The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1932-01-01
FAILURE OF FARM BOARD
DEPENDS ON POINT
OF VIEW
By Caleb Johnson

|
Is the Farm Board failure?
The answer, as see it, is Eyes and
no."
No governmental institution in r C
ent times has had to face such a
heavy storm of criticism and con-
demnation as the Federal Farm
Board is now facing. But most of
the criticism is based upon the fact
that the Farm Boards efforts at
sterilization of the wheat and cotton
markets failed to keep the price of
those commodities up to the high
levels of boom times. Very little
criticism, except such as originates
with purely selfish commercial in
terests, is based upon the primary
purpose of the Farm Board, which is
the encouragement and development
of farmer-owned cooperative mar
keting associations.
That is the primary purpose for
which the Farm Board was estab-
lished. The title of the law creating
the Farm Bosrd is "the Cooperative
Marketing Act" There is room for
very grave doubt that Congress
showed good judgment in tying up
financial scheme for stabilizing prices
of future commodities with scheme
for the encouragement of co-opera-
tive marketing. It was like tying
something which has always proved
a failure with something which under
intelligent management has always
proved beneficial. And it is human
nature to see the failure and not to
see the benefits, which fact in itself
accountsfor great deal of the pres
ent criticism of the Farm Board.
Careful study of the second annual
report of the Federal Farm Board
suggests that perhaps, even admit
ting the loss of $177,O 900, in it's
stabilizing operations, the ultimate
benefit to farmers through the estab-
lishment and financing of 1O9 major
commodity co-operatives, which in
clude II, $50 local associations hav-
ing total membership OF about three
million farmers, is worth the cost.
These associations handle cotton and
cotton products, dairy products, for
age crops, fruits, vegetables and
nuts, grains, livestock, poultry and
poultry products, tobacco, wool and
mohair and miscellaneous commodi-
tiles. They did a total business in the
last fiscal year of two billion four
hundred million dollars. Dairy pro-
ducts and grains ran almost neck and
neck in the total volume of sales by
farmer owned co-operatives, the
business in grains done by these
organizations being six hundred and
twenty-one million dollars, and in
dairy products six hundred twenty
million.
The Farm Board encouraged and
aided these co-operatives by loans
amounting in all to $1O9, 900, 600.
These We're not loans against crops,
but loans for the purpose of enabling
co-operatives to purchase necessary
equipment, finance the construction
OF warehouses and elevators
short, to provide facilities for carry
ing on business of dealing in agri-
cultural commodities. Crop loans
are not within the Farm Boards
authority.
AS in every other line of business
activity, the history of we'll managed
co-operatives is that they are sue
cessful. and of badly managed CO.
operatives is that they are failures.
| The criticism to which the Farm
Board is being subjected is not, how
ever, ostensibly directed at its opera
tons in the development of co-opera-
tive marketing. The point of the
criticism is the apparent failure of
its effort to stabilize wheat and cot
ton prices by financing organizations
which have brought and are holding
large reserves of these commodities
which have been steadily dropping
in price. The weakness of the Farm
Boards position under this kind of