SECTION: COMICS, Pg. 11C

LENGTH: 882 words

HEADLINE: FARM SURVEY REVEALS DISCOURAGING STATS

BYLINE: BOB BUYER

BODY:


Farmers feed us. Farmers create wealth. So it's bad news when only 69 percent of 302 young farmers polled by the American Farm Bureau said their finances today are stronger than in 1995 and only 52 percent said they are optimistic about farming's future. Both numbers were the poorest in the survey's eight-year history.

Paul Olson, president of the National Farmers Organization, echoed these views, saying that without improved income family farming has little time left. "Every family farmer, no matter what he raises, is hurting." The need for profits ranked as young farmers' greatest challenge. It was followed by government regulations, land availability and encroachment on farmland by other interests. On the plus side, more young farmers rely on technology -- computers, integrated pest management, biotech crops and global positioning via satellites to mark their fields and service needs.

A week ago, some 70 New York Farm Bureau members lobbied Congress to enact measures they see as vital to their industry. Given the best chance of passing are bills insisting that the Environmental Protection Agency, charged with enforcing the Food Quality Protection Act, demonstrate with sound science why any pesticide or farm chemical should be banned. These bills are co-sponsored by 215 representatives and 36 senators of both parties.

Less optimism was voiced about prospects for revising the immigration law so that farmers and others might more easily import on a temporary basis foreign farm workers, mainly those from Mexico and Caribbean nations.

"Our farmers need legally admitted field workers," said farm consultant Gary Fitch.

So far, the Clinton administration has come down on the side of organized labor in opposing the easing of rules.

The other difficult law-making task deals with allowing New York and other states to join New England's Northeast Dairy Compact, which sets a minimum price that processors must pay farmers for drinking milk sold in member states.

The Washington visit gave New Yorkers the chance to meet Robert Stallman, the new president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's strongest farm organization. The 47-year-old Texas rice grower, a favorite of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, in a close election defeated longtime president Dean Klechner of Iowa.

Delegates in January regionally balanced Farm Bureau leadership by electing Jack Laurie of Michigan as their vice president. Even though their votes probably went to retain Klechner, Stallman assured the New Yorkers that he will try to attend their December meeting in Buffalo.

Meanwhile, Stallman and other farm leaders are supporting the Clinton administration's effort to set up normal trade relations with China, a potential market of 1.3 billion consumers.

In Iowa where factory farming forced half of the state's once-plentiful hog farms into some other way to make their livings, a group of 85 small hog producers, who call themselves Eden Farms, are fighting back. Their weapon: a belief that quality, better tasting pork can prevail over mass-produced lean pork. So far, they have cultivated enough customers -- individuals and restaurants -- who are willing to pay a bit more for a better tasting meat. In Erie County, the same idea enables Wendel Poultry Farm of East Concord to sell higher-cost chicken and turkeys to people willing to pay more for premium poultry.

Persuading Congress to revise the 1996 "Freedom to Farm" law was the aim of a recent National Farmers Union "Rally for Rural America" that drew 1,000 farmers to Washington. The law, designed to wean farmers from federal price supports, failed in the face of bad weather, reduced exports and the low prices of excess supply. The rally drew verbal support from Democrats, but Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, a Republican, has resisted calling for hearings to study rewriting the 1996 farm law. A GOP aide noted the law, with its annual payments to farmers, does not expire until 2002. Anyone can see that the issue will be part of the presidential and certain state and local election debates.

Barnyard gossip -- The New York Farm Bureau praised U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer for getting the Senate to approve widening the federal crop insurance program to cover fruits, vegetables and other crops not otherwise eligible. . . . Cornell Cooperative Extension has joined forces with the Food Bank of Western New York in the Produce for the People program. Extension agents will instruct recipient Food Bank agencies how best to prepare produce collected from wholesalers and retailers. . . Cornell economist George Conneman was the featured speaker at Friday night's Orleans County Chamber of Commerce Farmers and Neighbors dinner. . . . The debate over genetically modified foods continues with American seed companies and farmers trying to rest their case on science. European and domestic opponents who fail to cite specific harms, have used fear and uncertainty to argue against using genetically modified grains and food. . . . The U.S. Department of Agriculture's proposed revised standards for organic farming certification is a 652-page tome that among other complex restrictions bans the use of most hormones, chemicals and commercial fertilizers.

LOAD-DATE: April 10, 2000