YouTube. The Secretary responded with a line so obscene and insulting to blacks that it forced him out of the Cabinet last week and jolted the whole Ford campaign. Butz has passed on, but fence-row-to-fence-row agriculture and its vast environmental footprint lives. Last year, they harvested 1.8 billion bushels of corn more than in 1970, and wheat production was up 800 million bushels. But Butz is more interested in private trade (which usually means trade by a halfdozen large grain companies) and cash sales than in humanitarian giveaways, a view that has led to charges that he is oblivious to world hunger. Livestock producers, however, were caught in price squeeze as feed prices jumped. Get big or get out, he routinely thundered. [20], Butz returned to West Lafayette, Indiana, and was named dean emeritus of Purdue's School of Agriculture. Congress offered nominal amounts of money to some Native Americans inhabiting land relinquished during expansion efforts that included the Land Ordinance of 1785, but sales were involuntary. 0000009293 00000 n 0000041388 00000 n 2027, 36 L.Ed.2d 912 (1973). It took a while to convert President Ford and Butz's remarks about that are revealing of the manner of this man who has become the nation's top agriculture policy maker: I told the President that a year ago we had the whole Midwest in the palm of our hand and we piddled it away with interference with grain exports. Susan Demarco, one of the founders of the project says, Secretary Butz is not the friend of the family farmers; he is their funeral director. In its report, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times. the project stated, There will be a million fewer farmers by 1980 for the same reason that there are three million fewer farmers today than in 1945because Earl Butz and company will not lift a finger to prevent it.. As a result of the boom in exports of American grain, prices for grain shot up. ), To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Earl Butz, who was born 105 years ago today, was one of the worst US government officials ever.He was Secretary of Agriculture in the Cabinets of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Butz as Secretary of Agriculture,[4] a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned in 1974 as the result of the Watergate scandal. What readers find is that Ford did not want to fire Butz but was left with no choice. 0000053344 00000 n Harvest failures came repeatedly and were usually severe. why was it used? He died in his sleep, a quiet end for a man whose career shook the earth, causing untold acres to succumb to the plow. Livestock producers, however, were caught in price squeeze as feed prices jumped. 17The threat of another depression hastened the reinstatement of crop regulation through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which restored financial security to farmers. In the summer of 1972, the Soviets shook up the grain market when it hid from the world the fact that their grain harvest was in trouble. The move worked dramatically. Feb. 3, 2008 12 AM PT. 0000068573 00000 n 5In 1832, under Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court promoted tribal sovereignty, which recognized Native American tribes as domestic dependent nations. The court asserted in Worcester v. Georgia, Indian Nations had always been considered as distinct, independent political communities, retaining their original and natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the soil. 6The Marshall Courts opinions were overlooked in nearly all forms of territorial expansion (most notably by the Jackson Administrations Trail of Tears), including future land policy such as Lincolns Homestead Act of 1862 that continued to promote the growth of agriculture. 0000010104 00000 n We hit your inbox once a month and never abuse your personal information. America's total grain production of 242 million tons in 1975 represented an increase of 81 million tons from what it was in 1961. 0000009335 00000 n He was named to succeed Clifford Hardin, a quiet universitychancellor type who lacked the fighting style Nixon thought he needed in the 1972 election campaign. [4] They were married on December 22, 1937. The act granted settlers one hundred and sixty acres of land, which they would own outright on the condition of improvement after five years of homesteading, or could purchase at a low cost after six months. Donate today to keep our climate news free. Five years later, he pled guilty to tax evasion and served a short stint in jail. 0000062275 00000 n Butz encouraged farm production and promoted exports of surpluses. If you look back at what got us into the foodprice mess, the biggest single factor was the 1972 grain sales, and that was Earl Butz's baby, says Carol Foreman, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America. Agricultural policy has supported Americas greatest triumphs. Dr. Earl L. Butz, educator, administrator, and government official was born on July 3, 1909 to Harmon Lee Butz and Ada Tillie Lower in Albion, Indiana. Here's How. Butz resigned his cabinet post on October 4, 1976. Butz drastically changed federal agricultural policy and re-engineered many New Deal-era farm support . He was a bigot and, even then, at 66, not a young man. Dr. Butz graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. Friedrich Nietzsche. 18. 0000059437 00000 n 0000071753 00000 n 20In response to the unanticipated prices, Nixon declared a war on hunger, and promised the American people, I not only accept the responsibility for ending hunger and malnutrition, I claim the responsibility. 21. 0000017516 00000 n The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. It was obvious, however, that policy decisions in this area were being made at the State Department. 0000053931 00000 n a. the average reproductive rates equal the average death rates. 0000062543 00000 n You haven't learned to punch the clock at 40 hours or put two farmers in the tractor tab like the locomotive that goes through town. 0000029494 00000 n Just as this imbalance proved unsustainable in the 1920s, Nixons philosophy of expansion, still implemented today, presented its own health, economic, and environmental crises. Rather than use federal policy as a check on farm output, Butz saw it as a lever to maximize output. After the Great Depression which featured the stunning confluence of huge grain surpluses, widespread hunger, and a tide of farm failures the Roosevelt Administration put in place mechanisms to help farmers manage supply.. While somewhat dated, this work is unique in that it comes from the source. Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973. [4] In his time heading the USDA, Butz drastically changed federal agricultural policy and re-engineered many New Deal-era farm support programs. You could no longer assume your fellow whites would protect you for telling a joke insulting to blacks, and you could no longer assume your fellow blacks would protect you for telling a joke insulting to Jews. An Administration official who has watched Butz during such White (louse meetings says, He's very quick, which is important in the infighting, And he knows how to lose battles so he can win wars. (One early victory was his outmaneuvering Nixon Administration economic planners so as to get the farmers and their products excluded from price controls. 0000056225 00000 n In 1972, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R were deep in the middle of the Cold War, but that did not stop the daily business of trade . 0000060947 00000 n Earl Butz 0000057234 00000 n http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Homestead.html, The Library of Congress. He was the one who pioneered the fundamental change in farm subsidies. Wallace would have seen these as the glory of his department.. Butz, who lived in West Lafayette, Ind., was 98. 19Dubbed the Great Grain Robbery, food prices in America soared. 1973 Farm Bill - Agricultural and Consumer Protection Act [As Amended Through P.L. At height of the so-called Green Revolution and firmly in the Cold War mindset, he was referring to the American policy of fighting famine worldwide to defend against political unrest and the spread of communism. It reduces the need to rely on other countries for corn production. Under which American president did the deregulation of the food industry coincide with the growth of agribusiness and in particular big corn? The policy sometimes paid farmers to not grow food in order to keep agricultural prices high and allow small farms to survive. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture in 1932, and then a doctorate in Agricultural Economics in 1937. Land Ordinance of 1785. Stanford University. Produce all you can, and well the sell the surplus overseas! 0000013599 00000 n 0000066397 00000 n Blustering, boisterous, and often vulgar, Butz lorded over the U.S. farm scene at a key period. You are the most productive part of America! Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. 0000029154 00000 n 9As prices of agricultural commodities soared, farmers maximized production to increase their profits. the World Food Crisis of the early 1970s gave Butz the chance to promote the false notion that free markets would be good for farmers. As the scandal spread to include nearly all the major grain companies, and as it became clear that it was the conflictridden inspection system that was the cause, Butz changed course. Yet the food-production machine Butz created kept cranking. 0000058679 00000 n An agricultural hot line to Washington was established by the Agriculture Council of America, and thousands of calls poured in to farm leaders and Congressmen manning the phones. At the 1974 World Food Conference in Rome, Butz made fun of Pope Paul VI's opposition to "population control" by quipping, in a mock Italian accent: "He no playa the game, he no maka the rules. Those farmers were early believers. In the chart below, it looks like there was an unprecedented spike in corn prices in 2008. Butz had a similar view, "Get big or get out." Butz believed farm consolidation was inevitable. Earl L. Butz He emphasizes that the flight from the farms to the cities has slowed down during his reign; that the decrease of 11,000 farm units in 1975 is well below the annual decrease of more than 95,000 before 1969. From the Associated Press. Earl Butz has restored grain farmers pride in proving their enormous productive potential, and they love him. His policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs. 0000050730 00000 n 0000011491 00000 n " He no playa the game, he no maka the rules. BY TAKA YAMAGUCHI In 1976, then-U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz coined the now infamous phrase, "food is a weapon.". I got a royal welcomenot because I was Secretary of Agriculture. 0000051702 00000 n Within the food system, five major trends have enabled widespread industrialization. The successes and failures of each installation of land and agricultural policy emphasize the understated influence each wave of policy has extended over American welfare. [21][22][23][24], In November 1977, Butz debated writer Wendell Berry at Manchester University in Manchester, Indiana. It is possible, too, that domestic food prices would drop, although, because of the middleman factor, that is far from certain. A publication of Hillsdale College Over 6,200,000 Readers Recent Posts 0000066862 00000 n They had two sons, William Powell and Thomas Earl Butz.[4]. In terms of 2009 dollars, corn reached the equivalent of over $15 in 1973.Overall farm income jumped along with grain prices, from $2.3 billion in 1972 to $19.6 billion in 73. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 0000029849 00000 n Later farm bills saw adjustments, but the Great Depression and brief scare in the 1930s asserted that the livelihood of farmers, and the American people, was too closely tied to supply controls to lift them. 0000044154 00000 n Later, as technological innovations increased crop yields and international demand declined, policy curtailed production to regulate supply and demand. Has passed on, but fence-row-to-fence-row Agriculture and its vast environmental footprint lives encouraged farm and! 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