Failed farms got folded into larger operations at cut-rate prices. 0000052562 00000 n His policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs. 0000043106 00000 n 0000060947 00000 n A Des Moines Register poll indicated last year that less than half of Iowa farmers thought Butz was doing a good job, and some farm leaders regard Iowa as a bellwether. Earl Butz. Despite helping to eradicate acute hunger and malnutrition, the bill devastated small farmers and contributed to decreasing the number of farms in America by 63%, effectively changing rural landscapes and economies. 0000044154 00000 n Overall farm income jumped along with grain prices, from $2.3 billion in 1972 to $19.6 billion in '73. During his leadership from 1964 to 1982, Premier Leonid Brezhnev made it official Soviet policy to maintain steady growth in the livestock industry. Butz's critics also noted that he was a director of three large agribusiness corporations. Reading Eagle . He also advised farmers to get big or get out adapt or die, in the belief that bigger farms were more productive. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Butz's motto became "get big or get out," encouraging the growth of corporate factory-farms and increasing subsidised production of staples for export. Butz had helped to arrange that sale in the hope of giving a boost to crop prices to bring restive farmers tempted to vote for George McGovern into the Republican fold.[10]. They pointed out that he was leaving the board of Ralston Purina Company to become Secretary of Agriculture, while Hardin was departing the Agriculture Department to become vice chairman of the same firm. 0000070292 00000 n 0000061409 00000 n [21][22][23][24], In November 1977, Butz debated writer Wendell Berry at Manchester University in Manchester, Indiana. On June 19, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Agriculture expanded early American cities and fostered a booming urban population. 0000007619 00000 n 16The average income of farmers, which doubled following the first farm bill, fell to late 1920s levels, and farmers returned to practices of overproduction to make ends meet. The act granted settlers one hundred and sixty acres of land, which they would own outright on the condition of improvement after five years of homesteading, or could purchase at a low cost after six months. All rights reserved. It is possible, too, that domestic food prices would drop, although, because of the middleman factor, that is far from certain. 0000060185 00000 n 0000000016 00000 n Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. He went on a speaking tour and encouraged farmers to plant fence row to fence row to meet global demand. 0000052349 00000 n Earl L. Butz You're working for yourselves, because you're trying to make a little money and save some of it. The 12,500 members of the American Farm Bureau Federation to whom he addressed those remarks recently in Indianapolis roared their approval. I think many educated consumers understand that most farmers often do very poorly financially and have only a small return on their investment. She points to the Secretary's recent creation of an eightmember Agriculture Department advisory committee to evaluate regulaLions affecting the food industry. First published in 2009. 0000019559 00000 n 0000046259 00000 n 0000016123 00000 n When prices threatened to go too high, the payments would end and the land would go back into cultivation. In King Corn, Butz argued that the corn subsidy had dramatically reduced the cost of food for all Americans by improving the efficiency of farming techniques. The changes implemented since the eighteenth century exemplify the need to reform policy in accordance with domestic and international circumstances. " Earl Butz 3. I got a royal welcomenot because I was Secretary of Agriculture. His technique, Foreman says, is to pose as friend of the farmer and try to pit him against consumers. So if youre tempted to feel sorry for the guy for getting torn up by historical forces he never understood, give it a rest. Membership was supposed to have included consumer interests, but the consumer representative turned out to be Jane Armstrong a vice president for consumer affairs of Jewell Food Stores, a major supermarket chain. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. 0000065262 00000 n 0000067068 00000 n He told department officials to handle the sales to Russia quietly through the private grain companies. Documents From the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 . American Memory from the Library of Congress . He was the eldest of five children and worked on his parents' 160-acre (65ha) farm while growing up. . Butzs great policy change had given rise to the deepest rural crisis since the Depression. 0000048619 00000 n Beginning in 1973, policy changes promoted by Nixon Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz deregulated the corn market. But the Times description of Butzs two fatal wisecracks, like the APs, eschewed direct quotation. It took a while to convert President Ford and Butz's remarks about that are revealing of the manner of this man who has become the nation's top agriculture policy maker: I told the President that a year ago we had the whole Midwest in the palm of our hand and we piddled it away with interference with grain exports. See more from The Dust Bowl. It was during this time that she first came into contact with drugs. in agriculture (1932) and a Ph. www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf, Atkin, Michael, Grain in the Global Political Economy. In, Henderson, G.C.. Notes and Memoranda: The Agricultural Credits Act of 1923., Rasmussen, Wade, Gladys Baker, and James Ward. By artificially increasing demand for food, food production became more efficient and drove down the cost of food for everyone. Harvest failures came repeatedly and were usually severe. Earl Butz No, I try not to be a negative thinker. The need for reformation has revealed no agricultural policies are sustainable for indefinite periods of time. A side goal was to go easy on the land. 0000068943 00000 n 0000050347 00000 n Farm income has shot up from $14 billion in 1970 to $26 billion now, and even after these figures are adjusted for inflation, they still reflect a nearly 20 percent increase. 0000044995 00000 n Then they made secret deals with the five biggest American grain companies for 24.2 million tons of grain worth almost $1.5 billion in 1972 dollars $7.6 billion in 2009 dollars. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. If lie doesn't get it, he'll have a firstclass farm issue on his hands because we'll have enough of a surplus to remind farmers that he's been against higher Government price supports. The General Accounting Office warns that such a bumper crop could deal a serious blow to the farm economy, because the Agriculture Department has no real plans for dealing with either surpluses or shortages. x|kQO$c*M3Sj 0000072272 00000 n Under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, Roosevelt passed the inaugural farm bill, which subsidized farmers to limit their production. 0000070129 00000 n But he endured personal humiliation along the way. I was a stubborn cuss, and I made some mistakes. It was obvious, however, that policy decisions in this area were being made at the State Department. 0000059164 00000 n ), The feisty Earl Butz is now being drawn into Presidentialcampaign warfate as he was in 1972, when ??? Earl Butz I challenged things that needed to be challenged at Purdue. [citation needed]. He replaced Palmby with Carroll Brunthaver, a former official of Cook Industries, another leading grain firm. 0000029707 00000 n He was Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. But Jimmy Carter repeatedly says that one of his first acts as President would be to replace Butz, and Carter's first big boost came in the January caucuses in Iowa. [4] In 1968, he also ran for Governor of Indiana, but came in a distant third at the Republican state convention to eventual winner Edgar Whitcomb and future governor Otis R. Bowen. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. No, I try not to be a negative thinker. He exhorted farmers to ``plant fence row to fence row'' to meet global demand, helping to drive down surging food costs. When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. 0000049967 00000 n We need to reject the "go big or go . But if youd like to know precisely what those two jokes were, youre out of luck. Earl Lauer "Rusty" Butz (July 3, 1909 - February 2, 2008) was a United States government official who served as Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Butz said: "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It was a crude joke that turned Butz into a household word and punch line on Johnny Carson's ``Tonight'' show. 0000067623 00000 n Then, during President Fords election campaign of 1976, Butz told a racially offensive joke, and he was forced to resign. Nevertheless, there has been, as Butz asserts, something of a revolution in American agriculture during his tenure. He also came up with a weakly worded proposal to Congress to strengthen criminal penalties and minimize conflict of interest in inspection agencies, some of which had been owned by the same grain firms whose products they inspected. in Agriculture in 1932 with a major in animal husbandry. Butz resigned his cabinet post on October 4, 1976. 8 Due to government assistance, American farmers experienced continued success during and immediately following World War I. why was it used? 0000008397 00000 n They include the discovery of inorganic chemical inputs, mechanization, specialization . As it turned out, nearly all the corn was bought by giants of the trade. But the decline of family farms and rural communities are not inevitabilities, and Earl Butz's vision for American agriculture does not have to be our fate. Policy makes politics. 0000009293 00000 n By that time, farms were cranking out much more than the market could bear, and prices fell accordingly. The policy sometimes paid farmers to not grow food in order to keep agricultural prices high and allow small farms to survive. He rejected criticism that these ties might compromise his performance as USDA chief. Millions of hogs, cattle and chicken were sold for slaughter as producers reduced their inventories. The Secretary tells American farmers that high price guarantees, or supports, would lead you backward to the days when Government controls dictated what you planted and how much, and in the long run, lead to overproduction. 0000029849 00000 n Get big or get out, he routinely thundered. In order to plant fence row to fence row, farmers tore out shelter belts and other conservation land uses. Twitter, Follow us on 0000060447 00000 n Dont worry about overproduction, Butz told farmers on trips through the Midwest. Top 10 Earl Butz Quotes (2023 Update) - Quotefancy Top 10 Earl Butz Quotes (2023 Update) 1. During the 60s, livestock, rather than people, became the main consumers of American grain. 0000055445 00000 n Farmstate Congressmen of both parties contend the chances are slim that farm supply and demand will remain in balance much longer and they want to cushion any drop in prices by increasing the current low Government price guarantees to farmers. In 1970, the Government was paying farmers $3.7 billion in subsidies, mostly as an incentive not to plant. Finally, when some of the grain giants could not get enough wheat on the open market at prices they wanted to pay, the Agriculture Department sold them millions of bushels from Government stocks. 0000052132 00000 n Butz should be praying for drought right now, says one observer. Increased production contributed to deforestation, higher emissions of greenhouse gases, and a greater need for fertilizer and pesticides that contaminated water sources and accumulated in the food chain. On October 4, 1976, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigned in the wake of a controversy over an obscene joke he'd made that was derogatory to blacks.You. It was 50 years ago that Butz, as a teenage boy, guided a horsedrawn plow over the fields of northern Indiana. 0000064144 00000 n The move worked dramatically. As intended, Nixons agricultural policy lowered food prices, but the imbalance of supply and demand manifested in long-term problems. b. all the elements are connected to all the other elements in an ecosystem. A number of those present had represented their countries during the famous 1974 World Food Security Summit (Rome) where Butz had led the US delegation. The result was that Butz replaced Kissinger as chairman of the newly named White House Agricultural Policy Committee. 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what policy did earl butz promote in 1973