Easing Burdens

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A grab bag of farm plans

With farm bankruptcies at the highest level since the Great Depression, and crop prices and agricultural incomes at a ten-year low, the nation's farmers are fighting to survive. In Dallas last week, President Reagan announced a grab bag of new federal plans to ease their burden. Speaking to some 5,000 members of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the country's largest farm organization, he said, "Because these are unusual and critical times . . . we don't have to stand around chewing our cud. To the American farmer, let me say, help is on the way."

During his 20-minute speech, Reagan outlined that aid. One program, scheduled to begin this spring, is payment in kind (PIK), which will give Government-owned grain and cotton to farmers who agree to idle more than 20% of their acreage. Farmers can then sell the giveaway grain or use it as feed. The Administration hopes that the move will reduce enormous surpluses and save from $3 billion to $5 billion in grain storage and loans over the next two years.

Another Reagan project will require the Government to honor farm-export contracts if deliveries are scheduled within 270 days of an announced Government embargo. Farmers thus can avoid the kind of damages they suffered when the Carter Administration banned grain sales to the Soviet Union in 1980 after that country invaded Afghanistan. Reagan also said that he plans a $250 million increase in export credits to help U.S. farmers compete for Third World markets.

The plans received mixed reviews. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower said farmers need "a long-term program that restricts production and raises commodity prices." Herbert Allen, a Monmouth, Ill., hog farmer, said the programs showed that "the President is dedicated to help us." But Wade Carson, 44, a Southern Illinois grain farmer, spoke for many when he said, "Even with PIK and the other programs, some of us aren't going to make it."