Down on the Farm

Most of the nation's crops had been harvested and sent to market, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture had some glowing statistics to report. Net farm income, said Agriculture, will increase over 1960's $12 billion to a total of $12.8 billion, making 1961 the most prosperous year since 1953. But there was another, gloomier side to the statistics: $4.7 billion of the farmers' income will come from Government support programs, a jump of $600 million over 1960--and only the farmers with heavily subsidized crops really seem to think they are any better off.

Wheat, for example, gets high supports, and U.S. wheat farmers are clearly enjoying life. In wheat-growing Finney County, Kans., Farmer Frank Oldweiler got perfect growing weather through the summer; in July he harvested one of his best crops ever from his 1,200 acres. With the profit, Oldweiler has air-conditioned his home, bought a hundred head of cattle, increased his life insurance, and scheduled a two-week family vacation in California instead of the usual Christmas holiday in Wichita.

Quite a Difference. Another crop with hefty props is cotton, and in the delta country around Hollandale, Miss., some cotton farmers this year picked two bales to the acre, almost double the past average. Cotton gins ran 18 hours a day, and wagons were backed up waiting to reach the gin. Hollandale Appliance Dealer J. W. Fore, who is also the town's mayor, already is reaping the result. "One man who lost a television set he bought from me to the finance company last year came in and bought a new stove and a dining room suite of furniture and paid cash."

But other farming fields were far less productive. Around Aroostook, Me., because of oversupply, growers are getting $1.15 per barrel for potatoes that cost $2 to produce. "It's the worst I've ever seen," said one shipper. In Vermont, Dairy Farmer Harry R. Varney Jr. logged the worst year in seven for his 50-cow herd. Said Varney: "My investment is about $75,000, and it seems to me a man should be able to make about t $300 a month to live on and about 5% return on his investment. But I won't make that this year. And in another two years I may be out of business." In California's Tulare County, second richest farming county in the U.S., net income fell on oranges, nectarines and alfalfa. "There is too much spread between what the farmer is paid and what you pay in the store," said County Agent Sheldon N. Jackson. "He gets 2-c--a pound for nectarines. You pay 15-c-. That's quite a difference."

Quite a While. For many farmers, increased costs caused losses. Merced County, Calif., growers harvested a poor barley crop because they lacked water; with the water table dropping, some farmers had to pay $15 a foot to deepen wells. Michigan Dairy Farmer Lloyd Smith reckoned the cost of a new tractor at $6,000 compared with $3,000 ten years ago, also paid taxes of $964 as against $276 when he bought his 345-acre farm nine years ago. Thus, in many U.S. areas, bankers and merchants reported increases in credit buying and loan extensions by farmers. Said Tractor Dealer Dan Humason of Kings County, Calif.: "We carry them. Lord knows we carry them. We've carried some of them ten months, and that's longer than their mothers carried them."

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