and in those of 175 to 260 aertm than in any other category...
...I should like to stress, however, that all of these steps, and the other supplementary steps that could be taken, ought to provide for a truly democratic kind of participation by farmers themselves...
...Not only must credit facilities be adjusted to enable these farmers to get started and to maintain themselves, but the/must be enabled to work together...
...Above all, every farm boy and girl ought to be given the chance to receive an education as good as that received by city children...
...1.300,000 farmers should have these loans * >• * IN order foi such a program to be fully successful...
...It is ouly-in the great staple crops that opportunity exists even for efficiency in the narrow sense used by proponents of large farm units...
...In fact, the decrease in number of forms of between 20 to 260 acres during those three ' ecades amounted to 694,781 farms...
...But more than that is needed...
...Moreover, the land included in the larger farms was by and large the more desirable, and included a larger percentage of...
...The kind of credit that these family larmers need is not the ordinary kind of commercial credit...
...Incidentally^ it is high time that the government undertook a research program for the development of technological devices aimed solely at bringing the advantage of the machine to the small farm...
...Both were traceable to government intervention...
...Channels for consultation between government and farmer at every level—community, state and nation—ought to be Kept open...
...cropland than did moat of the other categories...
...In no part ot our economy do we face a sharper choice than in agriculture...
...Our measures in the early days of the New Deal were half-measures, our 8teps.but first stumblings toward a better economic order...
...The process of pushing farmers off the land was accelerated by an AAA system that rewarded large farmers very heavily and turned government help itself into a vested interest that further entrenched large owners...
...The real key is in the firm and unequivocal establishment of a national land policy with the preservation of the family-type farm as its base...
...Roads ought to be improved and extended throughout rural areas, and a vast public housing program to bring benefits to thu cuui try should be inaugurated...
...A rounded program for a better life for farmers is required...
...da our job well, then .. I have no doubt whatever in the future of American democracy...
...Indeed, there is plenty of room to argue that the close careful supervision, the energy and initiative, of the small independent .farmer will shew far greater returns per hour...
...The closing of the frontier has thrown us back on our own resources of intelligence as well as of nature It took the great crash of the late twenties and early thirties to make us face some of the cold factual implications of our changed position...
...From a national standpoint, then, "efficiency" may 'well be achieved more readily on the family-type farm than on the factory farm...
...group...
...The two most salient trends revealed in the 18*0 census of agriculture are apparently in conflict...
...It is probable that the production of the more effective nutritional foods is more adapted to small-farm, intensive methods than to factory methods...
...Bather, I should like to believe that it is up to us who believe in these things to make eternally clear the,choices that are offered the American people...
...of labor than the gang-work methods of the great corporation farms, if they are put on a comparable.basis...
...In other words, a trend toward that most ominous of all monopolies, a oionopoly of the land...
...If this policy is completely and honestly accepted throughout the various phases of national farm programs, then most of the step-by-step details become crystal dear...
...I do not feel downhearted as we stand at this cross-roads ef history...
...Almost evtryone, regardless of his views on what can be done shout it, knows that the fsmily-type farm is being pressed harder and harder every year...
...If these farms had to pay their laborers an adequate living wage, it is highly doubtful that they could show greater "economic efficiency" than small farms...
...What this means in terms of total land in agriculture and of total agricultural income is clear...
...The answer to that is that nobody knows whether large farm units are more efficient than small, because small units have never been given a fair trial...
...ours and as dependent upon comprehensive action by government...
...Only the government can do the long, expensive, disinterested kind oi a research job that net ds to be done to bring to the small farm every possible benefit of modern technology...
...Farm tenancy percentage marched steadily upward through 1910...
...I think that historians will look upon the present as one of the great cross-roads of history, for the world generally and for our own country...
...In only one other category was there an increase, that including farms of between 260 and $00 acres, which rose slightly Bui farms of between 175 and 260 acres, of between 100 and 175 acres, of 50 to 100 acres and so on—all of these declined in number...
...These are the really vital foods, if the comprehensive nutritional knowledge of today is to be put to practical use...
...In 1940 it went down even more, falling off to 38.7 per cent 6f all farmers...
...For example, the advantages of rural electrification ought to be made available to every farm family in the United States, through expansion of the work of the Rural Electrification Administration...
...There is no special reason why small farmers cannot band together to use such machinery in the same way...
...What, then, would the National Farmers Union like to see done...
...One of these trends is that toward larger and larger units in agriculture...
...Most of such research and promotion in the past has been aimed at the development of machines that were adapted only to large-scale farming, or were too expensive far any other use...
...These categories of farms include nearly all of the family-type farms in the .country...
...Instead of fewer than 500,000 families receiving rehabilitation loans, as now...
...Looking still mere closely at the stste of agri culture when the United States entered the war, what do we find...
...The opportunity to take part in cooperative medical service needs to be made open for every farm family...
...It follows then that the agricultural credit structure of the nation would need to be revised to give such farmers first priority...
...Factory farms, for instance, take a hidden subsidy out of the hides of their workers by paying them very-low wages, about as low as those received by any...
...And even then we did not face all of them, nor did we change the economic order sufficiently to do more than alleviate some of its worst evils...
...it should not be left solely to the national govern nient...
Vol. 27 • January 1944 • No. 1
