The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1939-1949, 1944-03-23
Farm Of uiure
To Be acfory

The farmer of the postwar
period will be an industrialist as
well as a producer of raw ma
terials for industrial purposes, d
Howard Doane, of st. Louis, pre-
diets. g. .-.: b. ->-E..
Doane, the nations leading pro-
fessional manager of farms, with
$4,000 acres under his supervi-
sion, says: ssThe next and biggest
step in agriculture is establish
ment of fixed and movable pro-
cessing plants, handling agricul-
tural products grown near by,
which will extract, compress, de-
hydrate, refrigerate, concentrate
and fabricate these farm COM
moditieS. e 49,, ~
ssMost of this will be first-Step
processing only. Much of the
product-often SO per cent to 30
per cent of it-need never leave
the community. The farmer will be
his own best customer For ex-
ample, in crushing soybeans, 30
per cent of the product is oil
meal needed, locally for feed. Why
ship it somewhere, get it tangled
up in a maze of distribution and
selling, then ship it back?
"The rest of the product will
usually go to city industry for
further processing into refined and
precision goods. For instance, the
soybean oil, which may end up
in cooking fat or SOAP"
Products which offer the best
possibilities for first-processing
in rural industries are that which
are bulky, full of water, or perish
able; or those where large num-
Der of handlers have crowded be-
tween producer and consumer.
Some of the processing will be
done on individual farms, some
by farmers co-operatives, some by
private companies, including rural
branches of city industries. Mint
processing locally is a good ex-
ample of the plan being advo-
Gated.
Doane calls the new program
vertical Investigation" explain
ing this to mean that, instead of
raising many kinds of crops,
known as horizontal diversified
tion," the farmer concentrates on
his most profitable crop, and
makes it as nearly ready for the
consumer as he can.
"With horizontal diversified
tion," he says, ga farmer stays a
raw producer, and in any line
the raw producer, unless tightly
organized, is the poorest-paid man
in the picture, whether he be
farmer, fisherman or wood-chop
per.
"That's because there is such a
multitude of producers, all COM
peting one with another, and all
forced to 60 on whether the price
is high or low.
1--WE face three SURPRISES sooner
or later after the war ends" Doane
claims. First will be a surplus
of young people looking for jobs.
More of them want to live in
rural America than have ever been
able to find opportunity there.
There will be the most mechanic
ally-trained young folks we ever
had-well able to run the machin-
cry in rural industries.
Second will be a surplus Of
certain agricultural products. With
less men, less machinery, less
fertilizer, less everything, farmers
last year produced at an all-time
high. What will they be able to
do when they get enough of all
of these again, on top of further
advances in farming methods?
"We won't be able to export
much, in the face of increasing
agricultural competitor all over
the world, nor will we 60 on
indefinitely with a free feeding
program for distressed nations.
Rather we will help them build
their own agriculture. It will be
cheaper for us and better for
them. All of this means that
from here on, farmers will have
to depend on something more
than more raw production.
"Third will be surplus of fac
tory space, which could well be
turned to making the new ma
chimes and tools farmers will need
for producing and processing farm
crops"
The President has appointed
Floyd B. Odlum to head OPM's
division of contract distribution.
The purpose of the new set-up is
to see to it that defense contracts
are broken down and such work
as can be done by them is parceled
out to small industries. The pur-
pose is that the work may move
more rapidly and also that small
industries which cannot secure the
larger contracts may be kept in
operation.
Motion picture producers of Hol-
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