To the editor:

David Kruse’s column (Farm News, Aug. 23, 2004) begins, “Capitalism can be brutal.” He says the downturn in grain prices may put some farmers out of business, but that’s just how the system works.

The fact is he is not a defender of family farms and doesn’t know how low prices can go or for how long. My first corn crop was planted in 1976. Even though a severe drought spanned the corn belt, prices dropped 50% to $1.50 per bushel by the fall of 1977. Debt piled up and the 1980s farm crisis ensued.

It’s OK with Mr. Kruse to have even fewer farmers with little chance of young farmers getting started. David Kruse is siding with those like himself that make money off of farmers, not for farmers. Multinational corporations, like Smithfield, Monsanto, and Koch Bros. fertilizer, want cheap labor and cheap raw materials, destroying small businesses and family farms all over the world. Look at our immigration problem: Free trade under NAFTA forced Mexican farmers off their land with no hope of making a decent living in their home country.

According to David Kruse, we’re all in this together. Since when does his salary get gambled away minute by minute at the Chicago Board of Trade? Real economic analysis does not support his see-no-evil undemocratic theory or the Farm Bureau’s mantra during the 1980s farm crisis: “Farming is just like any other business.” Economic theory shows that farm commodity prices inevitably lose buying power compared to all the other costs of farming and the cost of living. This cost-price squeeze will erode your equity until, like in the 1980s, the banker will no longer finance your operating loan.

Can we ignore the fate of our formerly thriving small towns? Even many of our county seats will wither away when fewer farmers spend less and less locally. Even our local manufacturing companies will move production to Mexico, or lose out to competition that will.

Kruse’s Aug. 23 column amounts to an advertisement for his Family Farm Masterclass (cost of admission?). Do you really think his guest speakers, like the star of Duck Dynasty, have any sound advice to get us out of this tailspin? The answer is New Deal programs that make purchasers of our commodities pay a fair price adjusted for inflation. Capitalism will be brutal, but who will defend family farms other than farmers themselves?

George Naylor

Churdan