Farmers Know Life Is Changing

Farmers on the Palouse of Eastern Washington and across the border in Idaho rise early these days, and not just because of planting season.

The men and women who still work the land for a living feel an ill wind.

For 60 years, farm life here has been built on a series of interconnected assumptions that city people and the region’s politicians agreed were important.

Everyone agreed farming is an essential industry.

Even as children moved off the farm, we still agreed on the value of locally controlled farms.

Since farmers engage in a risky business of uncertain weather and markets we agreed some government support and guarantees were essential.

And it was agreed that the free market would best allow American farmers to flourish.

Today, these assumptions are being rattled as never before.

At Shermer’s restaurant in downtown Pullman a few mornings ago, some of the most articulate farmers on the Palouse met with the newspaper to discuss whether any of the old assumptions still held.

They asked, “Does anyone in the city even know farmers still exist?”

Well, when was the last time you heard your children, or your city friends, talk about farming?

Information revolution, yes. Cyberspace, yes.

But soil erosion or exports of soft white wheat?

It doesn’t come up.

Today, the word farmer most often arises in the context of pesticides, or subsidies, or wouldn’t it be nice to have five acres on the edge of town.

A recent survey by the Washington Association of Wheat Growers captured this gulf between farmers and city folk.

Farmers, for example, know their success depends on the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Forty percent of the public, mostly urban dwellers, say farm chemicals simply aren’t necessary.

Farmers know farming and food production rank as the second biggest industry in the region behind only airplane manufacturing.

The public as a whole looks at high tech and aerospace as the industries far ahead of agriculture on the list of what will be most important to growth in the future.

This writing down and writing off of agriculture is dangerous and shortsighted, particularly for the Inland Northwest economy.

In the last 15 years, at least $1.5 billion in farm subsidies and supports have been paid by the federal government to farmers of the Inland Northwest.

This spring, Congress will begin a round of significant cuts to these support programs.

Perhaps these cuts are needed.

“But if you undo a 50-year history of supports all at once, you will have a disaster on your hands,” said Jack Silzel, a farmer from Oakesdale.

How a big a disaster could this be for the regional economy? Add it up.

Billions in farm support payments may soon dry up.

Millions of dollars in land values may soon disappear as banks write off the loans backed by these farmlands.

The number of family farms could decline and absentee owners could take over the largest industry in the region.

Admittedly, this is a pessimistic view of what happens if the farm support program and support of the regional farm economy both disappear.

But such a scenario needs to be considered as our congressmen and policymakers start fiddling with ag policy.

Interestingly, many farmers who ate breakfast with the newspaper staff said they could compete in a world with fewer farm supports.

To make it without subsidies, the farmers say, government must go much further in its restructuring and rethinking.

“For example, I am complying with a lot of unfunded mandates as far as paperwork goes,” said farmer Jim Cochran. “I figure I give up approximately 10 percent of my income to comply with environmental mandates. That’s all fine, but I feel I need something back.

“Somebody in government is paid a salary to sit in an office and create a form that demands information from me, and they are paid a salary to deal with that form. I am not. If they are going to cut out my subsidy, that’s fine. Then let’s turn it around and cut the regulation and paperwork.”

Finally, the farmers talk a great deal about access to markets without government interference.

Inland Northwest wheat farmers have keen memories about what government policies have done to their markets.

Remember the hostages take by Iran back in 1979? Since then, regional wheat growers have not been able to sell to Iran, which once was their biggest buyer.

Recall the war with Iraq? Well, that put another big buyer off-limits, too.

Again, perhaps this is the right policy.

But farmers argue convincingly that legislators, city people, and policy makers need to look at a much larger picture beyond just the issue of farm subsidies when considering the value and survival of the region’s ag industry.

This is a big deal, not just down on the farm.

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