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. Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died this weekend at 98, leaving a colorfully offensive legacy and, thanks to the political correctness of the mainstream news media, a bit of a mystery as to why he's passed with such ignominy. He received a B.S. In order to profitably mass-produce convenience fare for a growing middle class, the food industry needed unchecked access to cheap inputs. 0000029355 00000 n At height of the so-called Green Revolution and firmly in the Cold War mindset, he was referring to the American policy of fighting famine worldwide to defend against political unrest and the spread of communism. The Land Ordinance of 1785 required states and Native Americans to cede land west of the Appalachian Mountains to Congress, who parceled it into townships of six miles square, and proceed to sell the townships, or fractional parts of townships at public venue. 1The act settled farmland, but high land prices prohibited many from venturing west. 0000016123 00000 n Grain farmers are planting fence row to fence row, and the payments to them have nearly stopped. He dismantled supply management policies, selling off government storage bins . He then returned to Purdue and was dean of the School of Agriculture for the next 10 years.. Last year, they harvested 1.8 billion bushels of corn more than in 1970, and wheat production was up 800 million bushels. The changes implemented since the eighteenth century exemplify the need to reform policy in accordance with domestic and international circumstances. 0000062082 00000 n accessLinx is a boutique multimedia production company that communicates your business's messgae with clarity and impact. He took off the restriction that farms had stating what they could and could not produce . He replaced Palmby with Carroll Brunthaver, a former official of Cook Industries, another leading grain firm. I recognize that family-oriented news organizations like the AP and the Times do not publish words they know to be coarse and deeply insulting to particular ethnic groups, nationalities, and religions. At one time, he headed the Purdue Department of Agriculture. Actually. 0000051120 00000 n 0000066173 00000 n 0000071240 00000 n They include the discovery of inorganic chemical inputs, mechanization, specialization . 18. How does corn get in your hair King corn? Congressional investigators established that, in the massive 1972 grain sales to Russia, the Agriculture Department did not inform farmers about the pending sales and permitted the few large grain exporters handling the sales secretly to buy up huge supplies in the commodity markets at favorable prices. But over the years not unlike his political patron, Nixon he returned to respectability. Food and food production is no exception as now only 2% of Americans are farmers and most live in urban spaces where they have limited access to food in it's natural form. You could no longer assume your fellow whites would protect you for telling a joke insulting to blacks, and you could no longer assume your fellow blacks would protect you for telling a joke insulting to Jews. But, if you hit the button that adjusts prices for inflation, there is was a huge spike in corn prices after the Russian grain purchase. 0000061873 00000 n 0000029849 00000 n The policy of "get big or get out" and the advancement of industrial agriculture through the displacement of small farmers was a deliberate attempt to consolidate power in the hands of a select few agribusinessmen and politicians. It was obvious, however, that policy decisions in this area were being made at the State Department. 0000049217 00000 n Nixon plucked Butz out of Purdues agriculture department and planted him in the USDA in 1971. Butz fanned their frenzy. 28 0 obj<>stream You are the most productive part of America! The move worked dramatically. Policy makes politics. While somewhat dated, this work is unique in that it comes from the source. Earl L. Butz Assistant Secretary Clarence Palmby, for instance, negotiated a credit deal with the Russians in the spring of 1972, and then took a job as a vice president of Continental Grain. 0000017516 00000 n Keep up with history and join our newsletter. 0000044297 00000 n Earl Butz, who served as Secretary of Agriculture under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, is widely regarded as a pioneer in modern American corn policy because he emphasized selling . Harvest failures came repeatedly and were usually severe. He died still holding an emeritus position at Purdue. [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. Naftali: Was it surprising to you when you were asked to come to Washington again to be in his Cabinet? 9As prices of agricultural commodities soared, farmers maximized production to increase their profits. a. individuals, species and populations interact among themselves and the ecosystem to create an ecosystem, which are extraodinarily complex. 0000063118 00000 n 0000056620 00000 n Butz has passed on, but fence-row-to-fence-row agriculture and its vast environmental footprint lives. As usual, the country dealers and farmers of Iowa got the short end of the stick, says former Iowa Senator Harold Hughes. 0000050144 00000 n Nixons response culminated in the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973, which Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz called an historic turning point in the philosophy of farm programs in the United States. 22Better known as the 1973 farm bill, the act ceased to pay farmers to plant their land in accordance to supply and demand, and began subsidizing crops by the bushel to reward production. 0000055231 00000 n 0000067829 00000 n Butz, an agriculture expert, had a radical plan that would transform the food we eat, and in doing so, the shape of the human race. Earl Butz: Father of the Modern Food Subsidy System. Exports sustained high grain prices, leading the United States Department of Agriculture to describe the years between 1910 and 1914 as the golden age of farming. 0000029154 00000 n Marshall Martin discusses policy with Earl Butz. 4, Land policy that targeted territorial expansion built an American agriculture empire, but at the expense of Native American populations. 0000069937 00000 n 0000067244 00000 n http://www.stanford.edu/group/west/cgi-bin/pager.php?id=49. It's true that if we suddenly stopped exports, food prices would fall, he says, but with falling prices paid to farmers, production the next year would be cut back. He was featured in the documentary King Corn, recognized as the person who started the rise of corn production, large commercial farms, and the abundance of corn in American diets. 0000009167 00000 n 0000046621 00000 n 0000068003 00000 n His only real friends are the big farmers, and, if this summer's expected bumper crop on the Great Plains affects their income as some anticipate, he may soon lose them, too. trailer 0000062275 00000 n Meanwhile, interest rates had spiked, making all of those loans farmers had taken out in the 70s into a paralyzing burden. In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Butz as Secretary of Agriculture, a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned in 1974 as the result of the Watergate scandal. Nixons Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz favored increased agricultural exports, and allowed the grain trading companies to continue to receive subsidies on the price and transportation of the Russian grain stocks to seaports. It was also epochal. 0000041058 00000 n . The policy of prohibiting permanent roads and of restricting commercial logging in accordance with the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act was continued. It was during this time that she first came into contact with drugs. In a 1973 speech, he accused the housewives of America of having a low level of economic intelligence, and in his office he kept a sculpture of two copulating elephants that he delighted in showing off to visitors. 0000004416 00000 n 0000056005 00000 n why was it used? But if the two stay in balance, if the production is matched by just the right amount of foreign sales and there is enough left over for the domestic market, then farmers will get a good income, consumers won't pay inflated prices and the nation gets some help on its balance of payments problems. Those farmers were early believers. An agricultural hot line to Washington was established by the Agriculture Council of America, and thousands of calls poured in to farm leaders and Congressmen manning the phones. 0000053719 00000 n The 20th Century Transformation of U.S. Agriculture and Farm Policy. United States Department of Agriculture. Earl Butz has, in other words, clearly become the country's most controversial Agriculture Secretary since Ezra Taft Benson, and, after his recent behindthescenes struggle with Henry Kissinger, he has probably also emerged as the most powerful in history as well. Farm income stayed high for most of the decade. First, Butz was called a disciple of Ezra Benson, who, under Eisenhower, had presided over huge grain surpluses, low farm prices and the start of the great exodus from American farms. 0000011078 00000 n American Agricultural Economics Association, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, American government official Earl Butz dies at age 98, "A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz", "Former Purdue Agriculture Dean Earl Butz dead at 98", "Earl L. Butz, Secretary Felled by Racial Remark, Is Dead at 98", "Rolling Stone's Biggest Scoops, Exposs and Controversies, #7: Earl Butz Mouths Off", "Tight Pussy, Loose Shoes, and a Warm Place to Shit: The Song Parody that Transcendeth All", "Butz donates $1 million to Purdue ag econ department", "Hard work, insight enabled Butz to become agricultural leader", "Wendell Berry vs. Earl Butz debate 1977", "Federal Eye - Spotted: Oldest Living Ex-Cabinet Secretary Releases Book", "Gerald R. Ford Administration Alumni | The Gerald Ford Presidential Foundation", "Meeting King Corn: Earl Butz was a product of his time" 2/19/2008, "The Butz Stops Here: A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz" 2/7/2008, Agri-Pulse article "Memories of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz" 2/10/2008, High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal article: "Memories of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz" 2/14/2008, Farm Futures article: "A Special Tribute to Earl Butz" 2/4/2008, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earl_Butz&oldid=1136081838, Purdue University College of Agriculture alumni, United States Department of Agriculture officials, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2013, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 28 January 2023, at 17:21. Many were dismayed the government paid farmers not to plant and even destroy crops while much of the country struggled to purchase food and waited in line at soup kitchens. He surely loved the way the biofuel boom has farmers worldwide scrambling to plant corn and soy and drench the earth with agrichemicals. "Get big or get out," Butz told farmers in 1973, and boy, did they. Butz started by telling a dirty joke involving intercourse between a dog and a skunk. Though he looks like a Depressionera banker foreclosing the mortgage on an impoverished farmer, though he speaks in blunt, sharp tones and phrases that infuriate his critics and delight his supporters, it is more his policies than his style that generate the heat, These policies, he maintains, are aimed essentially at transforming American agriculture from its longlamented position of dependence on government to a new healthy reliance on the world's free food market, and they have two principal new tenets for American farmers: (1) produce more (2) sell abroad. Earl Butz. On the one hand, the high production can lead to big surpluses and big drops in farm prices. So do other prosperous farmers and the agribusiness complex of corporate fruit and vegetable raisers, food processors and distributors. Butz took over the Department of Agriculture during the most recent period in American history that food prices climbed high enough to generate political heat. Plant fence row to fence row, he exhorted from his bully pulpit. He's on the side of people who buy from farmers and sell to consumers.. 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. There was some question whether or not Butz realized that the Soviets were buying up one quarter of the entire U.S. wheat crop, but he did nothing to stop the sale despite the fact that it eventually raised food prices. [citation needed], For example, he abolished a program that paid corn farmers to not plant all their land. His policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs. But the Times description of Butzs two fatal wisecracks, like the APs, eschewed direct quotation. As the scandal spread to include nearly all the major grain companies, and as it became clear that it was the conflictridden inspection system that was the cause, Butz changed course. Eighteenth and nineteenth territorial expansion had tragic consequences for displaced Native American populations, and many still face the ramifications of mass removal. He wanted all this done without fanfare but lost control when Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns predicted the sales would drive American food prices higher. [2] He attended a one-room country school through eighth grade and graduated from high school in a class of seven. These policies did a great job of keeping American agriculture profitable but were very expensive for the nation as a whole. It defined settlement patterns, characterized Americas role in the global market, and navigated the country in and out of economic turmoil. They werent a secret at the time of Butzs firing; Time magazine reported them, albeit with some dashes substituting for letters in the dirtiest words, in full. "[11] A spokesman for Cardinal Cooke of the New York archdiocese demanded an apology, and the White House[11] requested that he apologize. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. 0000056400 00000 n (The habit of stuffing the USDA with industry cronies has proven hard to break. Under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, Roosevelt passed the inaugural farm bill, which subsidized farmers to limit their production. Let Them Eat Ketchup In, Roberts, Paul. I tried to interview him last fall for Grists Sow What? He said, I make no apology for my desire to raise farm prices.. 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. 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. 0000065934 00000 n 0000044154 00000 n . endstream endobj 27 0 obj<> endobj 29 0 obj<> endobj 30 0 obj<>/Font<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC/ImageI]/ExtGState<>>> endobj 31 0 obj<> endobj 32 0 obj<> endobj 33 0 obj<> endobj 34 0 obj<> endobj 35 0 obj<>stream Without conceding the criticisms against him, Butz insists that his real contribution has been in restructuring American agriculture by extending its markets abroad. Earl Butz. Left unregulated, agricultural policy has proved to be as catastrophic as well as instrumental culturally, economically, and environmentally. 0000019559 00000 n He went on a speaking tour and encouraged farmers to plant fence row to fence row to meet global demand. Feb. 3, 2008 12 AM PT. If the price of that change was a slightly elevated reluctance within the mainstream press to explain fully what brought it about, maybe that isnt so terrible. For a few years, those actions seemed like a good business decision. BY TAKA YAMAGUCHI In 1976, then-U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz coined the now infamous phrase, "food is a weapon.". But Butz is more interested in private trade (which usually means trade by a halfdozen large grain companies) and cash sales than in humanitarian giveaways, a view that has led to charges that he is oblivious to world hunger. 17The threat of another depression hastened the reinstatement of crop regulation through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which restored financial security to farmers. Myth: Earl Butz was a pivotal figure. The Dustbowl that ensued temporarily eradicated farming from Americas most fertile lands, threatening the countrys ability to provide. xref the World Food Crisis of the early 1970s gave Butz the chance to promote the false notion that free markets would be good for farmers. He had argued the issue before the White House Food Policy Group, then chaired by Kissinger, and thought he had converted everyone. He does acknowledge, however, that his policy will work only if the United States remains grain exporter to the world. 0000054849 00000 n It later was shown that, with help from Continental officials, Palmby was making arrangements for establishing his residence in New York, where Continental's headquarters is, even before he went to Russia. In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Butz as Secretary of Agriculture,[4] a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned in 1974 as the result of the Watergate scandal. In the chart below, it looks like there was an unprecedented spike in corn prices in 2008. Describe that change. 0000049017 00000 n They are disturbed, too, by the continued exchange of top personnel between the department and the big grain companies. All rights reserved. 0000069545 00000 n The department's lax supervision of the grain exporters should have been known to Butz, because in the early 1970's the entire focus of expanding agricultural trade was on grain. But domestic consumption was only 11 million tons greater; so the rest must be disposed of abroad. At that time, the Russian grain purchase of 1972 was the largest grain deal between two nations in history, and it set in motion a host of changes that would dominate agricultural history for at least the next two decades. 0000046978 00000 n After the Great Depression which featured the stunning confluence of huge grain surpluses, widespread hunger, and a tide of farm failures the Roosevelt Administration put in place mechanisms to help farmers manage supply.. 76-709. After forty years of regulating production to balance demand, domestic and international circumstances compelled President Richard Nixon to rethink agricultural policy. Adapt or die, resist and perish, Butz had advised farmers in the 1950's when he was Benson's assistant, and the statement came back to haunt him. Meet the Press with Secretary Earl L. Butz, Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, Secretary James T. Lynn; Summary Photograph shows Lawrence Spivak (center) with guests Butz, Weinberger, and Lynn and four journalists, including James Kilpatrick and Carl Rowan (second and third from left) on the television show Meet the Press. Between 1971 and 1972, crop failure in the Soviet Union lead the country to purchase nearly 25% of Americas wheat. Help us continue to bring you the best of the archives without the dust! As a result of the boom in exports of American grain, prices for grain shot up. In terms of 2009 dollars, corn reached the equivalent of over $15 in 1973.Overall farm income jumped along with grain prices, from $2.3 billion in 1972 to $19.6 billion in 73. Earl L. Butz, who orchestrated a major change in federal farm policy as secretary of agriculture in the 1970s but came to be remembered more for a vulgar racial comment that brought about his resignation during the 1976 presidential election race, died Saturday in Kensington, Md. 0000005075 00000 n This program had unsuccessfully attempted to prevent a national oversupply of corn and low corn prices. Five years later, he received Purdue's first doctorate in . Earl L. Butz, Self: King Corn. 3 0000057943 00000 n 0000008397 00000 n 0000047891 00000 n Attacks on chemical additives nitrates in bacon and diethylstilbestrol in cattle feedare the work of phony consumerists. Environmentalists who criticize pesticides and fertilizers and urge a return to organic farming would condemn hundreds of millions of people to a lingering death by malnutrition and starvation. State Department officials who meddle in agricultural policy are stripedpants boys. And Congressmen who say food prices are too high are demagogues. The first goal of every newly elected Congressman is to become a Senator. He was 98. After some indecision, Dean used the line in Rolling Stone, attributing it to an unnamed Cabinet officer. He wouldn't embarrass a Cabinet member. Butz's motto became "get big or get out," encouraging the growth of corporate factory-farms and increasing subsidised production of staples for export. In 1972, the Soviet Union, suffering disastrous harvests, purchased 30 million tons of American grain. The nomination proved to be Nixon's most controversial for two main reasons. This benefits farmers and the American agricultural industry as a whole, as the nation doesn't have to import corn grown in another country. Documents From the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 . 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