Farm Export Plan Backfires, Congress Told

The Reagan Administration’s $2-billion program to rescue sagging U.S. farm exports may instead have damaged overseas sales because it has angered America’s best customers, grain industry spokesmen told Congress today.

“Why do we persist in being our own worst enemy?” asked Myron Laserson, executive vice president of Continental Grain Co. and president of the North American Export Grain Assn.

He estimated that exports in the current marketing year will be at least 25% below the Agriculture Department’s 1.2-billion bushel estimate.

“The program has turned out to be a miserable failure that has . . . antagonized our traditional customers and lost more business than it has gained,” said J. Stephen Gabbert, executive vice president of the Rice Millers Assn.

Sales Continue to Slip

Farm exports are the largest single positive influence on the U.S. trade balance, but they have slipped in the last four years. Export value this year is projected at $32 billion, down from a 1981 peak of $43.8 billion.

In response, the Reagan Administration on May 15 announced a $2-billion subsidy plan to “go on the attack in the international marketplace.”

But according to testimony from industry officials, that attack has been largely repulsed.

“We have, as merchants, put two signs in our store windows,” Laserson told the House Agriculture exports subcommittee. “The first says to customers, ‘Do not buy now because later the price will be cheaper.’ The second says, ‘If you are a good customer now, you will not get the benefit of our price reductions.’ ”