A Wonderful Thing

The vigilant, self-reliant citizens of southern Texas' Rio Grande Valley knew little about the newly formed Rio Farms, Inc.; but what little they did know made them mighty suspicious. That was in 1941.

It seemed that the Farm Security Administration had lent five substantial Valley farmers and businessmen $1,226,350 (payable in 50 years) to buy 26,000 neglected acres of the local delta orchard land. These salaryless "directors" were going to operate the tract on an "altruistic, nonprofit" basis, as a kind of socio-economic experiment.

The object was to make self-sustaining landowners out of experienced and dependable tenant farmers, sharecroppers and farm laborers who had no land or equipment. The tenants would be allowed to lease farm land at from $5 to $29 an acre, and pay rent from earnings. They would buy equipment and market their produce cooperatively. Eventually, the tract would be broken up into small farms to be sold to tenants on a long-term payment plan. When directors and members had proved themselves, Government supervision would stop.

"Little Soviet." Old-line men of the Valley shied instinctively from such a deal. Congressmen were bombarded with protests. Wrathy editorials inveighed against the new "little Soviet." About the best anyone would predict for the model community, or corporation, or self-liquidating cooperative, or whatever it was, was a short and futile life. By last week they had changed their views. Rio Farms was a capitalistic enterprise, after all, and a paying one to boot.

In their first fiscal year, the 100-odd grateful Rio tenants had confirmed the gloomiest predictions, lost $25,712 reviving the run-down land. In February 1943, FSA Assistant Regional Director W. A. Canon, who had envisioned the project and almost singlehandedly set it going, called in big, capable FSAman Sam D. Tayloe to manage the farms. Tayloe quit FSA to take the job. Almost immediately, things began to improve.

By September, Rio's board of directors had assumed full administrative control, and FSA had become only a lien holder. Then, in January 1945, Manager Tayloe walked proudly into the FSA office in Dallas with a check for $933,000. The entire federal mortgage had been paid off in three years, 47 years before it was due; the tenants were happy and reasonably prosperous, and the corporation had enough cash in the till to donate $20,000 to Texas agricultural experimenters.

More important still, the Rio experiment had proved that hard work and cooperation, plus Government help without Government interference, could beat the old, relentless U.S. economy of waste; most of the land of Rio Farms had lain unused during the whole, dreary dust-bowl migration.

By last week, in the first step toward the No. 1 Rio Farms objective, five of the now 200 tenants had applications approved for ownership of the land they had farmed under lease. Said lean, sun-bleached Tenant Nicholas Renfro, who netted $3,000 last year and plans to buy 80 acres: "I was just a one-mule-team farmer, like a thousand other guys. Now I got my own tractor and equipment, and I'm aimin' to own my own home and land. It's a wonderful thing. . . ."

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