The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-01-13
Bad Start in Wheat Control

The last place in the world to advise curtailment OF
wheat production it would seem would be the North
west. Yet that is what the federal Farm board is doing
That is, the farmers of Minnesota, the Dakotas and
Montana. who produce that high protein grade of grain
for which millers have been paying premium in the last
few years are asked to grow less as a means of reducing
the surplus of wheat. OF protein wheat, the milers
have not, however, been able to get that proportion that
milling could use to make higher grades of flour.
At the same time that the Northwest is asked to grow
less of this high quality grain, the Southwest is allowed
to increase its acreage by 10000. It is this winter wheat
which, creates the surplus that is expected, or, if too large
in volume, remains in this country as a drug on the grain
market, reducing prices.
The advice Of the Farm board would not be SO serious
a matter if it were not for the implied threat which goes
with the suggestion. The farmers may find themselves
penalized in loans next fall. if they do not take orders.
1t is likely that these orders would be highly helpful in
aiding the Farm board to achieve for the grain growers
that relief which was contemplated in setting up the or
gauization and the system of control which is to be the
basis of solving and relieving agriculture'5 ills. But TN
allowing the Southwest to go ahead and increase acre
age, the Farm board undcniably made a false step. The ex-
cuse is that the seed already was in the ground when the
board thought Of its plan and pronulg ated it, along with
a recommendation for decreased cotton acreage in 1880.
That plan is to regulate loans in proportion as the
farmers curtail acreage. This years loans were an
emergency measure over which there was no such auto
matte regulation provided as the board intends to en-
force hereafter. Anyhow, the same treatment is not as
sured for 1880, says the board. 1t cannot protect the
farmers. it says. II they deliberately %overplant.
One cannot criticize the Farm board too freely. for
it must be conceded that 1t has a complex problem to
work. out and that there is no experience to be guided
by. 10 that it is quite possible that, from time to time,
opportunities to do the right and wise thing may pass
before that wise and right thing is perceived. AS Chair
man Legsc said to the senate investigating committee,
the board could not be expected to possess the wisdom
en- tho spur of the momen. for which the lawmakers
Of tho nation had been creeping eight years without get
ting anywhere.
But it is plain that the Northwest is pcnalized by Tho
circumstances as they have developed. Worse yet, If the
Curtailment the Northwest can make in its acreage this
spring should be made and should better 1890 wheat prices.
then the Southwest growers will profit by the sacrifice
of the Northwest. in spite OF what the Minneapolis
Tribune terms the profligate planting of the Southwest.
The section doing the right thing would be pcnaiScd
while the section taking the hostile course would be
rewarded. 1t would not be a just and consistent outcome.
Such a blunder must not happen again. Already it
has damaged the prestige of the Farm board and COM
promised the policy Of farm relief by the bad beginning
thus made in inaugurating one line of solution OF III.
disturbing surplus problem.