A 28—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 26,1980
Bergland
(Continued from Page A 27)
cutback cool it. Already
sow and gilt numbers are
coming down and egg hat
ching is down.” However,
prices aren’t expected to
rally much before mid
summer.
“What river is that?”
questioned the Secretary,
eyeing the broad
Susquehanna as it flowed
under the blue sky and
brilliant sunshine, lapping at
trees just yards to the East
of Route 11-15 where we were
traveling.
“Is is good for fishing?”
Fishing is a pasttime of the
Secretary, who admits that
the hectic Washington
pressures can sometimes get
a big wearing. When that
happens, he tries to find time
to relax out on the waters of
the Chesapeake Bay. A lover
of the water, abundant in his
home state of Minnesota,
Bergland recalled the river
that flowed just a short
distance from his boyhood
home. Occasionally, Bob
Bergland, the national ad
ministrator, gets a mite
homesick for the life of Bob
Bergland, the farmer,
especially in the Spring
planting season, since
“there’s something about
growing things that’s good
for the soul.”
Bergland had told
listeners earlier that he’d
come to Pennsylvania to talk
to dairy farmers on their
industry problems. While
dairymen are nervous over
the Community Nutrition
Institute’s proposal to allow
the reconstitution of milk
powder for fluid sales, the
Secretary said he hasn’t had
a chance to study in detail
the 8000 comments that have
poured into USDA on the
proposal.
That proposal would still
involve the use of dairy
products, he said, since it
would be based on non-fat
powders. Most of the milk
production being dried
comes from New York,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
and California, and is used m
the South.
Bergland suggested that
allowing the reconstitution
might lead to greater
demand m this part of the
country, but lower the fluid
milk demands in the South.
“Some dairy leaders in the
Northeast say that all sounds
fine, but that isn’t the way
it’ll work. They also fear it
would lead to adulteration. I
can only unequivocably state
that we have no intention of
wrecking programs that
would lead to reduce milk
production, high prices, or a
product the consumer
wouldn’t want.”
Protein pricing of milk is
another possibility the
Agriculture Department is
considering. Since California
is pioneering in this program
of milk payments, Bergland
says he’ll wait a while and
watch their program to see
how it works,, before con
sidering any major pricing
changes in that direction.
That milk pricing might be
part of what the Secretary
sees as a change m the food
policies of the government,
now beginning to revert
from a reactive type to one
based on the needs of people.
“Once, if there was a
surplus of a particular
commodity, we’d find ways
to get nd of it, such as the
nee surpluses used in. the
Food for Peace program.
Now we’re more concerned
with helping the consumer
interview
stretch his dollar further,
based on good nutrition
We’re better off not drinking
whiskey, not getting fat, and
eating a balanced diet,” he
points out. “Eventually, that
philosophy will help far
mers.”
Included m the changing
food policy are some
alterations in the school
lunch program, especially in
the area of defining exactly
what’s considered a “junk
food”. Local schools are
being encouraged to be more
innovative in their feeding
programs, with the specific
aim of cutting down on
massive waste.
Research is also being
done on more nutritious
snack-type foods, like a tasty
raisin-cereal blend that
Bergland is impressed with.
Energy costs are clos! gin
on fanners from all direc
tions. Wouldn’t , the
development of a viable
gram alcohol program help
reduce the fuel shortage,
boost grain pnces and cut
back on meat and milk
production due to higher
feed costs?
“The problems in gram
alcohol production are
economic,” he insists,
reluctant to make any
predictions on how that
industry will develop.
Ideally, a bushel of com has
the potential to yield two
pounds of vegetable oil, feed
for six chickens, four pounds
of 60 percent protein sup
plement for the baking in
dustry and two and one-half
gallons of alcohol.
“Only large scale plants
have the technology to ex
tract all that; small mills
can’t do it”, is his reason for
skepticism of on-farm still
efficiency. Research
facilities in Peoria, Illinois,
are working at the problem,
but much of the over-all
research is being done by
small private ex
perimenters. Many of the
developments in alcohol
fuels have come from
Germany, which has been
working m this field since
Hitler ran his war machine
the last two years on fuel
from a variety of com
modities.
As a cooperative member,
I was curious about how the
Secretary felt about the
threats being leveled at
cooperatives m the last
couple of years.
He said he sees
cooperatives as an absolute
part of the agriculture
system but figures that
proprietary enterprises are
a valuable safeguard against
a “take over’’ by
cooperatives.
“Their business practices
should be controlled, not
their size,” he added. “I’m
charged with watching them
and I do. I’m regarded as
a friend of cooperatives, but
I’m not their patsy.”
Cooperatives dealing in
the gram industry handle
only ten percent of the ex
porting business, as com
pared to the 80-percent
control of five of the giants of
the business.
“We’ll see that
cooperatives are protected,”
Bergland promised.
Earlier, at the Beshore
press conference, 1 had
asked the Secretary about
farmland purchases by
foreign investors. He in
dicated he felt the eight
million acres of land in
volved was not enough to get
concerned about and that
this nation had traditionally
not discriminated against
people just because they
weren’t natives.
“It’s not something we
want to stop on a federal
level. If individual states
want to, though, that’s fine,”
is the administration’s
viewpoint of the situation.
Bergland says most of the
foreign land owners are
Canadians, with landholders
from Great Bntian in second
place. Then come the
Germans, Dutch and French
investors, with the only
known Arab purchase on
Land in Georgia. Most of that
acreage, he says, is being
farmed by American
tenants, many of them young
fanners using the rented
(Turn to Page A 29)
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