The Farm Bureau: Did They Leave Anything Out?

We've been savoring the New Mexico Farm Bureau's "policy recommendations" for 1999, which offer a useful intro to the Farm Bureau, one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, not to mention most state capitals. The national Farm Bureau convention was held in New Mexico in the second week of January.

CHILD LABOR: "The child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act are outmoded and should be modernized. Young people, 10-12 years of age should be able, with parental consent, to do certain kinds of safe work on farms during non-school days and those aged 12 to 13 should be allowed more latitude in working on farms with parental consent."

ANIMAL WELFARE: "We oppose legislation that would give animal rights organizations or any public agency the right to establish standards for the raising, handling, feeding, housing, or transportation of livestock, poultry, aquaculture, and fur-bearing animals....We oppose the legislation which would prohibit or unduly restrict the use of animals in research."

PRIVATIZE PUBLIC LAND GRAZING PERMITS: "We defend the right of the lessee to sell, borrow against, or pass on to the heirs these leases."

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: "...Many predators such as the grizzly bear and some wolf species are contributing very little tangible benefit to the American people, and the extinction of the dinosaur, brontosaurus, pterodactyl, sabertooth tiger, and countless other species is not hindering the occupation of Earth by the human race, and Therefore we strongly urge that the Endangered Species Act be reworded..."

MEXICAN GRAY WOLF: "The NMF&LB adamantly oppose the reintroduction efforts being perpetuated on the citizens of New Mexico by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Game and Fish Dept., New Mexico Game and Fish Dept., and eco-preservationist groups."

INDIAN CLAIMS: "The New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau is strongly opposed to the practice of the United States government using public lands of the U.S. and water to satisfy Indian tribal claims."

RIGHT TO KNOW: "Be it resolved that all agricultural activities, including cultivation of land for the production of agricultural crops, poultry, productions of eggs, production of milk, production of fruit, or other horticultural crops, grazing or the production of livestock, and spraying and harvesting, be exempt from Right To Know."

HOMOSEXUALITY: "We strongly support the rights of those who speak out against homosexuality. We believe...the hiring of homosexual teachers ... would create an emotional and mental health hazard for children. We also oppose legislation providing for the Gay Bill of Rights."

THE POOR: Oppose public welfare programs for the poor, and specifically opposes "public aid programs so lucrative that there is an economic advantage in becoming a recipient."

MEDIA INTERVIEWS: "Be it resolved that New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau urge all people being interviewed on controversial subjects to demand to see or hear the final version of said interview before it is aired or printed, and to reserve the right to refuse to have said program aired or published."

NATURE CONSERVANCY CONSPIRACY: "Be it resolved that the NMF&LB oppose the activities of the Nature Conservancy...[and[...request the Attorney General of New Mexico to investigate the activities of the Nature Conservancy in New Mexico to determine whether conspiracy exists between it and government entities."

WORKERS' PROTECTION: "Chemicals are a necessary tool used today in all phases of agriculture. Field Re-entry Regulations for re-entry into agricultural fields after chemical spraying are imposed beyond what is reasonable. We oppose these regulations."

FARM LABOR: The Farm Bureau wants more migrant workers from Mexico but opposes paying minimum wage to workers traveling on a portal to portal basis. They also oppose paying minimum wage for any waiting time at the field, before or after completion of their work assignment.

FARM LABOR UNION ORGANIZING: "law enforcement agencies (should) give full protection under the law to NM farmers and ranchers wherein labor unions may come onto private property in an effort to disrupt and to cause a labor strike."

RIGHT TO WORK: "Whereas threat of labor union movement can be detrimental in attracting new businesses to NM and the surrounding states have Right to Work legislation ... be it resolved NM Farm and Livestock Bureau supports legislation to enact the Right to Work Act in NM."

WORKERS' COMPENSATION: "Continue working to keep agriculture exempt from workers' compensation administration regulations."

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: "We urge repeal of the enacted Collective Bargaining Law."

MIGRANT FARM WORKERS: "oppose grants of federal money to migrant and seasonal farmworkers associations."

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED ANIMALS: recommendation to favor the patenting of genetically engineered animals and to encourage more research.

EPA REGULATIONS: "...oppose the unnecessary regulatory burdens proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency," with specific opposition to regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.

In short, it's Genesis I:26-28 all over again. Said biblical passage relays God's message to all 4-H Clubs everywhere: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion ... over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth ... Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it." In a famous 1967 essay, The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis," Lynn White, Jr. interpreted this text as meaning "God planned and fashioned all the natural world explicitly for man's benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes." White concluded that "we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man."

Note in the foregoing item that the very first injunction of the New Mexico Farm Bureau recommendations concerns child labor. We are forwarding to New Mexico's proud farmers the splendid remarks on this topic by Felix Adler in a speech delivered at Carnegie Hall, January 29, 1905:

"I want to speak briefly on some of the arguments that are advanced in favor of child labor. This first is that necessity knows no compunction. It might be desirable to excuse children from bearing the burden of toil; but it is said that it is not possible to do so, because the success of all industries depends on reducing the cost of production, especially in the newer commonwealths. Competition can succeed only through the help of cheap labor, and if cheap labor is taken away, the industry will be ruined. That is the argument. If it were true I should say, let the industry be ruined, and let us go back to hunting and fishing and agriculture, and do without industries, if we can only buy them at the price of these atrocities! [...] The second argument used speciously is humanitarian. Oh, these poor, poor families, how would you deprive them of the earnings of those little children? How can you be so cruel? That little child of ten or eleven, with his load, is earning $1.50 or $2.00 per week and his poor mother needs it. How can you be so cruel as to take the earnings away from the poor mother who needs it? [...] The third argument is one that I am almost ashamed to quote it is so utterly un-American and so inhuman; but I am afraid it is secretly present in the minds if not a few persons.

"It was put by a well-known manufacturer in the glass industry, as he stood in the light of his furnace and pointed to the procession of boys who were carrying on their trays the products of his glass-house to and from the furnace ... as the light fell on their faces, he said to our agent: 'If you will just look at those faces [they were Slav boys] you will see that they are just in the right niche, they are just where they belong. Education would be wasted on them, their intelligence is so asleep that you can't wake it up; you can't do anything with them, and it is just as well they should drift at once into the place where they must fill ever after, because they must be hewers of wood and drawers of water.'

"This argument was used in the case of slaves; it is the same argument which has always been used of slaves by the slave-owners. They first degraded the conditions of their victims, denying them every opportunity, as of schools, teaching, freedom, and then as in mockery pointed to their degraded condition, which they themselves had produced, as a reason why they should never be permitted to escape from it."

We must confess that we find ourselves in solidarity with the Farm Bureau on one point at least: its appraisal of the Nature Conservancy as little more than a government-sanctioned real estate company.