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Farmers Vow Strike

By VVAW

U.S. farmers are on the move. Beginning in Colorado, where banks expect 30% of the state's farms to go bankrupt this year alone, the American Agriculture Movement (AAM) has grown and spread to nearly every state in the union. This movement was highlighted late in November when 20,000 farms and family members demonstrated in Plains, GA., driving through town on 10,000 tractors. Similar large demonstrations were held the same day in other parts of the country.

The AAM is calling for farmers to strike beginning December 14. Farmers are being called upon not to sell crops already planted or harvested and not to produce any more until they begin getting a better price for their product.

CRISIS IN AGRICULTURE

Farmers, who are small businessmen, are in the midst of a massive crisis. They are caught in a gigantic scissors, with the high costs of machinery, fertilizer, seed, land, etc., forming one blade and low prices (often lower than production costs) farmers receive for their produce forming the other blade. The whole scissors is the monopoly capitalists, with the farm equipment monopolies like John Deer, International Harvester, Allis-Chalmers, big seed and fertilizer companies on the one side and gigantic grain and produce buying conglomerate, like Cargill and Continental, Libby's and Del Monte, along with the large supermarket chains, controlling the market on the other.

And since farmers are small businessmen, they are forced to compete and therefore keep up with developments and advances in agriculture, borrowing capital for expansion. Bankruptcies on farms have been high ever since World War 2, as some farmers couldn't come up with the capital to invest in new and bigger machinery necessary to complete. They went under and their more successful neighbors got bigger, by renting more land from the banks or farmers "lucky" enough to save their land during bankruptcy - and farming larger and larger acreages.

This continuous necessity of expansion also squeezes farmers as the price of new machinery suffers inflation at a higher rate than the goods it helps to grow. As if this was not enough, farmers in most states still face a yearly battle with nature when flood or drought may destroy the better part of year's work.

While the average family farmer may farm 1000 acres or more, and have over a quarter million dollars worth of machinery, he often lives on less in a year than an auto worker - even when pulling a forty-hour week in some small factory during off-season.

Recently, this squeeze has become sharper. In the Rocky Mountain states, where the AAM first took hold, some one of every four farms is expected to go bankrupt this year. The price of agricultural commodities is not expected to meet both the costs of production or the loan repayment requirements of many farmers.

The AAM is demanding 100% parity, roughly the same situation that existed in 1973. The formula for arriving at parity is complicated but it boils down to this: 100% parity means that the price the farmer receives for his crops equals the cost of production plus a decent standard of living for the farmer and his family. The current parity ratio is 64%. Very simply, farmers want higher prices for their products.

The upsurge of the nation's farmers is to be welcomed. The interests of workers and farmers, in opposition to those who make great wealth off the working people, should be drawn tighter, not divided over who should pay, workers or farmers. The spearhead of the farmers' struggle must be directed especially against the extortion of interests and foreclosures by the banks, against the high prices charged farmers for equipment, as well as against the grain speculators and the food processors. The demand that the government come to the aid of small farmers threatened with bankruptcy should also be supported. Make the monopolies pay must be the watchword during the current crisis in agriculture.