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LIVESTOCK PRICES ARE MAINTAINING a strong - position in the market place. And it’s about time. For so many years they have been on the low side relative to nearly every production cost factor. Now, with the so called consumer advocates, political opportunists and headline writers sounding off about uncontrolled “high” farm prices, it is time for the people who remain on the land, and the people who represent them to make their side of the story heard loud and clear.
U.S.D.A.’s Claude Clifford said it, “Who can say farm prices are too high when .. .farming as ,a business has had such low returns in last 20 years 2.4 million farms have gone out of business ... in the same period, 12-1/2 million farm people have left the land looking for better opportunities .. .even with 46% fewer farmers to share total income as 20 years ago, average income of farm people still only 3/4ths that of non-farm people .. . farmers and families are forced to supplement farming activity with off-farm work to reach even that 3/4th level?
“We’d better get it told,” he said, “and understood, before subsidized food is made a national right for Everyone; and before farming becomes a public utility with regulated prices and production; and with farmers franchised to do business. Should that happen, the incentive that worked the modern food miracle will disappear, and all of us, plus 100 million Americans in the coming generation, will have to worry where mir food is coming from. Then this island of plenty will slowly sink into the ocean of humanity whose primary concern is hunger. Then ‘give us this day our daily bread’ will take on a new significance and we may then more readily see the miracle that has been ours, and which we took for granted.” □
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