King Orchards Tart Cherry Juice

Tart Cherry Juice from King Orchards  


 Tart is Smart (tm)
 Tart Cherry Juice
home FAQ nutrition order contact about
King Orchards
We are Cherry Growers
about us
our markets
our commitment
cherry harvest
family farming
scientific farming

Ordering
Cherry Products
order tart cherry juice
order dried tart cherries
shipping information


All About Cherries
History and Descriptions
overview
types of cherries
cherry facts
cherry history

Fun With Cherries
and... Great Taste
recipes

King Orchards
4620 N. M-88
Central Lake MI 49622
1-877-937-5464

contact us
privacy policy
credits

home > scientific farming > not farms > Lords of the Land

Lords of the Land

October 2000
By: Scotty Johnson

In the face of a devastating farm economy, major farm groups in America are coming under scrutiny by farmer members for representing corporate interests at the expense of family farming. Members claim the leadership of certain farm lobbies have been co-opted by corporate interests who secretly hide behind the mask of the family farmer. They claim groups like the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Pork Producers Council and the National Cattleman's Beef Association, to name a few, have become key "front" groups advancing a dark era of industrialized agriculture.

These accusations are drawing great attention, notably in the environmental and labor advocacy camps where non-traditional alliances are being forged against socially and environmentally irresponsible corporate behavior. Groups focusing on international trade are also taking a keen interest in this process as American agricultural policy is becoming the standard for the rest of the world.

Is there validity to the claim that agribusiness deceptively uses "front" groups to sell their message to policy makers? Is Farm Bureau - the self proclaimed "Voice of Agriculture" a shadowy hand of corporate agribusiness? Are powerful commodity groups like the National Cattleman's Beef Association and the National Corn Growers Associations participating in the demise of their own membership? With record federal farm aid bailouts and the re-authorization of the farm bill around the corner, these are troubling questions that need to be addressed.

Where Have All the Farmers Gone?

There is no doubt that domestic farm policy has failed America's family farmers. Throughout the century America's network of family farms has been steadily eroding. This crisis has reached a fever pitch in the last few years. The prices farmers currently receive are usually below cost of production and with commodity prices at depression-era levels, family and independent farmers simply can't compete. Is this an accident of markets? Can this loss of family agriculture be attributed to trends toward greater "efficiency", mechanization, volatile markets or rising costs? Or is this reality more a result of the failed farm policy advanced by trans-national corporate agribusiness. The evidence strikingly points to the latter. Dr. Stewart Smith, senior economist for the Congress' Joint Economic Committee, has done considerable research regarding agricultural trends throughout this century. In a study presented to Congress in 1996 entitled "Agricultural Industrialization and Family Farms: The Role of Federal Policy," Smith documented his findings. According to Smith, the farmer in 1900 was doing far better than the farmer of today. While the turn-of-the-century farmer was getting 41 cents of every food dollar sold, the farmer of 1990 was getting nine cents. Smith says the farming sector has experienced "a significant erosion of activity." What impact has this had on farmers? The facts are alarming:

  1. The average American farm family income in 1998, minus subsidies, was $28,000.

  2. Approximately 42,000 family farms with revenues less than $250,000 disappeared between 1994 and 1997.

  3. Net farm income has fallen more than 38 percent since 1997.

  4. Experts say two million American farming families will be gone from the land in just one more generation.
Comparing farm income (farm sector) with agribusiness profits Smith finds, "In real terms from 1910 to 1990, the value of the agribusiness marketing sector grew from $34 billion to $216.3 billion, the agribusiness input sector grew from $12.6 billion to $57.9 billion, while the farm sector shrank from $24.2 billion to $22.6 billion. This is an increase of 627 percent and 460 percent respectively for the input and marketing sectors while the value of the farm sector declined over the same period."

It is clear from Smith's report that agribusiness is getting the lion's share of the food dollar while the farmer is getting thrown to the lions. While this might outrage the casual observer, it is important to understand how and why this has happened.

Supply and be Damned
Devere Noaks is a 65 year-old farmer from Litchfield, Michigan. He began farming in 1960 and is currently the president of the Michigan National Farmers Organization. Noaks sees the problem with agriculture very clearly.

"It all goes back to control of the commodities," Noaks says from his farm in Michigan. "Agribusiness controls the prices of the commodities by creating excess, or oversupply. Twenty years ago they said we had to feed the world so we should plant every acre we had - they said plant fence row to fence row. They say we need to supply the demand. Well, I call it supply and be damned. You raise so much you over produce and kill the prices farmers get."

When asked about groups like the Farm Bureau representing agribusiness over the family farm, Noaks gets irrate.

"Farm Bureau is into farming alright," he says. "They are into farming the farmer. You can't wear both hats, you can't be on both sides of the table. They should change their name to the Farm Agribusiness Bureau."

The loss of family farming and its direct income is irrefutable. Moreover, it is clear that based on simple laws of supply and demand this loss is directly linked to farm policy that favors oversupply of commodities.

Niel Harl (Include credentials) takes a look at the problems with current agricultural policy (Freedom to Farm Bill) and compares them to those facing other industries. "The cold, hard fact of life," he says, is that agriculture has a huge capacity to produce and, given average or better weather, tends to overproduce. Every industry in the world - except farming - monitors output closely so as not to flood their markets and ruin prices by killing demand. Farming is different. The Secretary of Agriculture is the surrogate CEO for farmers. In the past it was his job to ensure against overproduction. This keeps prices strong."

Harl, author of a 16-volume compendium on agricultural economics and law, says the so-called "free" markets ushered in by current farm policy have done with farm policy what no CEO would do with their own corporation. He points out that no CEO in their right mind would give up the right to idling the productive capacity of their industry to balance inventories. Yet, as Harl points out, this is exactly what the most recent farm bill accomplished.

He states, "In 1933 and every farm bill until 1996 (Freedom to Farm Bill) the secretary of agriculture was authorized to regulate production in some form. This was eliminated by the FAIR ACT (Freedom to Farm) of 1996. Under the guise of free market advocacy this farm policy has ushered in a dark era of concentration and financial trauma to farmers. It has also resulted in federal bailouts exceeding $22 billion last year alone."

Harl finishes emphatically, "I have stated publicly, on more than one occasion, that the 1996 farm bill was the second most irresponsible Congressional act in the twentieth century.'

No one can deny the influence farm policy has on prices. What is less clear is who influences the groups that influence farm policy.

The Farm Bureau
Farm Bureau is the organization most often mentioned as the longest running of the so-called agricultural "front"groups. So much so that the Farm Bureau leadership was recently the subject of a CBS "60 Minutes" piece by Mike Wallace. The CBS expose interviewed several Farm Bureau leaders and farmers, and explored some of the Iowa Farm Bureau agribusiness financial ties - including $3.5 billion in FBL Financial Services - a Farm Bureau related company.

At the core of the issue of who Farm Bureau represents is what members are calling "conflicts of interest."Critics claim that because Farm Bureau leaders are heavily invested in businesses that sell to and buy from farmers, they can't adequately represent farmers' interests. Farm Bureau members are starting to demand answers.

"Farm Bureau has the same relationship to its members as Sears and Roebuck does to its customers," says Fred Stokes, a Mississippi Farm Bureau farmer and president of the Organization for Competitive markets (OCM).

Last November, when it was discovered that the American Farm Bureau Washington's lobbyists had sent a letter opposing a moratorium on agribusiness mergers to all Congressional members, Stokes rallied his Mississippi Farm Bureau to pass a resolution "rebuking"national leadership for "conflicts of interests."

"The national Farm Bureau policy book is full of statements expressing concern about concentration of market power and monopoly in agribusiness," says Stokes in an OCM press release. "Yet AFBF president Dean Kleckner and the national staff consistently sell out their members and jump in bed with agribusiness." In addition to the complaints about who the Farm Bureau represents when they lobby, there is rising concern about how they pay for this lobbying.

In 1993 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began investigating the Farm Bureau's membership. There were concerns within the IRS surrounding Farm Bureau's practice of not paying taxes on dues received from non-farmer members who had joined only to receive insurance. They questioned if this practice was consistent with the nonprofit tax code involving "unrelated business income."

IRS investigated the matter and found only 5 percent of Farm Bureau's non-farming membership had "joined for an interest in agriculture" (IRS Technical Memo 12/20/93). Further examination of the issue led the IRS to determine that Farm Bureau was operating as if it were a "for-profit" business. They ordered the Farm Bureau to pay millions in back taxes. After significant lobbying, Farm Bureau was successful in advancing themselves an exemption via the 105th Congress in 1996.

National Attention
The recently aired CBS "60 Minutes" segment came on the heels of an investigation of the Farm Bureau by Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders of Wildlife had gone toe-to-toe with Farm Bureau leadership about wolf reintroduction in the West. Defenders joined a lawsuit against the Farm Bureau who was seeking to have the wolves removed. (During this investigation Defenders became very interested in Farm Bureau's business connections and began an internal investigation.) After two years of examining records and interviewing farmers and ranchers Defenders released a report on the Farm Bureau entitled, "Amber Waves of Gain."

"The agribusiness connections are blatant," says Bob Ferris, vice president for species conservation at Defenders of Wildlife. "From the Farm Bureau co-ops to their insurance companies, from their joint ventures to stock holdings - Farm Bureau is deeply invested in companies with conflicting interests to farmers. At every turn their interests drive policy that not only undermines the environment, it undermines farmers."

When asked about Farm Bureau lobbying clout Ferris adds, "There is no doubt that Farm Bureau is the major player on farm policy in this nation - especially at the state level. Everyone knows they weigh-in on every significant piece of farm legislation discussed. So it's one of two things. Either they are so inept they have failed their farmers, or their leaders are deceptively advancing agribusiness interests. The evidence points to the latter."

John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union adds, "I've been working on farming concerns for 30 years and I can't think of a major issue where the Farm Bureau didn't have the same position as the grain and meat processors. It's impossible to represent the interests of food producers (farmers) as well as food processors like ConAgra, IBP and ADM. The two groups' economic interests are almost always at odds."

While Farm Bureau seems to be getting most of the spotlight these days, other so-called agricultural organizations are being increasingly scrutinized as "fronts" for agribusiness.

National Pork Producers Council
When Bill Christison, president of the National Family Farm Coalition talks about the NPPC his normally gentle voice gets tense. "They (National Pork Producers Council) absolutely do not represent the interests of the family farmer," Christison says emphatically. "NPPC has been to a great deal responsible for advancing industrialized agriculture. They take family farmer's money and use it to cut family farmer's throats. They accomplish it in a number of ways, but the result is the same - they favor and facilitate corporate style agriculture."

NPPC gained public attention recently when more than 19,000 independent pork producers signed petitions calling for an end to the "pork checkoff vote." The pork "checkoff" is a mandatory levy each independent producer must pay to the National Pork Board. For every pig they sell, they pay a per-unit price to the checkoff board. Initially envisioned as a way to advertise and advance pork products, farmers say the whole payment system has been co-opted to advance agribusiness policies. For the last three years the Pork Board has given all of their money to NPPC.

Rhonda Perry, program director for the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and member of the Campaign for Family Farms, has been a major leader in exposing NPPC and the pork checkoff. "The money blows through the pork board directly to the NPPC." Perry says, "Meanwhile, NPPC is masquerading as the family farmer, while advancing policies that benefit Smithfield and the other large corporate agribusiness processors. Agribusiness has been the key beneficiary of NPPC policies - and factory farming has been the result."

National Cattleman's Beef Association
Another key agricultural lobby group, the National Cattleman's Beef Association (NCBA), is under fire by its membership for many of the same reasons. Members feel they have no voice and their organization no longer serves them. "We figure they (NCBA) are representing our interests," says John Hays, president of the Oregon National Cattleman's Association. "Their money is coming in from the packers."

The "packers" Hays refers to is another word for corporate agribusiness. The major packers - corporations like ExCell and IBP - are billion-dollar-a-year outfits notorious for their disregard for family farming.

Hays and his Oregon Cattleman's Association, an affiliate of NCBA, has notified NCBA leaders they are officially withdrawing from the association.

"We are one of the first states that are pulling out of NCBA," says Hays. "But there are a lot of groups that feel the same way. There are two states that are definitely going to pull out - Oregon and North Dakota. A group of "like-minded" producers got together in Dallas two weeks ago and it turns out there are another 17 states interested. We gave NCBA our grievances and four hours to refute. If they don't resolve it there are going to be a lot of people who pull out of NCBA."

Wrap and Conclusion
"All [the Farm Bureau's] decisions are made for corporate America because they own part of it," Iowa farmer Linus Solberg told Mike Wallace during the interview aired to an audience of 18 million people.

Michael Stumo, general counsel for the Organization for Competitive Markets, says emphatically, "NCBA is a meat packer lobby who doesn't represent the interest of ranchers. Which is why Oregon Cattleman's Association is withdrawing from NCBA. They are just like the National Pork Producers Council - a meat packer lobby- plain and simple. These are industry groups that view what is good for the industry - not the farmer."

What is the Answer?
It is clear we need farm policy that works for farmers, not just corporate agribusiness profitably plowing global resources. But the burning question is how is this achieved? If members and others are right about these "front" groups, there is a basic deception that must be understood by policy makers. And until it is understood family farmers will continue to suffer.

As we look at burgeoning populations and the massive impacts of current agricultural practices, it becomes urgent that policy makers dig into the truth about these matters.

Rhonda Perry sums, "I don't have a problem with multi-national corporations lobbying on their own behalf. It's a free country. They should be allowed to do that. If Farm Bureau or National Pork Producers want to go to Congress to represent ADM (Archer-Daniels Midland) or Premium Standard Farms that's O.K. with me. But don't pretend to be something you're not and don't pretend to help family farmers."

home FAQ nutrition order contact about
 King Orchards Copyright 2003 Apple Journal
updated- April 12th, 2004
 Apple Journal