I do not pretend to say that a Democratic Congress or Administration would have all the answers to all the problems. I do not agree with those who think that all we have to do is dismiss Mr. Benson and get a new Secretary of Agriculture. This problem is bigger and deeper than one man or even one administration. There are no quick, easy, painless remedies. On the contrary, I think the farmers themselves are getting tired of hearing from politicians in either camp about some new short-term expedient, a wonder drug aimed at treating some current symptom, instead of getting at the real problem. I do not intend to fill your ear with such promises today.
But, without attempting to speak for all Democrats--without attempting to write a farm bill here and now--and forgetting for the moment about parity indexes, acreage allotments, production payments, and all other techniques, let me say just this: that I believe any Democratic farm program would be based on the following six fundamental principles.
First, farm abundance should be treated as a blessing and not as a curse. There are still more than 1 billion 800 million people in other lands trying to get by on less than a subsistence diet. There are still tremendous possibilities for using food as a means of capital investment in underdeveloped countries, even in those that nave no food shortages. There are sill markets in Europe and elsewhere in buying less of our foodstuffs today than they did 20 years ago. There are still 17 million Americans going to bed each night suffering from malnutrition. This country still stands 13th in terms of milk and dairy product consumption, and 5th in terms of meat consumption per person. And above all, there is still a fantastic population growth in this country. Next year’s census-takers, going from door-to-door, will find that we have become a nation of 180 million people. We will by the end of this century have doubled our population--we will have equaled the population of India in 1951, a year of critical food shortage in that teeming, famine-ridden, drought-stricken country. And every year, as our population grows larger, we are losing some 400,000 acres of cropland by erosion and another one million acres to our growing cities, airports, reservoirs, highways and military reservations.
At the same time, the population of the world is multiplying faster than the world’s capacity to produce food. Even if our entire food surplus this year were distributed around the world to all the hungry and all the needy, it would mean only the equivalent of approximately two teacups full of rice every 17 days for each hungry person.
In short, what Mr. Benson now complains in terms of a food surplus could soon turn into a permanent food shortage. We dare not continue a course designed to abandon our soil, waste our water and cut back our cropland if we are to assure every American a minimum standard of nutrition for all time to come.
If we can but look at our farm abundance in this light, we see it as a national asset, not a liability--an asset which the Communists do not have and cannot obtain--a weapon more powerful for preserving the free world than any in our arsenal of armaments. Two specific programs are needed. We need a “food for peace” program that has real imagination and drive--that can use our surpluses as a powerful instrument for aiding economic development, strengthening alliances and helping less fortunate people in all parts of the globe. But we also need to do more for the needy and hungry here at home. And I hope that the Congress next year will take action on the bill which I have introduced directing a full-scale attack upon this problem--taking the job out of the hands of Mr. Benson, who has shown little interest in it, and giving it to the department responsible for those on pensions or public assistance. I believe in our programs of foreign aid and mutual security, but we must also take care of our own.
Secondly, any national farm program should be based primarily on the promotion and preservation of the family farm. That is the basic unit here in Illinois--that is the way it must continue to be. We have no wish to become a nation of giant commercial corporation farms and absentee landlords. Our whole vitality as a nation depends on a contrary course. So let us be aware of programs that aid most those who need it least--that encourage the big non-complyers by giving them a good support price anyway in election years. Our job is to look out for the family farmer--and we can count on the family farmer to look out for the future of our soil--and the future of the country.
Third, any future farm program should be run for farmers by farmers. Basic administration on the local level should be in the hands of farmer committees elected by farmers themselves. No bureaucrat, no economist or scientist, knows the needs and trends and variations of the local farm picture as well as the local farmers. On the national level, we need a Federal Farm Board comprised of leaders from the key commodity groups--a board which can explain the farmer’s needs to the Administration and the Administration’s hopes to the farmer. This would be a board made up of real farmers--and by farmers, I do not mean some of those whom Mr. Benson has appointed to high office--so-called “farmers” who own one cow and ten banks. I mean those who contributed so much to the local administration of our farm programs in the past--and who can and should do so in the future.
Fourth, any Democratic farm program should encourage, not retard, the growth of the cooperative movement. Cooperatives can help the farmer escape some of the cost-price squeeze. They can give him some stability and bargaining power which he otherwise could not have. They can help both the farmer and the consumer by cutting this growing spread between the price at the farm and the price at the store. In those Scandinavian countries which have nationwide cooperative marketing arrangements, I am told the dairy farmer gets approximately 70 cents of every dollar spent by the consumer. Here it is 45 cents--or only a little more than half that figure.
The Federal Government could aid these coops, and enable them to pool their financial resources for mutual benefits, in the same way that is has helped REA coops. It can offer technical assistance, financial credit and legal authority. It can eliminate state and local barriers to their expansion. But it will not prevent this Administration from trying to tax cooperatives and control their private financial obligations. As I said in my letter of protest to the Secretary of the Treasury last January, this bill would tax most heavily those cooperatives with inadequate cash resources who are least able to bear the tax.
Fifth, any future farm programs must concentrate on cutting the farmer’s costs. The high interest rate policy of this Administration has hurt the farmer looking for credit more than anyone else--and it has held him back even further by making it more difficult for him to buy more efficient machinery on the installment plan. The REA program of this Administration has not been one of promoting lower electric rates for our farm homes. It has done little or nothing about the 300 farm families that still lack electricity--and little or nothing about the 40 percent of our farm families in this great electronic age who have no telephone service whatsoever. By cutting these costs--by keeping freight rates down and keeping them fair--a new administration can save just as much money for the farmer’s pocket as higher farm prices would bring in.
Sixth and finally, any future farm programs should assure our nation’s farms of a fair share of the national net income. This does not mean that farm prices must always rise--but they should not be the only ones to fall. The farmer does not want to ration poverty--he wants to share abundance. He has made a tremendous capital investment on his farm--and he wants a comparable return on that investment. He puts in a long-hard work-week all year round--he wants comparable wages for his labor.
Economists predict that during the next two years wages will go up--business income will go up--our standard of living will go up. We cannot let the farmer down. A program based upon these six fundamental principles would, I am convinced, restore common sense and common justice to our farm policy. Only then will it be possible to gear national production to international need--to grow food for stomachs and not for storage--to support the farmer’s prices and income at a level which will cover his costs and a reasonable profit, and at the same time substantially reduce the cost of this program to the American taxpayer.
I am convinced that the farmers of this country--particularly if they are given a major voice in shaping and administering this policy will support it and cooperate with it. This is not a matter of partisan politics--and it is not even a matter of only farm income. For our basic concern is not the interest of any single political party, or the interests of any single group in our economy. Our basic interest is the national interest--and dedicating ourselves to that objective, we can go forward with renewed faith in the future of our land.
Source: David F. Powers Personal Papers, Box 32, "Democratic Luncheon, Eau Claire, WI, 12 November 1959." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.