8000 Farmers Attend
by Mn. Alvin T. Detweiler
Secretary, Bucks Co. NFO
-Approximately 8,000 farmer
delegates to the National Far
mers Organization annual
convention at Louisville, Ken
tucky, heard their president,
Oren Lee Staley announce that
for the first time in history,
farmers in some areas will get $8
Cwt. in December for
manufacturing milk. “NFO is
now the third largest handler of
milk in the U.S and is the first of
the large handlers to return such
a price to the farmer,” Staley
said. “NFO is the first handler to
write cost-of-production con
tracts for milk, recently, and
since so many of NFO’s milk
contracts are in effect in the
Minnesota-Wisconsin area where
the price of manufacturing milk
is the basis for all v class I milk
price in the federal orders across
the U. S., dairymen here in the
East are reaping the benefit of
the NFO activity. We’ve raised
milk prices very systematically
and methodically and we’ve left
behind those who said that $5
manufacturing milk was ‘pie-in
the-sky’.”
Concerning the energy crisis,
Staley said, “First the officials
had better decide how serious the
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energy crisis is in this country,
and then they must decide how
important it is that farmers have
enough fuel to raise the crops.
Next in importance is an
adequate supply of fuel for
transportation to haul that food.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony
on a ten-car grain hopper unit at
a railroad siding in Louisville
was another highlight of the
annual convention. The ten-car
unit was only a token of the 610
grain hopper cars that NFO has
leased this year to transport the
grain volume that NFO members
block together for selling on
contracts. This amount of cars
bring NFO into the “big league”
with companies such as Cargill
and Continental, in movement of
grain, according to Shelly
Robertson, Head of NFO’s Grain
Commodity Department.
“Transportation is the name of
the game, and we now book
barges a year in advance,”
Robertson noted. “We move NFO
grain on every major river
system in the United States.”
Robertson believes we will' see
the consolidation or merger of the
large grain companies in the
future, equal to the mergers
among the dairy cooperatives.
Delegates were warned by Bill
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Lashmett, Head of NFO’s Meat
Department, that corporations
and integrators are stepping up
the drive to take over U. S,
agricultural production. He said,
“plans are drawn up for a single
corporate hog lot that will
displace about 5,000 family farms
and could produce about 3 per
cent of the country’s pork needs,
at Kohoka, Missouri. It is a joint
project of Swift and Co. and
Ralston-Purina, the packers and
feed companies that helped take
chicken and egg production out of
the family" farmer’s hands. If this
conglomerate gets away with it,
then, in the future, the nation’s
milk will be produced in 5,000 to
10,000 cow herds, and beef
production will follow the same
pattern, to the disadvantage of
farmers and consumers as well.
“Consumers are still paying
top prices for meat,” Lashmett
continued. “Retail prices are
only 2 percent lower at the same
time that farm prices for meat
have dropped 30 percent, and as
things stand today, a serious
shortage in meat could result.
The NFO is moving to stabilize
and improve cattle, hog and
sheep prices. Since we came to
Louisville for this convention, we
have signed a contract for fed
cattle which will relate the far
mer’s return to wholesale prices,
stablize live animal supply,
packing plant efficiency and offal
value. Also since the convention
convened, the NFO has been
formally offered a written, long
term contract for hogs by a
major packer with a guaranteed
minimum pnce related to the
cost of production of the hogs.”
“It is significant to get such an
offer from a major packer,”
Lashmett said. “It is the first of
its kind in history, and we are
going to submit it to our members
to get their views. The contract
illustrates the advantage of
marketing large blocks of
production. An individual
producing only 1000 fed cattle a
year could not obtain such a
contract”.
Those attending a pre-con
vention meeting heard Jon
Wefald, Minnesota’s Com
missioner of Agriculture, state
that American agriculture is the
largest single industry in the
United States. Its assets amount
PAY LATER
r v Saturday, Dedembei* 1973—27
Meeting
to upwards of $370 billion or
three-fifths of the amount of all
U. S. industrial corporations.
Twenty percent of the labor force
in the U. S. are used by'
agriculture. This year gross farm
receipts in the U. S. will be $2O
billion higher than last year. We
are always talking about moving
new industry into rural areas to
provide more jobs and provide
more taxes, but $2O billion means
that much extra purchasing
power in our rural areas. It is the
equivalent of 18,000 brand new
industries with the equivalent
payrolls of $1 million each a year.
Never have more than 200 in
dustries been moved by any other'
effort in one year in the U. S. That
should tell us what would be done
for the economy if we paid our
farmers fair prices.
Members delegates
unanimously re-elected their
president, Oren Lee Staley, and
their Vice President, DeVon
Woodland by acclamation.
Those attending the convention
from Bucks County were:
Stanley Landis, RD4, Quaker
town; Bill Garges, Warrington;
Victor Pisarek, Pineville; Louis'
Fink, Jr., Ottsville; Ernest
Andre, M.R., Chalfont; Jack
Clark, RD2, New Hope; Mr. and
Mrs. Alvin Detweiler
Doylestown, RDI and Mr. and
Mrs. Reuben Anders,
Morrisville, attended as guests of
the Bucks County delegation.
Other area persons attending
were: Leland Stanford,
Dillsburg, RDI, York Co., Philip
Snyder, RDI, New Tripoli,
Lehigh Co., Stanley Kokohlus,
RDI, Coplay, Lehigh Co.
XXX
It is often better to bend than to
break.
Order 4 Milk
Price Up 42 c
The Nov. uniform price for
base milk increased 42 cents
from the previous month., ac
cording to Andrew A. Martin,
Ephrata, field representative for
Inter-State Milk Producers
Cooperative. Excess milk showed
a decrease of 16 cents. The base
milk price was $9.07, excess was
$6.95, and the butterfat dif
ferential was 8.6 cents.
In comparison to Nov. levels
one year ago base milk was up
$1.76 and excess up $1.56.
The weighted average price for
the market was increased by
$1.75, above Nov. 1972.
A total of 358.6 million pounds
of producer milk was pooled in
Nov. of which 69.32 percent was
sold as Class I, showing an in
crease of 1.27 percent of
deliveries made in October, and
increased .09 percent over Nov. a
year ago. 7884 Order No. 4
producers provided 11.9 million
pounds per day to dealers during
Nov., averaging 1516 pounds per
day per farm. Total value of
producer milk was set at
$31,685,610.40 for the month.
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