100 THE CORPORATE INVASION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE through legislation. When a farm product is ready for market, the farmer has an enormous "short-term investment" in it. The working man's only "investment" in his product is a long-term investment. He has received training, served an apprenticeship, or gained experience and seniority over a long period. No immediate pay-off beyond the welfare of himself and his family is necessary. But the farmer has much greater pressure on him--generally from the bank or other lending institutions, as well as from the implement dealer and supplier. Therefore, an essential part of the farmer's effort to control the conditions of sale of his products must be to enlarge his control over the market system through cooperatives. These cooperatives must include processing, and perhaps in some instances, distribution of products. They must at the very least provide alternative marketing routes. The only alternative for the farmer must not be to hold his product until it rots, spoils, or deteriorates. The reason farmers must have "alternatives" in the market place is that the buying side of the market has alternatives. Pitting farmers--fragmented into thousands of units--against this kind of power is comparable to requiring "local unions" to bargain only with regional or national industries. The end of such "bargaining"--and it could hardly be called that--is inevitable. The local union loses. The farmer should not confine his direct action against corporate America to the market system, of course. He must also exert pressure to have some control over the prices he pays. If he doesn't, corporate America will get what it loses in the marketing system by simply raising prices of the things the farmer buys. Remember, corporate America is one system, related by blood, common stock and interlocks. New interest must develop in cooperatives for supplies and equipment. This, too, must provide alternative routes through which farmers can make purchases. We have suggested some possible defenses against the corporate forces that are invading rural America. Whatever those defenses are to be--or if they are to be--they must be erected by rural America. Stated in military terms, what we have suggested is that we must organize our troops, cultivate our allies, weaken the enemy's sources of supply, and intercept his supply lines. Are you, brothers and sisters, ready to save rural America? BIBLIOGRAPHY Chapter I FREEMAN, Orville L. World Without Hunger, New York, N. Y.: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1968. GALBRAITH, John Kenneth. The New Industrial State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1967. HACKER, Andrew (Edited by). The Corporation Take-Over. New York, N. Y.: Harper, 1964. HAMILTON, Walton, The Politics of Industry. New York, N. Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957. HARRINGTON, Michael. Toward A Democratic Left. New York, N. Y.: MacMillan Company, 1968. JOHNSON, Lyndon, President. Message to Congress. January 30, 1967. Saturday Evening Post, May 18, 1968. U. S. Department of Agriculture. Farmers In a Changing World. 1940 Yearbook. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office. Chapter II ASPELIN, Arnold and Gerald Engelman. Packer Feeding of Cattle, Packers & Stockyards Division, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1966. Business Week, August 26, 1967. Cervi's Rocky Mountain Journal, Denver, Colo.: January 11, 1967, March 17, 1968, April 28, 1968, July 17, 1968. CREW, W. C. and John O'Dea. Low Man On The Totem Pole. Privately Published, 1962. Des Moines (Iowa) Register, February 26, 1967. MAGOWAN, Robert A. Chains and Change in Agribusiness. Washington, D. C.: Foundation for American Agriculture. New York Times, New York, N. Y., May 5, 1968, June 18, 1968. Report of the National Commission on Food Marketing, Food From Farmer to Consumer. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1966. St. Louis (Mo.) Post Dispatch, March 6, 1968. 102 THE CORPORATE INVASION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE Chapter III KRAENZEL, Carl Frederick, The Great Plains in Transition. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955. McDONALD, Angus. The San Luis Reclamation Bill, New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University, 1966. Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado., September 28, 1967. The American West. March, 1968 issue. Palo Alto, California: American West Publishing Company. U. S. Geological Survey. Potential Ground Water Development in the Northern Part of the Colorado High Plains, 1963. VOGT, William. Road to Survival. New York, N. Y.: William Sloan Associates. Chapter IV Des Moines (Iowa) Register, March 17, 1968, March 20, 1968. Chapter V Charts by National Farmers Union, Washington, D. C. Beef Price Break Costs Producers $2,000,000, 1964. Federal Trade Commission, Docket 7453, Federal Trade Commission in the matter of National Tea Co. Chapter VI Feedstuffs, Magazine of Agribusiness. Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 1, 1968. FREEMAN, Orville L. World Without Hunger. New York, N. Y.: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1968. HACKER, Andrew (Edited by). The Corporation Take-Over. New York, N. Y.: Harper, 1964. LUNDBERG, Ferdinand. The Rich and the Super Rich. New York, N. Y.: Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1968. PALMER, Lane. Bargaining Power: How Much Can Farmers Get? Speech to the Western Farmers Association, February 8, 1968, at Seattle, Washington. BIBLIOGRAPHY Platte Valley (Neb.) Farmer Stockman, July, 1968. 103 Staff Report of the Subcommittee on Domestic Finance, House Committee on Banking and Currency. Commercial Banks and Their Trust Activities: Emerging Influence on the American Economy. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, July 8, 1968. Wallace's Farmer, Des Moines, Iowa, February 24, 1968. Wall Street Journal, New York, N. Y., August 9, 1967, June 27, 1968, July 11, 1968. Chapter VII Congressional Record, Washington, D. C., February 5, 1968 (S868). Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, October 20, 1967, April 12, 1968. Prospectus of Arizona-Colorado Land & Cattle Company, New York, N. Y.: W. E. Hutton Co., June 12, 1968. STERN, Philip M. The Great Treasury Raid, New York, N. Y.: Random House. The Owyhee (Idaho) Nugget, August 10, 1968. Washington Post, Washington, D. C., July 7, 1968. Chapter VIII Congressional Record, Washington, D. C., June 20, 1968. STERN, Philip M. The Great Treasury Raid. New York, N. Y.: Random House. |