THE DOORWAY TO PLENTY IS OPEN
Hudgens, R. W.
The Doorway To Plenty Is Open By R. W. HUDGENS MUCH thought is being given these days to a postwar America which will provide 60,000,000 jobs. This would be an era of abundance, with all of us...
...Large groups of our population cannot be left without adequate purchasing power, except at the expense of general well-being...
...This would be an era of abundance, with all of us producing at a high rate and buying at a high rate...
...Lip-service in favor of the family farm is almost a custom in this country...
...A recent study by the Department of Agriculture shows that about $200 a year must be spent on food for each member of the city family, to provide an adequate diet...
...Many inefficient small farmers are trying to operate farms that are inadequate in size or productivity...
...Unless the farmer or members of his family can find some employment off the farm, they can not hope to live as Americans should and can live...
...namely, protect the family farm...
...No action wide enough in scope to reverse, or even to stop, the downward, slide of family-type farming has yet been taken...
...It is with the under-sized or under-productive units in the remaining 4 million farms that we have our major farm problem...
...But to have this, we will need to first create conditions more favorable to family-farming than now exist...
...These and other steps are being taken, but they are not sufficient to give the family-farm the break it needs to survive and be a potent force for general prosperity...
...We can encourage education with better schools, and we can provide even more on-the-farm teaching and help in planning for small farmers...
...We can further open up the opportunity of land-owning to family-type farmers by making provision for the purchase and subdivision into family-sized farms of large-scale farms that come onto the market...
...But unlike the weather, we can do something about our family farms...
...Even including non-farm income, half the farm families in 1942 had net incomes of less than $1,000, according to a survey made by the Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics of the Department of Agriculture...
...There is inconsistency, however, in what we say about the family-farm and what we do to make a family-farm economy possible...
...Farm manpower, efficiency, and potential purchasing power for the products of industry are being wasted...
...Our pioneer forefathers settled on independent one-family farms...
...Out on the farms there is much the same kind of income-distribution problem...
...But that doesn't mean it is necessary that small farms be operated inefficiently...
...For agriculture, we must take all possible steps to make family-type farming a sound and profitable undertaking, for the security of the small farmer is necessary if the nation is to be secure...
...we can help them to obtain better housing, medical care, and sanitation facilities...
...The conditions still exist which have allowed millions of family-type farmers to lose their place in our economy, and which have permitted millions of farm families to become virtual non-contributors to the general good...
...We can establish adequate farm labor wages and housing standards on the large-scale farms...
...We can bring rural electrification to small farms, so they can enjoy more of the electrically-powered equipment which aids efficient production and better living...
...We can, if we will, effect a gradual revival of the family-farm economy and in the meanwhile we can bolster the family farms as they presently exist...
...It is true that many of our small farms are being operated inefficiently now...
...But there is evidence aplenty to indicate that the family farm can be made to compete with large-scale operation...
...Over several generations, with accumulating poverty, they have not been able to take advantage of the facilities that existed for either a formal education or even for acquiring sound practical knowledge of farming...
...If we want a family-farm economy, all we need do is effectuate the policy we've talked about all these years...
...In this group are the farms whose owners have prospered most...
...Most of these are one-family farms, but they are incapable of supporting a family at a decent standard of living...
...The 1940 Census showed that 47 per cent of our farms yielded less than $600 worth of products in 1939...
...But the social benefits available in the second type of community must be protected unless farming as a way of life is to disappear...
...Sliding Down The Scale Yet despite the overwhelmingly favorable sentiment for the family type of farming, we have allowed our millions of family farms to slide farther and farther down the economic scale...
...Perhaps for the first time in history, thanks to modern technology, we have the facilities to produce enough of everything to go around...
...Let us say, "We will help as many farm families to remain on farms as can make a decent living there...
...A recent study made in the central valley of California by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics illustrates the vitality that the independent family-type farm can bring to our country...
...A postwar economy of the type visualized is not capable of long succeeding with so great a proportion of our rural families unable to contribute more heavily to its success...
...A Time For Action We can make operating credit available to small farmers at fair rates of interest and on terms that are suited to their ability to repay, to enable them to stock and equip their farms, and operate them as efficiently as possible...
...In other words, millions of workers and members of their families are not able financially to be the customers they ought to be for food...
...But a great many of the smaller farmers are unskilled in approved farming practices...
...To spend this amount for food for a family of 4, the wage earner would need an annual income of about $2,400...
...It has more than twice as many stores with a much greater volume of business, about twice as many civic clubs and twice as many churches, and a generally fuller and more stable community life...
...Some of these 2 million farms are large-scale commercial-type farms employing farm workers for wages...
...The war has shown us that we can produce most abundantly...
...The Government actually is pointing in this direction now...
...Therein lies firm earth into which an economy supporting 60,000,000 jobs can sink its roots deep...
...We can make credit available so that farm families will be able to purchase farms that come on the market...
...We can foster the development of light-weight farm machinery that will give the family-type farmer the same benefits of mechanization that are enjoyed by the large-scale farmer...
...The Bankhead-Jones Tenant Purchase Program, permitting Government loans to limited numbers of credit-less farm tenants to buy farms of their own, is another step in this direction...
...We can produce in this country sufficient food and fiber for our needs under either plan, or under a combination of both...
...Until city income is distributed downward to these millions of workers and their families who need it most, the farmer will not have this vast market for his products...
...The study compared 2 towns in farming districts, one a center of small farms and the other of large-scale farms...
...If we are to make all these jobs possible, and make our prosperity lasting, every segment of our people must have an adequate income so they can purchase the products and the services which will flow so abundantly in such a robust economy...
...If doing this meant less efficiency in producing farm products, the decision to support the traditional family-farm system might be difficult...
...Actually, the small-farm problem boils down to two objectives: 1. Proper distribution of land...
...It is time that all Americans realized the inescapable fact that we prosper, or we fail, together...
...and we can make available to him the credit to buy such machinery...
...The Farm Security Administration has shown how it is possible, with proper credit, guidance, and aid in planning, for small farms that are economic units to reach a high degree of efficiency...
...Special efforts must be made to help owners of too-small farms obtain additional land to bring their resources up to the level of a sound unit...
...It shows that a system of large-scale, factory-type farms does not provide the maximum well-being for a rural community...
...For example, figures on wartime weekly wages of industrial workers compiled by the U. S. Department of Labor show that only about half of industrial wage earners, even in these times, have an income sufficient to allow the expenditures necessary to provide their families with the quantity and quality of food they require...
...Heretofore the larger landholders and investors from the cities have been the ones who were most able financially to purchase good farms that were for sale...
...So we are challenged to find a way to distribute our national income for the general good of the entire nation...
...Out of this the farm operating costs had to be met as well as family living expenses...
...But even more important, income, or purchasing power, must be spread more evenly through our farm population, and through our city population, so that all our people will be able to contribute toward continued prosperity...
...These conditions can be changed...
...The doorway to plenty has been opened ; now it is up to us to devise within our present framework the means of distributing among us the plenty that we can produce: Our great goal must be to maintain full production, full employment, adequate wages, and adequate farm income...
...We will need to unite for success in our postwar struggle on the economic front, just as we have united to wage a successful global war...
...Of the 6 million farms classified by the U. S. Census, only about 2 million are large though to enable the farmer to produce efficiently and earn an adequate income...
...It is the kind of farm we Americans just naturally picture in our minds when we mention farming...
...There is no chance of continued prosperity for anyone if we fail to make prosperity available to everyone...
...and by providing the credit small farmers would need to purchase the units...
...We can have in America a predominance of efficient, sound, and prosperous family-sized farms capable of competing with their larger-sized competitors...
...And the family-type farmers themselves can do much to obtain these things by joining and supporting national farm organizations which will represent their interests...
...We can improve our land tenure system so that non-landowning families can have a better living and the security which is necessary for proper care of the soil and general agricultural efficiency and stability...
...The American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Farmers Union, church and consumer organizations, and many other groups have passed resolutions supporting this pattern of farming...
...There has been legislative support for the family farm—preferential distribution of benefit payments, and easier credit for tenants to purchase farms...
...including what the family used itself...
...A high national income would not mean prosperity i f there were many families on the farms and in the cities, who were not productively working and obtaining an adequate share of that income...
...In the large-scale farming community four-fifths of the people worked for wages, while only half were wage workers in the.small-farm community...
...Basic Inconsistency On the farm front, then, it would seem that we need to do something about the family-type farm, to enable these millions of farm families to obtain an adequate share of farm income...
...It is the kind of farm the painters paint...
...An Income Of $2,400 Industry and labor have not yet achieved a fair distribution of income among workers...
...Furthermore, redistribution of publicly-owned land should be administered to increase the number of sound economic family farms...
...Government-owned holdings, bought for military sites and other purposes, are being sold, subject to certain former-owner preferences, insofar as possible in family-type farming units rather than in large tracts...
...and then 2. Protection for those who get the land, so the distribution can be maintained...
...We can peg land prices and prevent land speculation, which discourages small-farmer land purchases and throws many families off the land...
...The small-farm community has 2 banks, the other community none...
...There is little hope for success on such a farm, even when the operator is given adequate credit and guidance...
...We can make it easier for family farmers to organize and finance cooperatives so they can buy and use heavy machinery as a group that they could not afford to own and use individually, and so they can enjoy the benefits of buying and selling in large quantities on an equal basis with the large-scale farms...
...Few people can be found who will admit they are opposed to a dominant family-type farm economy...
...Reclamation projects in the West create family-sized irrigated farms, and prevent large-scale landholdings by one individual in the irrigated areas...
...Our family-type farm problem is like the weather— everybody talks about it but never does anything about it...
...Both political parties were pledged to favoring the family-farm during the last election campaign...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 14
