THE GOOD EARTH UP FOR GRABS: Farmland: Force-feeding the world.
Doyle, Jack
FARMLAND: Force-feeding the World BY JACK DOYLE They call themselves the "farm export community," but very few of them come to work in bib overalls. In three-piece suits and studied demeanor, they...
...They often invoke the cause of the farmer, the consumer, or "world peace" to make a point, but their aim is simply to do more business around the world...
...And Agriculture Secretary Block has said, "Soil erosion is reducing productivity on one out of every four acres we farm," though he has not made the connection of erosion to exports...
...Highly capitalized single-crop farms will be more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the weather and finicky world markets than smaller diversified farms, and more likely to depend on the Government when they fail or have difficulty finding markets...
...Block sees American agriculture moving through "a new doorway of international relations" in the years ahead...
...60 per cent of U.S...
...port facilities to elevated status for American agricultural attaches...
...food and fiber overseas, they are also promoting foreign dependencies on our agriculture—dependencies that may one day haunt us politically and economically, to say nothing of what they may do to the importing nations...
...There is breathless anticipation as American business watches world demand for food and fiber go off the charts...
...Since 1970, the volume of our farm products moving to foreign markets has increased by 150 per cent, and their dollar value has ballooned by more than 500 per cent...
...Without question, however, Agriculture Secretary Block is the Administration's most vociferous booster of agricultural trade expansion...
...In twenty years or less, a farm landscape populated only with empty silos may remain as a vestige of a fatter past...
...The export volume of U.S...
...Bankers, lawyers, feed manufacturers, traders, transportation interests, farmer cooperatives, maritime lobbies—for all of them, a few strategically-placed friends in Congress can often make the difference on needed legislation, amendments, or budget items...
...transportation system...
...Overseas, the United States could "sell" new products or, more constructively, "new crop" technical assistance to help develop locally adapted agricultural systems so that dependence on the United States could be reduced or eliminated...
...Yet we can carry on agricultural trade in ways less devastating to our resource base and less damaging to our own agricultural system and those of foreign countries...
...Boschwitz tells agribusiness audiences regularly that he wants to be their Senate spokesman for exports...
...Monsanto will sell more agricultural chemicals, Wells Fargo will write more loans, Pillsbury will mill more flour, Burlington Northern will haul more grain...
...Farm exporters perceive, perhaps correctly, that their political base is so broad that they do not have to concern themselves with biological diversity or the objections of consumers, environmentalists, human rights advocates, or even family farmers...
...Farmers in every region of the country are specializing in one or two crops and, in some areas, enlarging their operations with an eye toward the export market...
...Small- to medium-sized farmers who have specialized in one agricultural commodity, and who rely on the export market for a rising price, could be the most vulnerable to unforeseen changes in the world market...
...There are also suggestions that the farm economy will collapse if the export plug is pulled, or tampered with at all...
...farm exports will inevitably invite a confrontation with a wide range of American interest groups...
...Unless we take the incentive to build a strong world market, we won't be able to survive, other than at the continued grace of the Federal Government...
...if only a few dozen of these were injected into our agriculture on a commercial basis, they could create an economic ripple effect felt around the world...
...Lurking in the mind of every farm exporter is the vision of unlimited U.S...
...Penn pointed to the "great instability in commodity markets" in the 1980s as a response to both lower U.S...
...They will, as a consequence, command a greater share of export and domestic markets...
...U.S...
...farm products...
...The stated purpose of the acquisition of the nation's largest beef packer by the nation's thirteenth-largest energy company was, according to The Wall Street Journal, a "long term plan to position itself for what it sees as a significant food shortage in the next decade...
...farm commodities to port will mean increased dredging of waterways and harbors, larger port areas, more dockside storage facilities, bigger trucks, and more train traffic...
...farmers and resources may turn out to be both ugly and uneconomic...
...Government policies and political habits which push and subsidize agricultural exports may very well make agribusiness more dependent on the Government rather than less...
...Large international trading companies such as Cargill want the Federal Government to be a hard-nosed negotiator when going to the table with the Japanese and Europeans...
...Some developing countries will have a 1985 grain deficit double that of just ten years earlier...
...Working with a $500,000 war chest and the backing of a virtual Who's Who of corporate America, the Washington-based Agriculture Council of America (ACA) is pushing the national campaign with the theme, "American Agriculture: We Can Turn The Tide," Hollywood actor Charlton Heston has been recruited by the Council to "sell" the farm export story through a series of "public service" television spots and a twenty-minute "documentary" film to be shown in schools and to Kiwanis Clubs and Chambers of Commerce across the country...
...technology and military strength were in earlier decades...
...They" are big business, and together with the Reagan Administration, they have Jack Doyle is with the Environmental Policy Center in Washington, D.C., a public interest organization specializing in energy and natural resource policy...
...State Department, and the First National Bank of Chicago for news of their trade...
...More U.S...
...Such strategies, however, must begin with agricultural research devoted to the diversification of U.S...
...Lebeck and others in his corner point out that American consumers pay the lowest share of income on food of consumers anywhere in the world, currently about 16 per cent...
...The "mid-range projection" of the National Agricultural Land Study shows that "the volume of export demand could nearly triple over the next two decades...
...placed a $2.3 billion floor on the export credit guarantee program, and extended the "food for peace" credit programs to 1985...
...Out on the stump for the Reagan Administration, Secretary of Agriculture John Block and his assistant secretaries tell audiences that farm exports "are good for all Americans...
...farm goods...
...The talk is of "massive bankruptcies and default in the highly capitalized sector of agricultural production...
...They see themselves operating on a plane of high diplomacy, as international negotiators whose commodities are the currency of peace...
...In the Pacific Northwest, as much as 90 per cent of all wheat grown is exported to the Far East and other foreign markets...
...But now, America is fast approaching a time when crop surpluses may become as anachronistic as the horse-drawn plow...
...embassies abroad, and in the mix of public and private trade teams that travel overseas regularly to promote farm exports...
...Even the influential Farm Journal editorialized cautiously last March about the expected boom in exports: "The world is becoming so dependent upon our food that a really short U.S...
...He is also on the Senate Budget Committee...
...Further rapid and significant growth in export volume need not, but clearly could, impose unbearable social costs on the American public, costs and sacrifices which would not be tolerated for long...
...Up to 100 million additional acres of U.S...
...farmers that domestic processors, canners, and marketers have obtained over the years, thus increasing the use of contracts and enhancing the position and role of food corporations in farm production...
...These farms, regardless of their size today, will become very large in order to satisfy large-volume export orders...
...farm exports...
...Soviet bloc countries will also be trying to put more meat on the table for their populations...
...And Frances Moore Lappe deflated the "wheat for oil," balance-of-payments export argument by showing that "the hidden energy costs" associated with producing farm exports account for about 25 per cent of their market value...
...With increasing exports, Penn said, all this might lead to "politically sensitive" short supplies at home...
...and environmental degradation from too much production with too little conservation...
...Quite frankly, I believe it already has...
...Moreover, the armada of corporate shippers, processors, and handlers who are building their businesses around farm exports may become the Chryslers of tomorrow when U.S...
...Without farm exports, some in agribusiness say, the taxpayer would have to prop up farmers, pay for expensive storage and setaside programs, and generally increase Federal outlays to shore up farm income...
...agricultural land may be needed to satisfy export markets by the year 2000, more if crop yields decline...
...On the existing farmland base, there is, and will continue to be, more double-cropping, more fertilizers and herbicides used, and generally more demands placed on the soil ecosystem...
...In fact, some analysts believe that the rise of the commodity group as a political force, and the decline of general farm organizations such as the National Farmers Union, the Grange, and the National Farmers Organization, have coincided with the increase in farm exports and farm specialization...
...Last June, appearing before a conference of U.S...
...The House was equally generous...
...Market development" is the polite parlance of the farm exporter and government official who really mean getting foreigners hooked on U.S...
...It takes no great leap of imagination to understand what will happen to the American resource base with a continually expanding world market for U.S...
...Governor Robert Ray of Iowa, however, has proposed a tax on exports to pay for soil erosion countermeasures...
...The export trade will increasingly demand the same volume, timing, and product specificity from U.S...
...a California official of the Raisin Administrative Committee in Fresno...
...What they are selling is American food and fiber, and the idea that a lot more of it—from soybeans to cotton to livestock—should be aggressively marketed abroad...
...unstable—even volatile— prices and supply for certain products...
...Meanwhile, back at home, Occidental sells fertilizer and pesticides to farmers, and regards the ranchers who sell their cattle to Iowa Beef as potential new chemical customers...
...Politicians know a good issue when they see one, and farm exports—at least superficially—appeal to a wide range of interests...
...They want everything from expanded U.S...
...There are thousands of plant species that have potential value for food and fiber production...
...A good bit of this land will be prone to soil erosion...
...We don't really have any other direction to go...
...He believes that food will be America's "trump card" in the 1980s and 1990s, much as U.S...
...Warren Lebeck, former president of the Chicago Board of Trade, argued in Congressional testimony last year that over the long run, farm exports "keep food prices down, at, or below the rate of general inflation and below increases in personal income...
...soybeans, corn, hops, and tobacco go into the export stream...
...His articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and The Des Moines Register...
...More plainly, Occidental is looking to sell boxed beef to a hungry world...
...Despite the promises of a bottomless horn of plenty for feeding the world, our agricultural resource base is shrinking before the bulldozer, the farmer's own plow, and the inexorable rise in the number of hungry mouths in the Third World...
...agricultural products any way they can...
...exports, yielding a handsome $28 billion agricultural trade surplus...
...For these and other favors, farm exporters are depending on a helpful White House and a business-oriented Congress...
...commodity and trade organization with an interest in agriculture is pushing for more overseas promotion and market development...
...Over time, agricultural exports may change the entire landscape of American agriculture...
...Block has described himself as an "evangelist" on behalf of increasing farm exports, and often urges others to go out and tell "the farm export story...
...Even David Stockman's Office of Management and Budget cleared an additional $300 million in 1981 and $500 million in 1982 for the Commodity Credit Corporation's Export Credit Guarantee Program, and agricultural research spending has also been increased...
...The Government, through USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) "cooperators program," contributed about $20 million to farm export promotion in 1980...
...Entirely new agricultural economies, jobs, and, most important, biological diversity could be brought into the American food and farm system with a mix of new crop species...
...Last year, farm exports came to $45 billion, a full 20 per cent of all U.S...
...Today, we no longer have "farmers," but highly specialized "wheat producers" and "corn growers...
...Producers in Illinois and Mississippi and many other states are capitalized to produce for exports...
...What the Reagan Administration cannot or will not do to increase farm exports, Congress will...
...Farm exporters are bullish on world population growth and rising per capita incomes...
...But for many of these business interests, world demand alone is not enough...
...Jack Felgenhauer, former president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, spoke to a Washington conference of farm exporters last year about "going into a country like Japan" to promote the use of wheat...
...In Europe, fruit exports have increased—thanks to cooperator efforts to get the Swedes to drink Florida citrus juice, the British to eat U.S...
...Boschwitz chairs three Senate subcommittees that can be used to expand and promote agricultural trade policies...
...Farms near the export transportation system—close to port, near navigable rivers, on major rail lines—will be those most likely to expand, or the ones likely to attract outside investment for export production...
...Farm exporters want to reduce all uncertainties—natural, political, and economic—that may undermine their market position abroad or control expansion at home...
...rice, cattle hides, and cotton...
...provided for "standby export subsidies" to help U.S...
...and 40 to 50 per cent of U.S...
...soybeans...
...agricultural attaches in Washington, he cautioned his audience about the potential impacts of moving too fast: "How soon might the growth in overall demand for U.S...
...Soon there will be no room to spare in the American heartland, no matter how much money is thrown at traditional agricultural research...
...However, to the exporter's eye, food production levels are not necessarily set by the physical boundaries of the resource base...
...Secretary Block hinted at this "capitalized-for-export" farm sector while addressing a group of Mississippi producers on the need to expand export markets: "Let's face it...
...Although the farm export juggernaut appears to be rolling with irresistible political and economic momentum, there are a few groups, and a few politicians, who are raising good questions about the immediate and long-term impacts of U. S. agricultural export expansion...
...Today, more than 100 million acres of U.S...
...oranges could be sold abroad, for example, if ports had dockside refrigeration capacity, or if the Soviet Union had storage facilities on its east coast...
...You really have to show those people how to eat wheat," he said...
...We have the equipment, the technology and the ability to produce...
...Ironically, export agriculture may be contributing the most to the creation of a highly specialized, highly debt-leveraged American food base...
...Railroads, bankers, feed manufacturers, flour millers, farmer cooperatives, maritime interests, chemical companies, and land grant universities all see increased business opportunities flowing from more farm exports...
...A world surplus of soybeans, in turn, would put all U.S...
...They want Washington to lower foreign trade barriers and prevent new ones from cropping up...
...Some farm exporters understand that the country's resource base is limited...
...Among those questioning the conventional wisdom on export promotion and expansion were the National Farmers Organization (NFO...
...They are blinded by the vision of profits, expansion, and the contest of winning new markets...
...Historically, both Republicans and Democrats have eagerly supported and subsidized agricultural exports to relieve the more expensive problems of crop surpluses, falling farmer income, and crop storage...
...They are equally comfortable instructing a U.S...
...set aside" in soil bank and other programs in 1967 were back in full production by 1977— and most of the raiding took place between 1972 and 1974, when the world grain situation changed dramatically...
...You have to change their eating habits...
...Last year, Block sold the Reagan Administration's low-cost farm bill—and the farmers' future incomes—on the promise of a booming export market overseas...
...USDA's brochure, "Partners in Trade Promotion," offers some examples of "cooperator" success stories: "Feeding demonstrations by the American Soybean Association convinced West German officials to change poultry ration ingredients, which improved the market access for U.S...
...We are becoming so dependent on export markets that abundant crops elsewhere can result in huge surpluses, low prices—even farm bankruptcies—here...
...They want more U.S...
...soybeans could drop dramatically if Europe and Japan decided to restrict soybean imports...
...And despite the trouble in Poland and the possibility of another Russian grain embargo, U.S...
...And outside of Congress, the clamor continues for new ways to expand markets...
...Block is generally supported by agribusiness in opposing food embargo hard-liners such as U.S...
...Trade associations and commodity groups, under FAS agreement, do the actual on-the-ground promotion and development...
...In addition to the farm bill export provisions, at least ten other bills and several proposed resolutions floating around Congress would improve the lot of farm exporters...
...crop could result in untold complaints, recrimination—even suffering—abroad...
...So, farm exporters' are not only promoting the sale of U.S...
...No doubt, the American agricultural establishment would fight such a move, but given our present limited crop base and the vulnerabilities rapidly developing, we may be wise to invest in such a future...
...They typically regard embargoes and import quotas alike with disdain...
...Rising per capita incomes in the developed nations will mean more meat, and this means rising demand for feed grains and soybeans...
...Structural" changes in the U.S...
...Since becoming Secretary of Agriculture, Block has made countless trips out of the country, promoting U.S...
...Some increases in the Department of Agriculture budget have gone for the promotion of agricultural exports, or to sustain their production...
...agriculture and its crop base, essentially revolutionizing and rejuvenating the entrenched agribusinesses that have grown up around corn, wheat, and soybeans...
...Foreign water supply is a problem too, since U.S...
...Already American wetlands are being drained, timberlands cleared, and shelter belts torn out to gain more crop land...
...Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are tripping over one another to bring favors to farm exporters...
...In three-piece suits and studied demeanor, they move confidently among their colleagues from the Continental Grain Company, the U.S...
...blueberries...
...They are buoyed by relatively low growth rates in populous countries such as India, where a 2 per cent growth in population will add seventy million people in five years—the population equivalent of one Mexico...
...Penn, a former top USDA economist in the Carter Administration...
...After a while, their taste buds change...
...With help from Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Agricultural Committee, and Senators Edward Zor-insky of Nebraska, Robert Dole of Kansas, Roger Jepsen of Iowa, and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, he saw to it that the farm bill was filled with provisions helpful to export expansion...
...For example, the fifty-five million acres of agricultural land in the U.S...
...Farms in the North Central states, for example, are growing more corn and soybeans for export, and raising less and less livestock...
...Farm exporters fear the wrath of front-page headlines connecting rising food costs to increasing foreign demand for U.S...
...What other issue can simultaneously touch on the needs of farmers and the makers of foreign policy, on economic recovery and humanitarian aid, hit back at OPEC, and satisfy some of the nation's largest agribusiness corporations...
...On occasion they can even be found arguing— but not too loudly—for soil conservation and farmland protection...
...Further, because of the business potential in the ever-growing world food market, non-farm corporations will be drawn into agriculture and agricultural trade...
...But the long-term consequences of promoting foreign dependence on U.S...
...Moving more U.S...
...The recent merger of Occidental Petroleum and Iowa Beef is a good example...
...At the moment, however, agricultural exports are mom, apple pie, and the American flag...
...agricultural system made for the sake of efficiency and a better-served export trade will lead to fewer and bigger farms— and generally to more economic concentration throughout agribusiness...
...Already, one out of every three farm acres is cultivated to supply the export market...
...They are condescending when it comes to the short-sightedness of governments "meddling" in the free world marketplace of agricultural trade...
...In 1980, the Federal government, private commodity organizations, and trade associations together spent about $65 million on "market development" activities in foreign countries...
...farmland base is going to be under increasing pressure in the years ahead...
...grain reserves and wide potential swings between worldwide abundance and scarcity...
...Last June and July, Representative Brown held a series of Congressional hearings on the impacts of the agricultural export boom...
...traders and the Government are prepared to go into virtually any country to expand American agricultural markets...
...In Japan . . . demonstrations, marketing trips, and educational programs have helped build a Japanese poultry industry which depends primarily on U.S...
...But if Congress, the Reagan Administration, and farm export promoters are too successful in setting in motion a growing worldwide appetite for our farm goods— and an increasing dependency on U.S...
...Rather, exporters look to science and agricultural research and development to transcend the resource base, and to provide an endless cornucopia of farm products for the export stream through farm chemicals, plant breeding, and genetic engineering...
...Frances Moore Lappe, author of Food First and director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy...
...Other agribusiness interests and I farm export consultants such as ! Julian Heron with the Washing-i ton law firm of Pope, Ballard, and Loos (now Holland and Knight) believe that "market development" means improving the "importing nation's infrastructure"—from railroads to water systems...
...Before joining the Cabinet, Block had an impressive record as a promoter of Illinois agriculture abroad, expanding the state's promotion offices in Hong Kong and Brussels...
...Occidental officials said they hoped to use the oil company's worldwide distribution network to open up export markets for its newly acquired subsidiary...
...Consider, for example, the position of Senator Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota, a state where such corporations as Cargill, Pillsbury, Peavy, and Burlington Northern wheel and deal in the agricultural trade...
...These costs would fall into four general categories: rising real consumer food prices...
...farmers and farmland—the nation could soon find itself facing an extremely uncomfortable future of declining resources, rising prices, and a new generation of "ugly Americanism" abroad...
...Block has won a few budget skirmishes within the Administration in favor of export expansion...
...Senator on the pitfalls of grain embargoes or arguing with a French diplomat on the drawbacks of food import levies...
...agricultural products place significant pressure on this nation's natural resource base...
...Agribusiness interests also argue that farm exports help keep America's agricultural plant operating at its full and most efficient capacity, again benefiting consumers...
...farmland are planted solely for the export market, and as much as 70 per cent of U.S...
...More frozen orange juice might be pushed in foreign countries if more kitchen refrigerators were available to consumers in those countries...
...Farms, farmer cooperatives, and smaller farm businesses will enlarge and take advantage of the economies of scale that will both make them attractive to export traders and enable them to compete with larger corporate traders...
...Felgenhauer explained that the Japanese once used American wheat to make their traditional noodles, but eventually "they learned that a piece of bread was even better...
...begun to mount a nationwide public relations campaign to persuade Congress and the American people that "maximum expansion" of farm exports is a good idea...
...officials and trade groups are also constantly musing about ways to capture the one-billion-person Chinese market: "If only those Chinese would learn how good a piece of ham is between two slices of bread" (a former Carter Administration official at USDA), or, "Just think, if each Chinaman ate only one raisin a day...
...The result will be fewer, but politically more powerful, large export farms...
...Block takes some credit for lifting of the Soviet grain embargo and has assured agribusiness interests that the Reagan Administration does not intend to embargo agricultural products, except in extreme situations, and then only with the cooperation of America's allies...
...They want to remove "regulatory impediments" from agricultural research, grain inspection, and the dredging of ports and harbors at home...
...Incredibly, the United States has captured 60 per cent of the world grain trade...
...In some respects the nation is already moving toward two kinds of farms— "export farms" and farms that serve predominantly national and local markets...
...Much of this land will not be easily brought into production...
...In one sense, farm exporters see themselves as America's patriot business executives, standing up to OPEC with "food power," bringing home national pride on the shoulders of farm export income...
...and J.B...
...But farm exporters see none of this...
...And they are big business, too...
...Now at Dust Bowl-era levels, soil erosion is on the rise—some believe because of the exports push, especially market pressure to grow feed grains and soybeans...
...The final 1981 farm bill created a special revolving fund for export credit...
...Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri noted recently that his state, the nation's third-leading exporter of soybeans, is losing the "productive equivalent of nearly $1 billion each year to erosion...
...Farm exporters talk about 'market development.9 What they really mean is getting foreigners hooked on American food and fiber any way they can Yet, an all-out push for more U.S...
...Our grain exports have increased by more than 100 million tons since 1950...
...technology, feed grains, and soybeans for support...
...farm goods...
...Much of it will require expensive preparation and costly operating equipment, such as center-pivot irrigation systems...
...Some projections see American farm exports doubling or tripling by the year 2000...
...Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Senator Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican...
...Virtually every U.S...
...Bert Henningson, testifying for the NFO, noted, "Expansion in agricultural exports has been a double-edged sword [for farmers] because the wider foreign markets were acquired at the expense of a domestic farm program...
...credit for their foreign customers, worldwide monetary stabilization, and fewer bottlenecks in the U.S...
...Demand for our wheat and rice in the developing world and China will be increasing...
...Even though the United States is said to have some 134 million acres of "potential cropland," that reserve could quickly be eaten up...
...Clearly, even without the Russians in the picture, the U.S...
...Reagan Administration advocates of expanded agricultural trade are scattered throughout the Departments of State, Commerce, and Agriculture, in most U.S...
...fruit juice formulas do not mix properly with bad water...
...The members of this agribusiness-sponsored caucus cover the entire political spectrum—from far-right Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, to Representative Morris Udall, the liberal Democrat from Arizona—and, according to AC A, have indicated they will help promote policies to expand U.S...
...credit and construction assistance to build the necessary facilities in foreign countries to ensure continued strong demand for American farm bounty...
...cranberries, and all European countries to use U.S...
...traders "counter unfair trading practices abroad...
...And China could use more soybean feed if its North-South rail connections were better...
...During Senate consideration of the farm bill last year, Boschwitz did go to bat for the exporters...
...Representative George Brown of California, for one, as chairman of the House Agriculture subcommittee that deals with foreign agricultural policy, is in a position to make a difference...
...More farm exports, they say, will create jobs, strengthen the dollar, and reduce inflation...
...agriculture runs short of land or suffers a devastating dry spell...
...One measure of the popularity of farm exports in Congress is a bipartisan list of thirty Senators and seventy-one Representatives who form ACA's "Congressional Farm Export Project...
...soybean farmers in a difficult cash flow position and subject smaller producers to takeovers by larger farmers...
...wheat and almond production...
...resource base pressures...
Vol. 46 • March 1982 • No. 3
