Word: wheats
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...good harvests in a row. Normally, the U.S. exports some 35% of its grain. Now, however, grain and soybean shipments abroad (an anticipated 89 million metric tons in 1977) are expected to drop by 10% to 15% next year. Says Don Howe, president of the National Association of Wheat Growers: "Even if there was a total crop failure in America, we could still feed the entire country and maintain our commitments abroad for at least a year...
...That the crop-support loan rate be raised from $1.75 a bu. to $2 for corn. The loan rate is a Government-set floor price for grains, used by farmers when they borrow money with their crops as collateral. The proposals do not change the loan rate for wheat (currently $2.25 a bu.). Instead, the Administration increased the "target price" from $2.47 to $3. When market prices fall below the target, Washington will pay out the difference between the loan rate and the target figure-that is 75? per bu. Total cost of the program: $4.4 billion...
...Administration program is actually a compromise between an inflation-conscious Carter and his activist Agriculture Secretary, a longtime advocate of government grain stockpiling and similar measures. Bergland wanted wheat "set-asides" totaling 25% of acreage. Carter demurred after his economic advisers warned of possible inflationary effects if worldwide harvests took a bad turn in the future. Bergland also preferred higher support levels, but agricultural relief has a lower priority for Carter than balancing his budget by 1981; no massive amounts of money for crop support were about to become available...
...four decades ago. These policies were abandoned by Richard Nixon's aggressive, foot-in-mouth Agriculture Secretary, Earl Butz, a dedicated free marketeer. Butz's emphasis on an all-out export drive for farm products yielded spectacular results, including a threefold increase in the domestic price of wheat-but that was largely the result of bad harvests in China and the Soviet Union. One form of Government intervention that even Butz favored was the "set-aside." It was used from 1968 to 1972 to cut U.S. grain planting by 18 million acres...
...spread near Peosta, Iowa, says of the Administration plan: "I don't like it, but that's what we'll have to do. We'd sooner go all out and produce, but we can't when corn sells for $1.50 per bu." Says the Wheat Growers Association's Howe: "It's not a good answer, but it's the least bad of things we could...