Reagan Renews Effort to Cut Farm Supports

President Reagan on Saturday renewed his lobbying effort to reduce direct government support to American farmers, calling on Congress to turn away from “the past practice of lurching from one emergency program to another, coming up with so-called solutions that never solve anything.”

Specifically, he urged Congress to stay within its own budget goals when it writes farm spending legislation later this year and deals with the Administration’s move to drastically alter farm policies developed over the last four decades.

Reagan sent his message in his weekly radio address, delivered Saturday morning from his 688-acre ranch, where he is spending a three-week vacation.

Controversial Policies

With foreclosures on family farms being made in record numbers earlier this year, the Administration’s farm policies have been intensely controversial, but Reagan has not wavered from his contention that the free market economy offers the best hope for U.S. agriculture.

His message Saturday was a reiteration of what he and Agriculture Secretary John R. Block said when the Administration sent proposed farm legislation to Congress last February, calling for drastic reductions in federal crop support payments, reduced dairy supports and a phase-out of direct operating loans to farmers.

Reagan said his Administration so far has spent 3 1/2 times as much money on farm supports as was spent between 1976 and 1980.

“If spending more money on agriculture would solve the problem,” he said, “we would have already solved it now.”

Dairy Products Bought

Since 1979, he said, federal purchases of dairy products from American farmers have increased by a factor of 10, rising from $250 million to $2.5 billion

Reagan maintained that farmers’ production costs have been brought under control since 1981, but he added that “the other half of a job is to free ourselves from the quagmire created by federal farm programs.” Rather than assisting farmers with price support programs, he said the federal government’s responsibility lies in ensuring that American farmers have full access to all foreign markets.

‘Discredited Programs’

“The answer to our farm problems cannot be found in sticking with discredited programs and increasing government controls. The answer can only be found in our ability to help our entire agriculture industry stand on its own feet again,” Reagan said. To back up his criticism of farm price support programs, he asserted that farmers growing crops whose prices are federally supported are in worse financial condition than farmers operating without government assistance.

‘Confusing Signals’

“For years now, federal farm programs have distorted the market and sent confusing signals to farmers,” he said. “Interventionist commodity programs have encouraged farmers to produce more than the market will bear while attempting to prop up prices.

“Today, we find ourselves with farmers who grow more than they can sell. And the result is low commodity prices and a depressed rural economy. And this, in spite of how much we’ve spent.”

The Democrats’ weekly radio response to Reagan’s talk was delivered by Rep. Mary Rose Oakar of Ohio, secretary of the House Democratic Caucus, who said it was “heartening to hear the President today hail farmers as the backbone of this country.”

“Several months ago, when thousands of farmers came to Washington to explain their needs, the President said that we should ‘keep the crops and export the farmers,’ ” Oakar said, adding that Democrats “will stick by our farmers, including the family farmer, which is so important to America.”

Reagan made the joke about exporting farmers in a theoretically off-the-record speech he delivered last March at the annual Washington dinner of the Gridiron Club.