--- begin forwarded text
From: "Scotty Johnson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "(Farm Bureau Investigation}" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 16:40:19 -0700
Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
Hi Folks,
I will be sending updates over the next few days on the call for an
investigation into the Farm Bureau. Please take a moment and
forward this piece, by Al Krebbs, on the farm bureau to all you
know.
Also, please post this to any chat rooms, list serves you belong to.
Kind Regards,
Scotty Johnson
GREEN Rural Community Outreach Coordinator
520 623 9653
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The AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER
Issue # 70 April 16, 2000
Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness From a Public Interest
Perspective
A.V. Krebs - Editor\Publisher
EDITORS NOTE: The few sustaining the many! That has been
pretty much the story in the some 19 months since THE
AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER first began appearing on computer
screens. During the course of its existence, a small, but financially
loyal group of folks have provided me with most welcome support,
but their number is small compared to the near 1000 folks who
today receive THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER.
In conceiving THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER, this editor wanted
to make it as inexpensive to readers as he possibly could; hence,
no subscription price, just personally affordable contributions.
Thus, donations will, as always, be gladly accepted. Checks made
out to A.V. Krebs, P.O. Box 2201, Everett, Washington 98203-
0201 (NOT to the "Agribusiness Examiner") will continue
to be received with much gratitude. To those loyal folks who have
sent me financial support in the past my sincere thanks for your
continued support.
COMMENTARY:
Investigating the American Farm Bureau
To those farmers, consumers and elected representatives who have
traditionally entertained the notion that the American Farm Bureau
Federation (AFBF) is "the voice of American agriculture" the recent
"60 Minutes" expose of the Farm Bureau's financial affairs may
have come as a shock.
Likewise to many farmers, weaned on AFBF propaganda, Mike
Wallace's report may have appeared as yet one more attack on
agriculture by a corporate dominated media, a renewed attempt to
portray farmers and farm organizations as more concerned with the
bottom line than with feeding people.
Unfortunately, the "60 Minutes" piece contributed in some measure
to such an impression by making it appear that the Farm Bureau's
financial interests and the rewarding of their officers with lucrative
financial investments was all of recent origin. Such is not the case,
however, for from the days of its very founding the Farm Bureau's
bureaucracy has solidly aligned itself with the interests of corporate
agribusiness, treating its members not as members, but rather as
docile paying customers.
Anyone familiar with Dale Kramer's timely The TRUTH About the
Farm Bureau, published in the mid-30's and reprinted in 1950,
Wesley McCune's well-documented The Farm Bloc, published in
1943, Samuel R. Berger's telling Dollar Harvest: An Expose of the
Farm Bureau, published in 1971 and Grant McConnell's thoughtful
The Decline of Agrarian Democracy published in 1977 knows that
the Farm Bureau has indeed been the "enemy within" agriculture,
that it's leadership has paid scant attention to the needs of family
farmers while enriching themselves at the expense of those same
members.
Had "60 Minutes" simply made a passing references to the
pioneering work of these authors, in addition to the efforts of the
late Rep. Joseph Resnick (Dem-N.Y.) in the late 1960's to expose
the Farm Bureau, the viewing public would have soon realized that
the Farm Bureau is an 80 year-old scandal in agriculture that not
only our elected representatives, but the nation's major farm
organizations have refused to confront.
In a speech on the House of Representatives floor in 1967 that still
resonates today Rep. Resnick charged that the Farm Bureau had
done more to prevent the economic and social advancement of
rural citizens than any other organization in America.
"The Farm Bureau is entitled to its full share of the blame for the
fact that our rural areas are burdened with the most poverty, highest
unemployment, least social and economic development, and
poorest health facilities in the Nation. Their crime has not been
mere indifference. Quite the contrary. They have intensively fought
every attempt to correct these ills."
In brief touching on the fact that the Farm Bureau still opposes the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 and calls for the abolishment of the
Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Energy,
opposes the Equal Rights Amendment, opposes gun control, "60
Minutes" failed to note that much of the AFBF's political activity, as
Resnick, his one-time legislative assistant Sandy Berger (yes! the
same Sandy Berger that now heads the nation's National Security
Agency), Wes McCune and others have found particularly
unsettling is the Bureau's close ties with the political far right in
the
United States.
"What might once have been a conservative, business-oriented
organization is now considerably more," Resnick declared in his
House speech. "By my calculation, the Farm Bureau is the most
efficient conduit now in existence for the dissemination of right-wing
propaganda. The Bureau is perfect sewer line for transporting right-
wing ideology, particularly to our young."
It would be unfair to blame the AFBF entirely for the recent spate of
fascist, racist, anti-Semitic vigilante farm groups which have sprung
up throughout the U.S. in the past 20 years, born in frustration and
nurtured by a depressed farm economy. However, the Farm
Bureau, through its long-standing role as a visible propaganda
agent for right-wing extremism, certainly made itself the spawning
ground for much of the misdirected, unsocial and violent behavior
that one finds in many of our depressed farm communities.
Thus, the time is long overdue for a thorough Congressional
investigation of the Farm Bureau and its business practices, its tax-
exempt status, its very structure, its hidden motives behind its
vigorous efforts to expand the nation's crop insurance program, and
in general its political muscle, often exercised not in the name of
family farm agriculture, but in the promotion of the interests of its
corporate agribusiness brethren. Certainly, Mike Wallace's "60
Minutes" essay was a good start.
Now Defenders of the Wildlife is currently spearheading such a
national effort to get such an investigation underway and while the
campaign has the support of many environmental organizations it
still needs the solid backing of many more local and national farm
organizations to succeed for such an investigative effort must not
be seen as renewed conflict between farmers and
environmentalists, but rather as a concerted attempt to bring
long overdue economic and social justice to rural America.
A Defenders report, Amber Waves of Gain, highlights many areas
of Farm Bureau operations and demonstrates that the Farm Bureau
is an intricate web of interconnecting business interests, including
insurance companies,agribusiness giants and banks, linked with
the national federation, the 50 state bureaus, more than 2,800
county bureaus and 4.9 million members, although 1997 Census of
Agriculture figures show that there are only 1.9 million farms in the
U.S.
To obtain a copy of Amber Waves of Gain or a list of the 180-plus
groups joining in the call for action, contact Ken Goldman at (202)
682-9400 x237. The report is also available in PDF format at
http://www.defenders.org
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University of Iowa
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