Ralph Nader--Open Letter to US Farmers on the Crisis in Agriculture

Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 22:47:01 -0700
From: "Albert V. Krebs" <avkrebs@earthlink.net>

A RALPH NADER LETTER TO FAMILY FARMERS ---
PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY

Dear Friends,

No one sector of our economic system has felt the disastrous affects of
corporate concentration, power and control more than our nation's family
farmers.

Family farmers have been at the mercy of an ever-growing corporate
behemoth, from the devastating financial debt crisis of the 1980s to the
ruinous Freedom to Farm legislation of the 1990s- legislation enacted and
signed by a Republicrat Congress and a Republicrat President.

Big corporations and their billionaire owners and executives have not only
taken daily control of our agriculture and food system, but also our work,
pay, housing, health, pension funds, bank and saving deposits, public
lands, airwaves, elections and our very government.

Rather than challenge this rule by Big Business and Big Government, our
political leadership and our two major political parties have surrendered
themselves to such corporate power.

As a candidate for the presidency in this election year, I believe there is
nothing inevitable about misery or squalor, or the concentration of wealth
and corporate power; nothing is sacrosanct about the status quo, or about
the power structures that safeguard that status quo. As rural citizens
concerned about the survival of family farmers I believe you can make a
difference and I am writing this letter to ask you to join with me in
helping to make that difference.

In this regard, family farmers have a rich tradition. There is nothing to
compare to the farmers' drive in Texas during the late 1880s which signed
up 250,000 farmers and led to the early stage of the 30-year populist
revolt- still the country's most fundamental political and economic reform
movement since the Constitution was ratified. And these farmers did it
largely on foot and with pamphlets.

How, without today's communications and transportation facilities, did the
farmers manage to cover so much ground, create so many lasting
institutions, and elect so many state legislators, governors, members of
Congress, and almost the president of the United States? Because they owned
what they controlled- the land. And they controlled what they owned- the
land. And they aggregated their vote around specific agendas designed to
limit the power of the railroads, banks and absentee "Eastern financial
moguls."

Now we see our two-party system is crumbling. They are hollowed out and
don't have much basic grass-roots support. They're basically two parties
with a lot of money fighting against each other with 30-second electric
combat ads on television. The only way we are going to regain control of
our political institutions is to help build a progressive political
movement that will break up the concentration of wealth and power- this
plutocracy that reigns over our democracy.

Most Americans are not aware today that were it not for off-farm income our
family farmers would closely resemble a farm economy in depression-
impoverished and enslaved to an ever-increasingly large globalized
transnationally-owned and controlled food manufacturing system. USDA
figures for the 1990s show that "average farm operator household earnings"
from farming activities as percent of average household income was an
alarming 11.8%.

Today, farm gate prices of the big five commodities- corn, wheat, soybeans,
cotton, and rice- have collapsed to near record or record all-time
inflation-adjusted lows. The average national market price comparison
between 1996 and 1999 of major farm program crops tells a tragic story.
The average national market price of corn has fallen 30%, soybeans 35%,
wheat 41%, cotton 35%, and rice 40%.

For nearly a century now, the inability of most farmers to receive a
consistently fair and equitable return on their investment has left them
with basically only three options: selling their land and exiting from
agriculture altogether, attempting to borrow money from public and private
lenders in an attempt to remain in farming, or seeking employment off the
farm in an effort to economically survive and hopefully retain their
family's farm.

Their inability, however, to receive a fair and equitable return on their
investment (to say nothing of simply being able to meet their production
expenses) has little to do today with the fact that they are "efficient"
producers, but more to the question of what they are being paid for what
they produce.

In 1984, former Texas Agricultural Commissioner and one of the co-chairs of
our Citizens Committee for Nader/LaDuke chaired a series of eight
nationwide farm policy forums on agriculture. In his final report he
concluded:

"When all was said and done, it came down to one word: price. Other
important issues were discussed at the forums . . . during the past six
months, but the overwhelming consensus among participating farmers was that
the other concerns- overproduction, soil and water conservation, high
interest rates, lack of credit, entry by young farmers, the depressed farm
service industry, and the farm program's high cost, to name a few- could
and would be solved when farmers received a fair price for their products."

Near record harvests, Congressional bailouts, so-called "free trade"- and
don't let anyone ever use that phrase "free trade," it's corporate managed
trade- are not going to solve the basic problems that our nation's family
farmers face today.

I support policies that enable farmers to realize a fair price for what
they produce; open and competitive markets where they can sell their
products; anti-trust laws that prohibit the kind of mergers and
acquisitions that are currently ruining family-farm agriculture and a
Department of Justice that will effectively enforce such existing and new
laws; and a trade policy that is designed to benefit the crop producer, and
not simply become a giant government subsidy for the likes of the Cargills,
the ADMs, the ConAgras, the IBPs, the Tysons, the Chiquitas and the
Smithfields.

It is no coincidence that these same giant corporations are also the same
corporate paymasters that have subverted our two major political parties
with their vast amounts of cash and in turn been the recipients of
government largess. A striking example of such corporate welfare was
recently noted by national farm columnist Alan Guebert.

In the July 27 Federal Register, the USDA proposed to pay ag processors up
to $450 million to make ethanol from America's ever-growing piles of grain.
Under the quietly offered plan, USDA hopes to make quarterly payments to
some 50-plus bio-energy makers over the next three years to make fuel. If
adopted, USDA could end up paying Archer Daniels Midland, the admitted
price-fixer that produces 42% of the nation's ethanol, $189 million. When
Guebert explained that to one farmer-caller recently, the farmer's only
reply was, "So ADM gets back its $100 million price fixing fine with
interest."

As you may know over the years I have spoken out on such family-farm issues
as food safety standards, the misuse and overuse of chemical poisons, the
exploitation of farm workers, the USDA's decades-old discrimination of
black and minority farmers, usury interest rates charged by an increasingly
consolidating banking industry, and excessive and unnecessary subsidies to
giant agribusiness corporations.

In addition, for years I have frequently called for local, state and
federal government assistance in promoting self-help programs to assist
family farm agriculture in building a sound alternative economic base
through community supported agriculture programs, organic farming
practices, the raising of industrial hemp, and the use of solar energy and
other appropriate technologies and sustainable agricultural practices in
addition to opposing the planting of inadequately tested genetically
engineered crops.

I have also voiced repeated opposition to the exploitative policies of the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and have opposed the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization
(WTO), which I feel are subversive of democratic processes and are
push-down, not pull-up, trade agreements.

When it comes to the question of trade, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to
John Jay in 1809, said it well:

"Manufactures, sufficient for our own consumption, of what we raise the raw
material (and no more). Commerce sufficient to carry the surplus produce of
agriculture, beyond our own consumption, to a market for exchanging it for
articles we cannot raise (and no more). These are the true limits of
manufactures and commerce. To go beyond them is to increase our dependence
on foreign nations, and our liability to war. These three important
branches of human industry will then grow together, and be really
handmaidens to each other."

These family farm issues- fair price, open markets, enforcements of
anti-trust law, fair trade policies- are the issues that need to be put
before the American public, not only because they are issues that get to
the heart of the axiom that you cannot have political democracy without
economic democracy, but because they are vital to our every day livelihood-
the availability, quality, quantity, price and safety of the food we eat.

In this Presidential campaign that we are currently engaged in, I believe
that these issues along with the many other economic, social, health, labor
and environmental issues that we face today as a nation should be addressed
and debated by the candidates in open dialogue. We are starting a
broad-based, progressive political movement to end once and for all the
limited choice Americans have between Tweedle Dum Republican and Tweedle
Dee Democrat, both in hock to big corporate interests and money.

Unfortunately, at the present time I am being denied that opportunity to
engage in debating such issues this October, principally by the two major
parties and their corporate patrons. The Federal Election Commission says
only candidates with an average of 15% or more in five leading national
polls will be allowed to participate. That threshold is virtually
unattainable without the national exposure of a televised debate. At the
same time I need only 5% to qualify for federal matching funds. Obviously,
this is an injustice and citizens who care about preserving democratic
elections need to write to the FEC urging them to drop such a restriction.

Write Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chairmen of the Commission on
Presidential Debates, and ask them to change their rules and allow
presidential candidates with 5% voting support in national polls or more
than 50% opinion support in national polls to participate in the debates.

Mail should be sent to: Frank J. Fahrenkopf and Paul G. Kirk
Commission on Presidential Debates
1200 New Hampshire, NW Box 445
Washington, DC 20036

In the meantime, I am hoping that I can count on the support of rural
America and family farmers throughout the nation who share the same ideals
and goals to help me be included in the national debates prior to our
November Presidential elections. Together we can make a difference for
rural agricultural justice.

Signed: Ralph Nader

P.S. A member of our Citizens Committee for Nader/LaDuke is currently
seeking to organize a national Family Farmers Committee for Nader/LaDuke.
If you would like to join such a committee I urge you to contact Al Krebs,
P.O. Box 2201, Everett, Washington 98203-0201 avkrebs@earthlink.net