The lost agenda: rural and farm programs

by Clara Jorgenson

This article was reprinted from the May 18, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) leader John L. Lewis, in a speech to the founding convention of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers Union of America in July 1937, said the following:

"The CIO has now entered one of the most important areas of American industry. Agricultural workers are the most oppressed part of our population. Men, women and even very young children toil from dawn to dark at wages that are a disgrace to America. Their living conditions are appalling. And until the CIO entered this field, no real attempt has ever been made to help these millions of workers whose condition is one of the blackest blots on the nation.

The working farmers of America have a great stake in the CIO's crusade to raise the level of living of the working people of this country. No paradox in American life has been more shocking than the existence on the one hand, of gigantic farm surpluses, while barely across the street millions of people have gone hungry for want of these foods. Only when the industrial workers, steadily marching toward higher standards of living, can buy the farm products they need will the farm problem be solved.

The American worker and the American farmer have a common goal, and that goal is that every citizen of our country shall have the right and opportunity to earn a decent living. One of the salient tasks of the CIO in organizing the rural wage earner is to cooperate with the working farmer in reaching this goal. All of us, whether from factory or farm, must join to realize our common aim of higher standards and economic security for the people of our nation."

These farm laborers were among the most shamefully exploited workers in our society, laborers President Roosevelt described as the one-third of our population ill-fed, ill- housed and ill-clothed. Similarly exploited were the four to four and a half million working farmers - the men who work with their families on a family-sized farm unlimited hours at the mercy of drought, floods, uncertain markets, big mortgages, interest and a rapacious food processing and distributing industry.

In the years since the 1930s, the number of farmers have dwindled to about two million. Much of our history has been hidden from us. We need to update that.

In the 1930s we won the rural electrification project which became a rallying cry from the rural areas. It cost the government a mint. Now we must have nuclear-free electricity across the nation by erecting wind machinery, which they tell us is already viable, and ethanol gas made from corn.

Roosevelt's program of planting shelter belts to protect us from a dust bowl like in the 30s must be renewed, as the powers that be made farmers plow them up to farm fence-row to fence-row. This will help the environment and stop the terrible erosion of our soil. If land is not husbanded it can amount to 35 to 40 tons of erosion per acre per year. We jokingly say we have to go down to the Gulf of Mexico to get our soil back.

We must have an ever normal granary policy like the one that was put in place by Agriculture Secretary Henry A. Wallace and his assistant, Fred Stover, appointed by Roosevelt and the brains behind this policy. When reaction took over, the grain cartels became the beneficiaries; they got it all for a song.

We must have:

1. 100 percent of parity. It is like union wages.

2. Low cost loans.

3. A single-payer health care system.

4. Repeal of GATT and NAFTA which hurt rural America.

5. Abolition of all pesticides and herbicides used in soil and food products, as well as produce coming into the U.S. using our pesticides and herbicides that were outlawed here. A worker should not have to choose between a job and death or a safe job.

6. Free education and constant use of facilities in schools plus child care centers and free school lunches.

7. Massive building projects, not only in urban areas but in rural areas, to preserve our communities.

8. A Civilian Conservation Corps like in the 30s with decent wages and education, for cleaning up our forests and other necessary improvement.

9. Spousal recognition of a farm woman's contributions to the farm, whether working on or off the farm.

10. Nuclear disarmament the world over, and cut, cut military spending.

11. Sustainable agriculture supported so we will have non- hazardous food.

12. An equal price for all milk produced in the U.S. The Midwest farmers have suffered greatly from this discrimination.

13. Prices on farm land must not exceed what the land is able to produce.

These programs worked well before, they will work again.

-Clara Jorgenson is a reader from Askov, Minnesota.