WHY DOES GOVERNMENT “INTERFERE” WITH THE FARMER’S BUSINESS?

From the FFVA Annual Digest, 1948

However, few farmers seem to understand why government has been steadily assuming more authority over their actions as farmers; why it has place various controls on their prices, their acreage, their methods of grading, selling and the like.

We are going to let you in on a secret, and tell you the reasons why the government has “interfered” with growers’ and shippers’ operations to an alarming degree, and why this gradual eating away of the control of the farmer over his own business will continue in future years, unless something is done about it.

Most of the laws and regulations affecting him that appear on the state and federal law books were put there because (1) the farmer requested it; (2) those who market the farmers products requested it; or (3) the public demanded it for protection from either (of both) the farmer and his marketer.

The principal cause of such legislation is the farmer himself. Grade standard and inspection laws were requested by the honest grower and shipper for protection against those who imposed poor and misbranded products onto the consumer, and were supported by the public for the same reason.

Acreage and production controls were asked for by farmers because the volume produced was greater than the market could absorb at a profit to the producer; such controls are periodically voted on, and almost always receive strong majorities.

Price supports, and the restrictive regulations that accompany then, were asked for by farmers. Or rather, they asked for the price supports, and had to take the restrictions.

The list of instances in which Uncle Sam has passed laws, (or federal agencies have adopted regulations) that complicated the farmer’s operations, forcing him to change his methods, keep a lot of records, comply with various restrictions, and pay the expense of enforcing these laws, would cover many pages, but the principle would remain the same.

What is the process of getting government to “interfere” with the farmer?

First, you discover that X commodity can be grown successfully in Y state. The first plantings return the grower a handsome profit because he has a virtual monopoly – the demand far exceeds  the supply. Other farmers see his prosperity, and plant the same crop at the same time. The market is over-supplied, prices go down, and farmers lose money.

The farmers hold a few meetings, grumble about “the other fellow” and what he is doing and won’t do, solemnly agree to restrict their plantings, or their volume of shipments, or to market only certain grades. Only a few abide by the agreement, production goes up, price goes down, farmers go broke – including those who first violated the agreement.

Groping desperately for some way to cure the situation, some of the farmers either bombard their Congressmen with requests to “do something” or decide to get government to enact a law that will force the minority to abide by the decisions of the majority, such as the Marketing Agreements Act. Congressmen, being ever anxious to comply with the wishes of their constituents, write a law that gives a federal bureaucratic agency the power to enforce the law and its interpretations thereof.

Unfortunately, the farmers who asked for this law, in the hope that it would be a cure-all for their problems, did not seem to realize that laws regulating any form of business activity must spell out in detail just what authority is vested in the regulatory agency, so that it can be prohibited from interfering further. This means that the law is framed around an “average” farm operation – or possibly the farm of one of the sponsors of the law – and probably doesn’t exactly fit conditions in the other 99 percent of farms regulated.

Not only that, but the bureaucratic agency, anxious to stay within the limits of the law to avoid criticism, endeavors to formulate regulations that will apply the law equally to all. (We must admit there are a few bureaucrats who have tried to expand their authority rather than restrict it). These regulations must fit 48 states, 500 different types of soil, climatic and other conditions, and maybe 100,000 farms. They must be so “equitibale” that the Department attorneys will approve them, and the courts will back the agency if the law is attacked – which it usually is.

The net result of all this mumbo-jumbo is that law and regulations, as they finally reach the farmer’s actual operation, are no more what the sponsors of the law expected than Wallace is like Dewey.  What happens?

Everyone – including the sponsors – accuses the governmental agency of partiality, assumption of unwarranted authority, interference, retarding “normal” business, and a hundred other civil crimes. That is, government is severely criticized for trying to do, within the limitations imposed on it by law, the very things the farmers – or a majority of them – had originally asked for.

A late member of the Florida Legislature once remarked to the writer (and it wasn’t original with him): “The best way for a legislator to get re-elected is to vote for all appropriations and against all taxes.” At a hearing of the House  Committee on Agriculture last year, the writer heard dozens of farmers and farm leaders tell the Committee that they were highly in favor of price supports, but did not think the government should restrict the acreage or production of the farmer. That is, they wanted a blank check, signed by Uncle Sam.

How can the farmer keep the government from “interfering” with his business? By simply running his own affairs in a sensible, business-like manner, cooperating with others when necessary for the benefit of all affected. This is not as easy as it sounds, of course,, for there are still too many growers and shippers who think that they can “ride out the storm” while the other fellow goes broke, leaving the market to them. This has been demonstrated to be fallacy many times, but the fiction sill deludes many into thinking they are smarter than the other fellow, and can out-last him in a cut-throat fight.

Unity of effort, based on a careful impartial analysis of the problem, and probably methods of coping with it, is the only avenue through which the farmer can expect to travel toward prosperity in the highly-competitive years ahead.

Consumers are demanding better products all the time, better packaged, better protected from loss of quality, better displayed, and they want all this at lower cost. One might say that this is impossible, but anyone who looks into the economic history of this nation, and of its capitalistic system, will find that every industry and every product 9except a few with tight monopolies) goes through this process constantly – better products, better promoted, and relatively lower prices, barring the inflation years.

If the national income was to drop 10 percent to 20 percent from its present peak level, every person concerned with the handling of fresh vegetables from growing to retailing could lose money constantly an steadily, if there is no united effort to modernize the manner of marketing.

No one can accurately say how far the Congress will go in further “interference” in the farmer’s business. The ever-present threat of active or “cold” warfare with Russia may suddenly become a fact, and cause Congress to enact new price control laws, and other legislation restricting the producer and shipper. Unless the industry is fully prepared to fight for its rights through FFVA it may expect to again feel Uncle Sam’s hand on its shoulder and in its pocket.