WICHITA, Kan. - John R.
Block, president of the National-
American Wholesale Grocers’
Association and former secretary
of agriculture, hit the concept of
supply management and man
datory production controls as
“devastating for U.S.
agriculture.”
“If there is a worse policy idea, I
can’t thnk of it,” he said. “It would
abandon U.S. exports, severely
weaken our agricultural base, and
build a tariff wall around this
country.”
Block spoke to attendees of the
Kansas Agri-Business Expo in
Wichita. Sponsored jointly by the
Kansas Grain and Feed Dealers
Association and the Kansas
Fertilizer and Chemical
Association, the event is the state’s
largest agricultural show.
Now that the Democrats control
the U.S. Senate, there has been
increasing speculation that
mandatory controls will be ad
vanced as the Democrats’ farm
policy agenda. “I hope the new
MMI Sets Delegate Meeting
STRONGSVILLE, Ohio - The
1986 annual delegate meeting of
Milk Marketing Inc. is Dec. 10, at
The Fawcett Center for Tomorrow,
The Ohio State University,
Columbus, Ohio.
Keynote speaker for the event
will be James C. Barr, chief
executive officer for the National
Milk Producers Federation,
Washington, D.C. MMI President
Herman M. Brubaker will update
delegates on MMI activities in
marketing, legislation and MMI
programs. MMI General Manager
Block Blasts Supply Management Concept
leadership will keep to the political
center,” Block declared. “The idea
was repudiated repeatedly during
discussion of the 1985 Farm Bill
and I am sorry to see it back.”
During the last session of
Congress, Senator Tom Harkin of
lowa proposed mandatory acreage
controls and is likely to resubmit
what was 5.2869, the Family Farm
Act, in the new Congress. Ac
cording to USDA analysis, the bill
would double crop price support
levels and U.S. exports would
disappear as surplus stocks
shrank. If there is a massive ex
port subsidy, CCC outlays would
increase $3 to 4 billion more than
under current legislation. In any
event, the U.S. livestock industry
would be faced With a doubling of
feed grain costs.
The most telling effect of supply
management is economic. USDA’s
Economic Research Service
studied the effect of a production
cutback of 55 percent such as that
called for in the Harkin plan. The
Gordon Riehl will present the
management report.
Registration begins at 9:30 a.m.
in The Fawcett Center for
Tomorrow. The meeting begins at
10:30 a.m. The facility is located
just north of The Ohio State
University Stadium, at 2400
Olentangy River Road.
plan would:
• Eliminate 553,000 farm
production jobs - nearly 21 percent
of farm employment; 370,000 ag
input jobs; 1.2 million processing,
marketing, and purchasing jobs
for a total of 2.2 million U.S. jobs.
• Slash $43 billion from the GNP
from lost economic activity of
processors, marketers, and con
sumers; $l2 billion from the input
industry; and $16.2 billion lost
from the farm sector - a total of
$7l billion cut from the gross
national product.
Block cited this USDA research
as “conclusive evidence” that the
supply scheme would be harmful
forU.S. agriculture.”
He said that there are several
dangers to supply management.
“For one thing, central planning in
agricultural has been tried in the
Soviet Union and other East Bloc
states and simply hasn’t worked.
The issue is freedom of choice for a
farmer as to what and how much
he or she chooses to grow.”
Another harmful effect lies in the
export arena. “The U.S. would be
isolated in world agriculture. For
every cutback in production here,
our competitors will increase
theirs and sell it below U.S.
government-supported prices. Our
market position would be further
eroded with devastating effects for
the U.S. farmer,” Block said. U.S.
farmers now export production
from one third of their acres.
Availability
and under-
standing are
two services
most formers
need and we
provide them
both.
FARMING
spoken here.
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Copyright Farm Credit Banks 1966
Block said that the preferred
approach is to give the 1985 Farm
Bill a chance to work. “Let’s give it
time to work so that U.S.
agriculture can return to a market
orientation and become com
petitive in the world.’.’
The former agriculture
secretary said that the aim of
mandatory production advocates
is to create a U.S. food cartel.
“Their goal is to create a food
cartel - an OPEC - to build a wall
Humane Way Of Reducing Surplus
(Continued from Page A2l)
Knutson said, any time the
government makes farming
profitable, that profit becomes
capitalized, in the form of cows,
land, etc.
Contrary to Stanton’s contention,
Knutson said the ability to buy and
sell bases should not be confined to
regions and the sale of quotas
would be a more stabilized form of
capitalization than what the
country has now.
Consumers are already paying a
higher price than that marked on
the carton of milk or cheese. They
are also paying for the government
subsidies, he pointed out.
Rice and cotton are two good
examples of mandatory supply
control programs which have been
dropped, Knutson said, calling
Stanton’s contention that man
datory supply programs once
Member Harlan Kurtz with Senior Loan Officers John Mylin and Gordon Herr
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of artificially high prices behind
which U.S. agriculture would
hide,” Block said. “OPEC didn’t
work because of alternative
suppliers and this wouldn’t be any
better. Other countries will simply
move in to take up the slack from
our cutbacks and we will be frozen
out of the world’s markets.”
Block urged the leadership of
both parties to decisively defeat
the proposal if it comes up for
consideration.
adopted will always be with us,
“hogwash”.
Stanton said it will not be as easy
to get national agreement to a
mandatory supply-control system
as Knutson indicated and that
regionalization is a very stfong
force which will keep bases in
place, once established, and add to
the cost of the industry.
Asked what might be a middle
ground between mandatory supply
management and the current price
driven supply control program,
both Knutson and Stanton agreed
target prices such as are in place
for corn, wheat and certain other
crops would deal with many of the
problems, including competition
from non-dairy products.
Both also agreed that consumers
are always the big winners with
any technology advancement such
as bovine growth hormone.
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