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FARMERS
(Continued from page
JO)
farm. Why ought a Russian or a
Nigerian, for instance, be con–
cerned about the plight of the
American farmer? The answer is
simple: self-interest.
Even with depressed market con–
ditions, U.S. agriculture is still the
largest supplier of export foodstuffs
in the world. According to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, each
American farmer grows enough
food for 70 people. This means that
the U.S. is able to export more than
one-thi rd of its yearly farm output
to markets in more than 150 coun–
tries.
However, many of these coun–
tries, such as N igeria, have become
dependent on cheap Amer ican food
(cheaper by comparison) to the
extent that t heir over-regulated
domestic farming community has
become almost nonexistent.
Any interruption in the supply of
American food could spell disaster.
So too for tbe U.S.S.R. in the event
of a repeat of the catastropbic 1975
Soviet barvest.
In the sense of past U.S. ability
to fill the shortfalls i n othe r
nations' agriculture, the crisis in
American agriculture is becoming
a worldwide crisis.
The Future
For those American farmers who
manage to survive the current
depression i n agriculture, the
future holds still more problems.
Problems which threaten the U.S.
farmers' abil i ty to meet even
domestic needs.
To expand thei r operations in the
'70s, U.S. farmers began pressing
marginal lands into service. Lands
once planted with t rees and grass to
prevent soi l erosion after the Dust–
Bowl days of the 1930s-a govern–
ment service paid for with tax dol–
lars- have now been plowed up and
planted with wheat.
Conservation practices like crop
rotat ion, crop diversification, ter–
racing, shelter belting and contour
plowing bave been significa ntly
abandoned in favor of fence-to–
fence mono-crop production. This
has aggravated an already serious
erosion problem. According to a
September/October 1982
1980 National Agricult ura! Land
Study, more than five billion tons
of fertile top soi l are lost each year
in the U.S. due to erosion. That
amount of loss could cover Belgium
and Tbe Netherlands with nearly
one foot of soil.
What kind of future is in store for
the present 2.5 million U.S. farm–
ers? Unless the problems of too-high
production, unsound farming prac–
tices motivated by quick profit, soil
erosion and market insecurity are
addressed, the future is not bright.
And for young farmers the futu re
holds no promise whatsoever. Land
' '
... net U.S. farm income,
in real terms, for 1982
may be less than the
record low of 1933....
Unless conditions improve,
and soon, a growing
exodus of American
farmers will join the
37,000 in 1980 and the
thousands more in 1981
and 1982 who have left
the farm.
' '
values, propelled out of reach by
land speculation, make ownership a
remote possibility for most younger
wouJd-be farmers.
Yet the problems facing Ameri–
can agriculture go beyond physical
and financia! obstacles. The crisis
in American agriculture touches on
immutable spiritual laws.
The U.S. government's desire to
"get" farmers to produce more
food to belp balance the country's
trade deficit led to too much expan–
sion, too quickly, for too long. The
brinkmanship practices employed
by many an American farmer to
"get" more out of the land are
destroying the very soil that is his
livelihood.
lt
is this selfish way of
"get," spoken of frequently by Edi–
tor-in-Ch ief He rbert W . Arm–
strong, that has led to the present
circumstances in American agricul–
ture.
Instead of continuously forcing
the land year after year to "get"
more out of it, God said we should
"let it rest and lie still" (Ex. 23:10-
11) on specified occasions. The
farmer should "give" the land a
res
t.
The biblical land Sabbath an–
ciently occurred once every seven
years.
It
held the promise of not
only giving the land (and the farm–
er) a rest, but the special blessing
of an increase in harvests on the
sixth year (Lev. 25:2-4, 20-21 ). By
letting bis land lie fallow after
planting, for example, a legumi–
nous cover crop, the farmer would
be allowi ng natu re to begin to
restore the humus, as well as other
nutr ients, in the soil naturally. This
ancient biblical law, when properly
administered, simply amounts to
sound land management.
The Creator of the universe has
given us a basic formula for suc–
cessful agriculture in his instruc–
tion manual, the Bible. God said:
" lf
ye walk in my statutes and keep
my commandments, and
do
[em–
phasis ours) them; then 1 will give
you rain in due season, and the land
shall yield her increase and the
trees of the field shall yield their
ú uit" (Lev. 26:3-4).
But God also warned of the con–
sequences of disobedience. "And if
ye shal l despise s tatutes, or if you
should abhor my judgments, so that
ye will not do all my command–
ments, but that ye break my cove–
nant: 1 a lso wi ll do this u nto
you ... ye shall sow your seed in
vain ... and 1 will make your heav-
en as iron, and your land shall not
yield ber increase, neither shall the
trees of the land yield their fruits"
(Lev. 26:15-16, 19-20).
Unless the problem of trans–
gressing God's laws and statutes is
addressed no amount of quick-fix
economic solutions will prevent an
even greater future crisis in Ameri–
can agriculture.
Instead of the present economic
crisis of plenty that is driving
American farmers out ·of business,
it will be a crisis of famine with
worldwide impact.
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