Plight of U.S. Farmers

Don Ransdell, in his letter (March 15), skillfully discussed the economic similarities between a house painter and a typical mid-size farmer. However, he missed a few important differences that I feel are worth mentioning.

I agree with Ransdell that house painting is a worthwhile and necessary product--and I’ve done my share of it--but realistically it is not a vital product that is essential for human life. One can exist for more than 30 days without a new paint job. And yes, the capital necessary to start a painting operation can be sizable and the business itself risky, but it is a fraction of the capital necessary to start farming. For a 600-acre operation in the Midwest, with present land values, $500,000 or more is minimal just to begin. Many young people who love farming and weren’t lucky enough to inherit land will never get the chance.

In addition, there is the matter of fuel and chemicals, which have as much as tripled in the last 10 years while commodity prices have dropped, and interest rates that have doubled as land prices have declined. I don’t believe paint and painting supplies have gone up nearly as much, and anyway a house painter includes the cost of materials in his estimate and competes freely with other contractors. A farmer has only one market and one price and can either take it or leave it.

While it’s true a job may be “delayed” or “impeded” in the building trades by the vagaries of weather, but a farmer’s income for an entire year can be wiped out by rain, frost, hail or drought. He has one or at the most two shots in big grain farming to get his seed in, and if he doesn’t he may be in the hole as much as $50,000 for one year. Put two bad years together and you have a bankruptcy.

I’m sure many farmers would agree with Ransdell that the less government interference the better. But a house painter does not sell his services overseas and a farmer can only sell a small portion of his produce locally. A farmer cannot influence world market conditions, foreign debts, trade imbalances and the like.

Instead of directing anger and self-righteousness at the farmer, why can’t we try to help him lower his overhead in the next few years by introducing regional pricing systems, income and property tax reform, resource and machinery cooperatives and a program to help the chemically dependent farmer who wants to begin organic or no-till farming?

It is not the inefficient or inept farmer who deserves our help and understanding; it is the average mid-size farmer, and it is a miracle so many have survived this long.

MICHAEL J. MOORE

Los Angeles

This is a response to Don Ransdell from a Midwest farmer. I agree with him that government should get out of farming, because it is the big corporations that have gotten into farming that are receiving the biggest share of the subsidies and relief that he is so upset about.

The average 300- to 400-acre family farmer gets very little, if any, of this subsidy. They are only trying to make a living, produce enough food to feed their family and their livestock.

Mr. Painter, you state in your letter that like the farmer you also have a substantial investment in property such as tools, paint brushes, ladders and dropcloths. How would you say your investment compares to a farmer’s investment in land, machinery and equipment?

Mr. Painter, you write in your letter, “If you, Mr. Farmer, cannot operate profitably in a free market, you ought to get out of a business for which you are not qualified.”

Tell me, Mr. Qualified Painter, have you ever painted somebody’s house, worked very hard at it, did a good job and then when you were all finished, being extremely proud of your accomplishment, ask the owner how much will you pay me? What if he would pay you less than what the paint cost and nothing for your labor?

This is what the farmer has to do after putting in many 18-hour days all summer and then delivers his crop to the market (providing there is one, it may have been wiped out by hail, flood or drought) and asks, what will you give me for it?

And Ransdell tells us we are to get out of farming because we are not qualified and inefficient. Let me tell you, Mr. Painter, when big corporations take over farming, you’ll probably be paying $10 a pound for hamburger, and the small family farmer will be coming to town looking for work. We are not only farmers, we are also capable carpenters, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, brick layers, welders, and even painters.

AL TIESZEN

Hurley, S.D.

Ransdell says his efforts have put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the nation’s economy (from this I assume he is a house painting contractor, not only a house painter) without government relief or taxpayer subsidy. Is he kidding? He’s never gotten help of any kind from the Small Business Administration? Never improved his tax position by depreciating the cost of equipment? Never attended public school? Maybe not.

He says the weather has, from time to time, delayed or impeded his work. Has it ever wiped out his entire product? Has cold weather, or rain, coming at the wrong time or not coming when it should wiped out virtually all his income for the year?

Has he lost hundreds of customers by virtue of trade embargoes, which, like the weather, he cannot control? Is the painting business affected immediately and radically by fluctuations of the dollar’s strength vis-a-vis foreign currencies?

His competition is a few other painting contractors in his area. The farmer competes in a world market where he has no control. When (for example) Greek farmers flood the market with grapes at low prices, grape farmers everywhere receive less for their product, often meaning a loss despite good management and sound business practices.

Come on, Mr. Ransdell, if you can’t do better than the simplistic arguments set forth in your letter, forget preaching to the farmers who grow your food. Spend the time contemplating this mythical free market you mention.

MARGARET WALKER

San Diego

Our farm situation is becoming our own “Brazil” or Third World problem of unending debt.

Are there no programs to provide no-interest loans or outright grants to family farms to end this debt cycle?

If we can’t solve this problem in our own country--due to lack of caring and too much “profit-thinking”--how can Third World countries ever hope to see an end to their debts? Never!

BARRIE JAEGER

Los Angeles

Regarding George McCutcheon’s letter (March 15) about his feeling that all is well with President Reagan’s veto of the farm support bill, I reply:

Mr. McCutcheon, since you feel farmers should stand on their own without government support, I feel you should try planting a vegetable garden in your backyard and living off that for a year. Oh, and if it happens to fail, don’t run to the supermarket, you knew the risks. You starve.

MARK HEDLUND

Los Angeles

For the umpteenth time President Reagan has “misspoke himself” when he said only 4% of the farmers were in trouble. Later, Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block said it was more like 10%. Now, the Agriculture Department’s own Economic Research Service says it’s more like 18%.

Once again the President either is ignorant or deliberately misleading the public, knowing that most don’t read newspapers carefully.

LEONARD ZIRALDO

Canoga Park

I wholeheartedly agree many of the statements in Jody Powell’s article (Editorial Page, March 10), “Reagan’s Deficit Is Farmers’ Downfall.” Yet while doing so, I can’t but help feeling a little lopsided by the whole thing.

As in most important and controversial issues there are many sides to choose. Conceivably the budget deficit has played a large role in the President’s quick veto of the emergency farm-credit legislation, yet while doing so he may have taken the first real step toward generating some new legislation that would remedy the farmer’s plight.

Government almost always shows it has a human side when controversial issues arise in that it is usually something that would have not occurred had it not procrastinated so long in the first place. The solution, however, is not prolonged subsidies, as this may be the core of the problem.

What will happen is many of the small farmers will go out of business being absorbed by farming conglomerations. Farming is a business and maybe the government should let the market determine price floors and ceilings.

However, let’s not forget the most important overall issue: We all have to eat, and the farming industry is the lifeblood of the nation and must be preserved.

DAMION F. BOLICK

Pomona