To the editor:

I want to express a big thank you to the Farm News editor for printing Mr. George Naylor’s Jan. 9th letter “A Better Way. Facts Matter.” — like the history of Roosevelt’s New Deal parity price floor grain program and the role it played in propping up Mainstreet U.S.A.

It’s interesting. I agree with George. It seems David Kruse and Alan Guebert ignore New Deal Farm history. Why don’t they suggest a revival of the government non-recourse loan rate that was set at 90 percent of par? That loan gave farmers complete control of their grain production — something they never had before the 1940’s and not after it was abolished in 1953.

Actually the non-recourse loan should be considered an historical milestone because it philosophically and psychologically hamstrung the money lenders. Farmers did not have to sell their grains under duress or sell their crops below 90 percent of par.

Nope I don’t think Kruse and Guebert will ever challenge and use the psychological whip (non-recourse loan), enter the “Temple of the Money Lenders” and philosophically whip them to admit the non-recourse loan brought 13 years of economic stability for farmers and Mainstreet.

Yep, Guebert points to corporate power but doesn’t use the non-recourse loan to slash the raw nerve of monopoly power. Kruse is content to ride the pirate ship the “USS DE-REGULATION.” Since 1953 that pirate has gutted farmers with the saber of deceit and thrown them overboard and fed them to the sharks of indifference.

I am a strong defender of the Karl Marx theory of surplus value and his keen observation of commodity production because he said “in the production of commodities all labor must be satisfied.” Now Kruse claims his cornfield ran 270 bushels per acre and his break-even price was $3.89 so the current price made his efforts profitable. Wow Wee! Now I have no idea what price David received but I do know he is content to sell his investment and his labor on the cheap because the current parity price for corn is $15 a bushel.

When farming, I knew I was pitching my labor into the cauldron of indifference but at least I recognized the pain of those who just got tired of pitching and lost their farms.

Picking up on George Naylor’s theme about facts mattering, there is a reason why farming is called “agriculture” and not “agribusiness.” It should be obvious to Kruse and Guebert, like Mark’s dictum the price of corn doesn’t even come close to paying for the cultural needs of farm families; it doesn’t satisfy the business side of farming either.

If Kruse and Guebert want to be the voice for family farmers, they need to ground themselves in the philosophy and psychology of Roosevelt’s visionary and very successful parity pricing of grains farm program and then spread the GOOD NEWS.

Larry Ginter

Rhodes