SEGMENT: FARM ORGANIZATIONS
Charles Shuman>UIS Collection S>UIS Collection S, Segment 16
| <-Previous Segment |
- FARM ORGANIZATIONS
- President Kennedy in 1963 named Orville Freeman, former governor of Minnesota, as Secretary of Agriculture. He knew no one previously involved in policy and legislative battles. Had socialistic attitude toward the market system. Felt the government should manage agriculture and fix prices. Brought in Professor of Economics Willard Cochran, who also believed government knew better than farmers what policy should be. Cochran-Freeman bill proposed compulsory controls on production with mandatory acreage controls and quotas on bushels. Expanded from basic six crops of wheat, corn, cotton, rice, peanuts and tobacco to all crops and livestock. Wheat was to come first; Farm Bureau, who opposed this plan, managed to force a referendum among wheat farmers first. Freeman had promised Kennedy 80% yes vote, but only got 40-48%. Sent farm policy into disarray. Farm politics lost its appeal. Controls on agriculture were abandoned. Other farm organizations were the National Grange, 1850-1885 (peak), a fraternal organization and rural social society, the 1910 National Farmers Union started in south and spread west whose leftists who wanted a cost of production basis for pricing and yes vote on wheat referendum, and the National Farmers Organization a recent group concerned with marketing.
