—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 7, 1976
78
Farm threats allegedly political
CHICAGO, 111. The threat of a corporate farm
takeover of American agriculture is an election year
“bogeyman," according to the head of the American Farm
Bureau Federation.
Allan Grant, president of the 2,500,000 member-family
American Farm Bureau Federation, says “despite what you
may hear in this election year about the death of the ‘family’
farm, patterns of farm ownership have remained virtually
unchanged for the past 50 years or more.
“About three per cent of all farms were ‘corporation’
farms 50 years ago, and that figure remains almost identical
now,” Grant told those attending the National Society of
Accountants for Cooperatives, holding their 41st .annual
meeting here. He said that corporation farms of various
kinds now make up about seven per cent of U.S. farmland.
The farm leader said that politicians and others “carefully
perpetuate" fears that agri-business conglomerates and
well-heeled corporations are muscling farm and ranch
families off the land. He called such fears “a form of myth
carefully contrived and perpetuated by politicians and others
as part of an election year bag of tricks.”
Political fascination with the alleged problem of
“preserving” the family farm, he said, stems from an m
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DAIRY WHITE
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Also Barn Cleaning Service
Available With Compressed Air
To have your barn cleaneu with air it will clean
off dust, cob webs & lot of the old lime. This will
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We white washed 600 barns last year, so if your
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have it done early.
High-Pressure Washing
In Dairy Barns.
MAYNARD L. BEITZEL
Witmer, PA 17585 717-392-7227
If no answer call Willard Beitzel 717-733-6357
We will take on work within 100 mile radius of
Lancaster.
Barn spraying our business, not a sideline.
Spraying Since 1961
tense desire on the part of some political candidates to
become identified in the public mind with the solid virtues of
American farm life, and to be seen as champions and
protectors of individual voters.
“Defending the family farm from the supposed inroads of
corporate bigness and consumers from the Implied higher
prices supposedly imposed by farming cartels has almost
irresistible appeal to the true politician,” Grant said. He
added, “Often another purpose of the exercise is to convince
people that government ‘protection’ is good for agriculture.
“In reality, corporations usually do very poorly in
agriculture. Most truly corporate farms have low productive
efficiency compared to family operations and their rate of
return on monies invested is unattractive to shareholders,”
Grant said.
There are however, many incorporated family farming
operations Grant noted, in listing a number of legal and
organizational reasons why farm and ranch families take
this action. “It eases the transfer of farm property from one
generation to the next, and helps assure that the farm stays
in the family. It makes sense to sell or transfer the whole
farm on a share-by-share basis rather than go through a cow
by-cow and acre-by-acre sell-off,” Grant said.
“In some states and under some conditions, there may be a
modest tax advantage" to having the family farm in
corporated, but not always. In some cases it may actually
cost the family money, but is worthwhile m a legal sense in
helping assure that the farm remains intact.
“Nearly two-thirds of all farming corporations are family
owned and controlled; over 80 per cent of all land owned by
corporations is, held by family corporations with 10
shareholders or less,” Grant told the group.
Also diluting the figures, Grant said, are such corporate
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udder injury to the minimum house your
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- 8 Models all steel welded farm and feedlot gates
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For prices, contact: Fred Frey, Mgr.
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FREY BROS.
RD2 Quarryvilie, PA 17566
(arm structures as agricultural experimental stations,
prison farms, “boystowns” and similar operations where
farming is done more for social reasons than for the actual
production and sale of crops.
Grant said that Farm Bureau has been studying the effects
of “tax-loss” farpung (entry of non-agricultural firms or
professional people into farming to obtain tax write-offs
against non-farm income), and that loopholes in the law
creating tax advantages to encourage this should be closed.
FISHER SPRAY PAINTERS
(Henry K Fisher)
SANDBLASTING and
SPRAY PAINTING
INTERIOR and EXTERIOR
Aerial Ladder Equipment
Office & Shop - 667 Hartman Station Rd
Residence - 2322 Old Philadelphia Pike
For FREE Estimates Call 717-393-6530
Lancaster, Penna