A32—Lancaster Famine, Saturday, April 19,1990
Bergland
(Continued from Page Al)
Master Fanner Huntsberger
asked Bergland how he plans
to help this group survive the
squeeze.
“Money problems are
found in all sizes of farms,”
the Secretary noted,
“especially with young
people getting started and
established farmers who lost
their crops last year.”
Some $2 billion in
economic aid, carrying 13
percent interest, has been
approved to finance those
“with no other place to go.”
Again and again,
America's agriculture head
hammered home the
unhappy state of farm
economics: “There is no
quick fix.”
He urged farmers to
“borrow carefully. Spend
less and save more.”
Members of FUEL, York
County’s pioneer
cooperative for on-farm fuel
production, sought tips from
Bergland on government
help for grain alcohol
distilleries.
He indicated that both
research and credit
assistance are available
with Farmers Home Ad
ministration setting aside
$lll million for gram fuel
production.
Bergland warned,
however, that only large
capacity plants, with the
ability to extract a variety of
by-products, are economical
at this stage of
developement.
“The pigs have come
home to roost,” was his
summation of the depressed
state of the pork and poultry
industries, both burdened
with oversupply
depressed prices.
Part of the pork problem,
Bergland admitted, is tax
policy that mcouraged off
farm business capital to
build large hog houses,
taking generous investment
credit benefits against the
cost.
Although! fanners will be
expected to nde out the
plunge until pork prices
reach their own market
level, USDA is purchasing
some quantities for use in
the school lunch program.
Speaking to the govern
ment’s concern about severe
soil losses from erosion,
Bergland warned that 30
million acres had gone from
grass to gram during the
mid-19705. While no clear
policies have been drawn up
to return this marginal land
to sod, one solution might be
“conservation easements
that would put it back into
grass (hi a business-like
arrangement.”
Following the question and
answer session with York
farmers, Bergland
demonstrated his cow
milkmg ability and took a
brief tour of the Beshore
farm
E Wayne and son Jed
Beshore are partners in the
50-cow registered Holstein
farm. Barely a year ago the
Beshores were also visited
by a deluge of TV cameras
and officials as one of the
closest dairy operations to
the stricken Three Mile
Island nuclear plant
All questions on TMI were
neatly sidestepped by
Bergland.
About 250 fanners turned
out at Pen-Col to question the
Secretary as he fielded
questions from a wagon-bed
stage
“The Russians are a pain
in the neck ’ Bergland
"I'm the one who took it out," Bergland replied to the queery of grain grower
Geary Huntsberger on the reinstatement of the government’s lime program.
Those conservation funds are instead being directed at stopping soil losses with
terracing and waterways programs.
replied to questions con
cerning the effect of the
grain embargo at his next
stop, the Wolf operation at
Millville in Columbia
County.
“We’ll do business with
them only as long as they
don’t endanger us.” In
sisting the embargo had not
really hurt American grain
sales, Bergland said grain is
being shipped out at such
rates that “we’re having
trouble loading the boats fast
enough.”
Several young farmers
from the Danville area,
angry at taking a beating
from low prices and high
costs, presented the
Secretary with a letter of
recommendations for ag
policy changes.
Their key concerns were
the lack of an effective
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energy policy, increased
interest rates, cheap grain
policies, and the widening
cost between farm
and retail prices.
Bergland promised to
study their letter upon his
return to Washington.
One trend Bergland ap
proved is the slight back
wards slide in land prices.
He admitted it was not a
welcome view from the
standpoint of all farmers but
is part of the “hard line”
stance being taken by the
Carter Administration to
help cool inflation.
Farmers at the two
Thursday dairy visits
received Bergland’s com
ments with polite applause,
nodding agreement with
some policy statements but
murmuring among them
selves over others.
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Many questioned later
agreed there were no easy
answers to the hard
economic problems and that
“no one man, not even the
Secretary of Agriculture,
can solve any issue by
himself.”
“There’s nothing any one
individual can do,” sighed
one Columbia County far
mer. “It’s just too big.
Everyone needs to cut back,
but no one does.”
Just across the hill from
where Bergland was
meeting with York County
farmers, another part of the
campaigning was going on.
Ted Mondale, 22 year old
son of Vice President Walter
Mondale, spent several
hours visiting with voters
and the civics classes at
rural Red Land Senior High
School.
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Tapping talents he learned as a boy on the
Minnesota family farm. Bob Bergland perched on a
milking stool before Beshore Lindy Louise, a VG 87
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