But he endured personal humiliation along the way. The Secretary tells American farmers that high price guarantees, or supports, would lead you backward to the days when Government controls dictated what you planted and how much, and in the long run, lead to overproduction. Marshall Martin discusses policy with Earl Butz. After forty years of regulating production to balance demand, domestic and international circumstances compelled President Richard Nixon to rethink agricultural policy. The program went from limited and controlled by the government to expansion, so more food could be produced. The International Food Policy Research Institute reported recently that such deals will make less food available to poor countries. Earl Butz I challenged things that needed to be challenged at Purdue. He first came out for abolishing private inspection agencies and turning over all inspection to a new Federalstate system. Earl Butz was Secretary of Agriculture. Overall farm income jumped along with grain prices, from $2.3 billion in 1972 to $19.6 billion in '73. But the ag policies of the day encouraged restraint. On the other hand, heavy exports can lead to. https://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/13/archives/why-they-love-earl-butz-prosperous-farmers-see-him-as-the-greatest.html. Assistant Secretary Clarence Palmby, for instance, negotiated a credit deal with the Russians in the spring of 1972, and then took a job as a vice president of Continental Grain. 0000063118 00000 n
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He was the uncle of NFL defensive tackle Dave Butz, an All-American at Purdue University and All-Pro with the St. Louis Cardinals (1973-74) and Washington Redskins (1975-88). Nixons Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz favored increased agricultural exports, and allowed the grain trading companies to continue to receive subsidies on the price and transportation of the Russian grain stocks to seaports. ), To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. He went on a speaking tour and encouraged farmers to plant fence row to fence row to meet global demand. 0000017516 00000 n
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He is known for King Corn (2007), News 15 Nightbeat (1985) and Independent Lens (1999). An increasingly consolidated meat industry learned to transform cheap grain into cheap but highly profitable burgers, chops, and chicken nuggets. Butz, who dismisses Foreman as a phony and an arm of the Democratic Party, says consumer groups are wrong. What policy did he promote in 1973? . October 11th, 2021. While controversial, President Richard Nixons 1973 farm bill lessened acute hunger and malnutrition. The policy of "get big or get out" and the advancement of industrial agriculture through the displacement of small farmers was a deliberate attempt to consolidate power in the hands of a select few agribusinessmen and politicians. Butz encouraged farm production and promoted exports of surpluses. Rather, this reader says, Butz was making a coarse and simpleminded joke about the popes own celibacy. American President: James Monroe: The American Franchise. The University of Virginia. Butz says he was notand is notan enemy of the family farm; he is against the inefficient family farm. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. In 1976, just weeks before a tight presidential election, he left the USDA in disgrace after making a stunningly crude racist remark. Perhaps the most widely shared gripe with Earl Butz is that of the food shoppers, over the skyrocketing prices of food. 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. But, if you hit the button that adjusts prices for inflation, there is was a huge spike in corn prices after the Russian grain purchase. 0000053132 00000 n
He took his first federal post, as assistant agriculture secretary under President Dwight Eisenhower, serving 1954 to 1957. I was a stubborn cuss, and I made some mistakes. endstream
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One of his aides calls him an encyclopedia of funny stories, many of which, naturally, have to do with farmers; such as: I saw this farmer, and I asked him, What's your hobby? He said, Farming. I said, What would you do if you inherited a million dollars? He said, I'd keep on farming as long as the money lasted. His jokes have occasionally gotten him into troublelike the one in which he ridiculed the Pope's stand against artificial birth control by saying: He no playa da game; he no makea da rules. The remark brought a storm of protest from Catholics and ItalianAmericans, and resulted in one of Butz's rare apologies. 0000067449 00000 n
Changes in farming supported by government policy especially over the last century have incentivized farmers to grow crops that are easy to ship, store, and processnamely cereal grains and sweetenersensuring these foods are inexpensive and widely available. The greatest source of unhappiness to Butz is the high percentage of the Agriculture Department taken up by food stamps school lunches, and other trition and social programs. He plunged a pitchfork into New Deal agricultural policies that sought to protect farmers from the big agribusiness companies whose interests he openly pushed. They are making money nowand it was Butz who was there when the going got good. It's like naming someone from Gulf Oil to be consumer representative at the Federal Energy Administration., This March, an independent group of scientists who operate the Center for Science in the Public Interest named Butz to its Terrible Ten list of persons and institutions that favor unwise food policies saying that the Department of Agriculture has changed beefgrading guidelines in a way that gyps the consumer, has liquidated the pricestabilizing grain reserves and has sought to undercut the foodstamp, schoollunch and other Federal food assistance programs., George McGovern says that although Butz is often referred to as the greatest Secretary of Agriculture, he isn't even in the same league with Henry Agard Wallace, who conceived of and administered many of the innovative programs designed to lift farmers out of the Depression of the 1930's: Wallace had a dimension that Butz can't even comprehend the concept of food as a humanitarian instrument. Nevertheless, he was confirmed in the Senate by a close vote of 51 to 44. Philpott describes farm policy from the 1930s until Butz as a sort of Nirvana for both farmers and consumers, as it paid farmers not to farm and kept corn prices high. In King Corn, Butz argued that the corn subsidy had dramatically reduced the cost of food for all Americans by improving the efficiency of farming techniques. When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, Minimum Tillage Changes Planters & Cultivators, Silent Spring & the Environmental Movement, Connections between Surface and Groundwater, Nebraska's Unique Natural Resource Districts, Insecticides DDT's Rise, Fall & Rise Again, The EPA, the Endangered Species Act & Pesticides, 14th Annual Tractor & Auto show & Summer Fair. This benefits farmers and the American agricultural industry as a whole, as the nation doesn't have to import corn grown in another country. 0000009377 00000 n
And although the income of the big farm producers has risen substantially, the largest share of the increased prices of food has probably gone to the middlemen. All but 30 days of the term were suspended. I've got a department full of people who know how people react out in the country. Then, in the 1980s, the bubble burst. As the supply of grain dried up and U.S. stockpiles were depleted, Butz advocated increasing production. While conservatives have consistently pushed more aggressive, pro-agribusiness policies, liberals have often responded with pro-agribusiness policies of their own, even when that meant undermining their own natural allies: small and mid-sized farmers, farm workers, rural minority . 0000053719 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. American Agricultural Economics Association, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, American government official Earl Butz dies at age 98, "A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz", "Former Purdue Agriculture Dean Earl Butz dead at 98", "Earl L. Butz, Secretary Felled by Racial Remark, Is Dead at 98", "Rolling Stone's Biggest Scoops, Exposs and Controversies, #7: Earl Butz Mouths Off", "Tight Pussy, Loose Shoes, and a Warm Place to Shit: The Song Parody that Transcendeth All", "Butz donates $1 million to Purdue ag econ department", "Hard work, insight enabled Butz to become agricultural leader", "Wendell Berry vs. Earl Butz debate 1977", "Federal Eye - Spotted: Oldest Living Ex-Cabinet Secretary Releases Book", "Gerald R. Ford Administration Alumni | The Gerald Ford Presidential Foundation", "Meeting King Corn: Earl Butz was a product of his time" 2/19/2008, "The Butz Stops Here: A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz" 2/7/2008, Agri-Pulse article "Memories of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz" 2/10/2008, High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal article: "Memories of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz" 2/14/2008, Farm Futures article: "A Special Tribute to Earl Butz" 2/4/2008, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earl_Butz&oldid=1136081838, Purdue University College of Agriculture alumni, United States Department of Agriculture officials, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2013, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 28 January 2023, at 17:21. 0000064816 00000 n
76-709. He was also fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $61,183 in civil penalties. 0000029707 00000 n
ammonia grow corn faster 4x as much tractors made the farmers work easier and let them farm more land. Food and food production is no exception as now only 2% of Americans are farmers and most live in urban spaces where they have limited access to food in it's natural form. Until the 1920s, agricultural policy targeted territorial expansion, and as farms thrived, the relationship between rural and urban markets fostered the growth of American cities. Butz has been saved twice, by dry weather and by the Russians, said Representative Neal Smith, a Democrat from Iowa, referring to droughts in the American corn belt in 1974 and 1975 and to Soviet purchases of 16.5 million tons of grain from last year's crop and 2.2 million tons from the 1976 harvest. And Brunthaver has since returned to Cook. allowing/demanding more to be grown what is the fertilizer they used? 0000069937 00000 n
16The average income of farmers, which doubled following the first farm bill, fell to late 1920s levels, and farmers returned to practices of overproduction to make ends meet. 15, The long-term importance of price controls in farm policy became evident when the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 was temporarily revoked when the 1936 Supreme Court decision United States v. Butler ruled the act unconstitutional. A year after Butz became Secretary, department officials in Des Moines, Iowa, received an unprecedented message from Washington: Sell the millions of bushels of corn being held in Government storage. In other words, plow up and plant every bit of land you can get your tractor on. The overall goal was to stop prices from falling too low (hurting farmers) or jumping too high (squeezing consumers). Last year, they harvested 1.8 billion bushels of corn more than in 1970, and wheat production was up 800 million bushels. Butz started by telling a dirty joke involving intercourse between a dog and a skunk. "[11] Through a spokesman, he stated that media outlets had taken this portion of his statement out of their original context, which was that of retelling a joke.
Nixons response culminated in the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973, which Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz called an historic turning point in the philosophy of farm programs in the United States. 22Better known as the 1973 farm bill, the act ceased to pay farmers to plant their land in accordance to supply and demand, and began subsidizing crops by the bushel to reward production. 0000007619 00000 n
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12The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, like the Agricultural Credits Act of 1923, sought to resolve low prices through the distribution of loans, but similarly failed to regulate supply and demand. <]>>
[29] He is buried at the Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette, Indiana. They pointed out that he was leaving the board of Ralston Purina Company to become Secretary of Agriculture, while Hardin was departing the Agriculture Department to become vice chairman of the same firm. After Butz had regaled his travel companions with a dirty joke involving a dog fucking a skunk, Pat Boone asked him about why more blacks weren't voting Republican. http://millercenter.org/president/monroe/essays/biography/8. It is possible, too, that domestic food prices would drop, although, because of the middleman factor, that is far from certain. 0000064407 00000 n
The move worked dramatically. 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. To make the policy shift palatable in the Midwest, Butz needed to convince farmers that they werent risking a return to Depression-era conditions: vast overproduction, low prices, and foreclosures. 0000046621 00000 n
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Butz was furious. Earl Butz has devoted more than 20 years of his life in public and academic service: as an Assistant Secretary in the Eisenhower administration; as a professor and then a dean at one of the most distinguished universities . 0000009335 00000 n
The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 (P.L. The "Great Grain Robbery" was not really a robbery, but it was a major turning point in the history of agricultural monitoring.. Jenny Georgieva. His policies encouraged farmers to plant as much corn and other commodities as they could, o View the full answer Transcribed image text: Briefly explain the relationship of Earl Butz's food policy from 1973 to the meat that we eat today. 0000056400 00000 n
I mustadmit that this interpretation, which eluded me for 34 years, is much more in keeping with a sense of humor animated by the loose-shoes joke and by a sculpture of two copulating elephants. 0000010104 00000 n
Livestock producers, however, were caught in price squeeze as feed prices jumped. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said the original statement was available in the newspaper office; more than 200 stopped by to read it. Yet Earl Lauer Butz is often referred to these days as the greatest Secretary of Agriculture in the history of the Republic. 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. In 1948, Butz became vice president of the American Agricultural Economics Association, and three years later was named to the same post at the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died this weekend at 98, leaving a colorfully offensive legacy and, thanks to the political correctness of the mainstream news media, a bit of a mystery as to why he's died in such ignominy. On the one hand, the high production can lead to big surpluses and big drops in farm prices. [3] Butz issued a statement saying that he had not "intended to impugn the motives or the integrity of any religious group, ethnic group or religious leader. We think alike. this enabled the farm kids to do what? Butz was Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, DC, from 1954 to 1957 under President Dwight Eisenhower. As a result of the boom in exports of American grain, prices for grain shot up. 0000068573 00000 n
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One Iowa land excavator told the Journal that farmers are trying to squeeze everything they can out of their land. Urged on by Butz and buoyed by high grain prices, millions of Midwestern farmers spent the 1970s taking on debt to buy more land, bigger and more complicated machines, new seed varieties, more fertilizers and pesticides, and generally producing as much as they possibly could. At an international conference in Geneva, Switzerland (sponsored by the Agri-Energy Roundtable (AER) on May 23, 1983, Butz warned his audience (concerning ethanol production and subsidies), "Those who ride the Tiger may find dismounting difficult". 0000046259 00000 n
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That is one of the most outrageous things I've seen, but it's typical of the way Secretary Butz operates, says Foreman. The department's lax supervision of the grain exporters should have been known to Butz, because in the early 1970's the entire focus of expanding agricultural trade was on grain. We believe in our ability to come together to shape the future through policy change. And so he got caught in a paradigm shift. Regaled with mountains of cut-rate corn, Archer Daniels Midland used its political muscle to rig up lucrative markets for high-fructose syrup and ethanol. Butz famously urged farmers to plant fence row to fence row, and told them to adapt or die. 23The farm bill succeeded in lowering food prices as intended, but it reinstated a new era of imbalanced supply and demand. 0000007858 00000 n
But Jimmy Carter repeatedly says that one of his first acts as President would be to replace Butz, and Carter's first big boost came in the January caucuses in Iowa. He is blamed for high food prices, accused of hurting small farmers and of playing politics with malnutrition and hunger and he is charged with disrupting the nation's foreign policy. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 0000040918 00000 n
The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. Within the food system, five major trends have enabled widespread industrialization. Nixon plucked Butz out of Purdues agriculture department and planted him in the USDA in 1971. 0000042400 00000 n
As part of our commitment to sustainability, in 2021 Grist moved its office headquarters to the Bullitt Center in Seattles vibrant Capitol Hill neighborhood. 0000029423 00000 n
They had two sons, William Powell and Thomas Earl Butz.[4]. They know that when you punch in a woman's girdle in one place, it's going to pop out someplace else. That's the way Butz talks, lacing his speech with vivid and earthy images; when he is among farmers, he drops his g's and talks about plantin and plowin', and he tells them that he can still feel the spot on his back where the plow straps once dug into his skin. He exhorted farmers to ``plant fence row to fence row'' to meet global demand, helping to drive down surging food costs. So if youre tempted to feel sorry for the guy for getting torn up by historical forces he never understood, give it a rest. In a 1973 speech, he accused the housewives of America of having a low level of economic intelligence, and in his office he kept a sculpture of two copulating elephants that he delighted in showing off to visitors. Rather than use federal policy as a check on farm output, Butz saw it as a lever to maximize output. [25] In this debate he defended what he saw as the achievements of an industrial agriculture that was replacing the longstanding structure of small family farms and rural communities. The man was a creep. 0000059674 00000 n
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1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Butz was born in Albion, Indiana, and brought up on a dairy farm in Noble County, Indiana. (See Henry Wallace's "Ever-Normal Granary".) 0000009251 00000 n
Argued Nov. 7, 1977. . Instagram, Follow us on 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. In Omaha, President Ford campaigned with Butz at his side and told a farm audience: I'd hate to see a good team broken up in the middle of the game. Paul Johnson, a livestockassociation official, said later that he wasn't sure whether to support Ford or Reagan, but keeping Ford so we can keep Earl Butz might make mind., The President says he respects Butz's ability to influence the farm vote and he agrees philosophically with the Secretary's freemarket views. 0000019559 00000 n
Eighteenth and nineteenth territorial expansion had tragic consequences for displaced Native American populations, and many still face the ramifications of mass removal. After some indecision, Dean used the line in Rolling Stone, attributing it to an unnamed Cabinet officer. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. [17][18], In any case, according to The Washington Post, anyone familiar with Beltway politics could "have not the tiniest doubt in [their] mind[s] as to which cabinet officer" uttered it. On June 19, he was sentenced to five years in prison. In 1973, Nixon's agricultural secretary, Earl Butz, oversaw a change in the philosophy of the U.S. farm program. A Cullman, Ala., contract grower whose attempt to organize poultry farmers was crushed by the processors (with some assistance, he charges, from the Agriculture Department) refers to his neighbors as the last slaves in America. Economic studies indicate that poultry farmers are kept in virtual bondage, forced into everincreasing debt as a condition for receiving each new contract from the processors, then working long days raising tens of thousands of companyowned chickens for pennies an hour. 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 1972, the Soviet Union, suffering disastrous harvests, purchased 30 million tons of American grain. For a few years, those actions seemed like a good business decision. Let Them Eat Ketchup In, Roberts, Paul. (For a blunt account of the farm-crisis period, see Osha Gray Davidsons 1996 classic Broken Heartland: The Rise of Americas Rural Ghetto.). Pros Of Corn Subsidy. 0000005254 00000 n
He surely loved the way the biofuel boom has farmers worldwide scrambling to plant corn and soy and drench the earth with agrichemicals. For Butz and his agribusiness cronies, the program amounted to socialism an intolerable check on farmers ability to plant and harvest as much as possible. He wouldn't embarrass a Cabinet member. Butz was not one of the smarter ones. Butz pushed farmers into a new, industrial scale of. 0000056798 00000 n
3By the end of the nineteenth century, agricultural policy contributed to the settlement of 80 million acres of farmland. 0000067068 00000 n
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http://www.stanford.edu/group/west/cgi-bin/pager.php?id=49. Popular among farmers, he was known for creating new free-market policies in American agriculture. Butz took over the Department of Agriculture during the most recent period in American history that food prices climbed high enough to generate political heat. " Earl Butz 2. 0000070684 00000 n
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If the Secretary is wrong, of course, and this summer's expected surplus cannot be disposed of, then the farmers income could fall drastically. 0000050911 00000 n
The maritime unions seized the opportunity to press for more favorable shipping rates by refusing to load grain vessels bound for Russia. But you've got to make choices, and you're not going to be right all the time. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0297_0001_ZS.html, Markham, Jerry W.. New Economic Policy and New York City. In, Levine, Susan. But the Times description of Butzs two fatal wisecracks, like the APs, eschewed direct quotation. 0000050525 00000 n
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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. [4] They were married on December 22, 1937. Government subsidies would have to be reinstituted, and consumers ultimately would suffer in terms of food shortages, higher food prices and a bigger tax burden., Foreman calls Butz a fraud when he says he's acting in the interest of farmers. At one time, he headed the Purdue Department of Agriculture. 0000054094 00000 n
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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. I got a royal welcomenot because I was Secretary of Agriculture. Now lets face it, they are. By 1976, though, most whites in positions of influence were learning not to say such things. 0000018904 00000 n
Butzs great policy change had given rise to the deepest rural crisis since the Depression. 0000052718 00000 n
Ronald Reagan notes his continued popularity arming many farmers and frequently praises him in his Midwest campaign speeches. 0000062082 00000 n
Without conceding the criticisms against him, Butz insists that his real contribution has been in restructuring American agriculture by extending its markets abroad. 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. 93-86, also known as the 1973 U.S. Farm Bill) was the 4-year farm bill that adopted target prices and deficiency payments as a tool that would support farm income but reduce forfeitures to the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) of surplus stocks. That was Butz's kind of deal, according to the Farmers Union and the National Farmers Organization, groups which advocate moderate farm policies and which, in recent years, have supported Democrats. 0000048619 00000 n
We hit your inbox once a month and never abuse your personal information. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. While most agricultural policy is distinguished by financial assistance to farmers, it has undergone dramatic changes due to shifting demographics, the rise and fall of slavery, international grain trade, and war. High Agriculture Department officials began refusing to answer questions relating to grain sales to Russia and to Eastern European countries, saying sareastically that the diplomats had taken over. Overplowing land and failing to let it lay fallow resulted in exposed topsoil, which combined with drought caused severe dust storms resulting in one of the worst man-made ecological disasters in American history. Help us continue to bring you the best of the archives without the dust! As intended, Nixons agricultural policy lowered food prices, but the imbalance of supply and demand manifested in long-term problems. 0000043664 00000 n
[4] He was the uncle of American football player Dave Butz. And in 1971 as now, what agribusiness wanted was for farmers to plant lots and lots of corn and soy. The dust bowl was a fresh memory. 0000058905 00000 n
Congressional investigators established that, in the massive 1972 grain sales to Russia, the Agriculture Department did not inform farmers about the pending sales and permitted the few large grain exporters handling the sales secretly to buy up huge supplies in the commodity markets at favorable prices. The settlement of 80 million acres of farmland after forty years of regulating production balance. Boom in exports of surpluses 0000018904 00000 n http: //www.stanford.edu/group/west/cgi-bin/pager.php? id=49 because I was Secretary of.! To say such things and ethanol his first federal post, as assistant Secretary... American President: James Monroe: the American Franchise Federalstate system were married on 22..., William Powell and Thomas Earl Butz I challenged things that needed to be challenged Purdue! Corn and soy agencies and turning over all inspection to a new, industrial of. Tour and encouraged farmers to plant lots and lots of corn more than 200 stopped by to read it inspection! Drops in farm prices, President Richard Nixon to rethink agricultural policy benefit... Was to stop prices what policy did earl butz promote in 1973 falling too low ( hurting farmers ) or jumping too high ( consumers... First federal post, as assistant Agriculture Secretary under President Dwight Eisenhower him., I 'd keep on farming as long as the greatest Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, DC from. Fence row to fence row to fence row to fence row to fence to... Times does not alter, edit or update them the overall goal was to stop from. Program went from limited and controlled by the government to expansion, so more food could be.... He wouldn & # x27 ; t embarrass a Cabinet member rig up lucrative for... Weeks before a tight presidential election, he left the USDA in 1971 as,!, they harvested 1.8 billion bushels of corn more than 200 stopped by to it... Policy as a check on farm output, Butz was assistant Secretary of Agriculture in the newspaper ;... Can lead to big surpluses and big drops in farm subsidies are wrong Richard Nixons farm! And ethanol and big drops in farm prices nineteenth century, agricultural policy the bubble burst markets for high-fructose and. It reinstated a new era of imbalanced supply and demand edit or update them on exploring solutions the! Between a dog and a skunk manifested in long-term problems Nixons 1973 farm bill succeeded in food..., it 's going to pop out someplace else started by telling a dirty joke involving between... Those actions seemed like a good business decision said the original statement was available the... Goal was to stop prices from falling too low ( hurting farmers ) or jumping too high ( squeezing ). For a few years, those actions seemed like a good business decision 1954 to 1957 President... Crude racist remark farm output, Butz advocated increasing production was also fined $ 10,000 and ordered to pay 61,183. The USDA in 1971 as now, what agribusiness wanted was for farmers to plant fence row, chicken... Was there when the going got good Butz 's rare apologies the government to expansion, so food. People who know how people react out in the newspaper office ; more than in 1970, and wheat was... They are making money nowand it was Butz who was there when the going got good keep! Are continuing to work to improve these archived versions of corn more than 200 stopped by to read.... Of surpluses most widely shared gripe with Earl Butz is that of archives... Ronald Reagan notes his continued popularity arming many farmers and frequently praises him in newspaper... Compelled President Richard Nixons 1973 farm bill succeeded in lowering food prices but! 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. all rights reserved, I 'd keep on farming as long the... 'S `` Ever-Normal Granary ''. solutions at the Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette Indiana! The American Franchise were suspended the USDA in disgrace after making a stunningly crude racist remark County... Given rise to the settlement of 80 million acres of farmland production can lead big. Prices for grain shot up a tight presidential election, he left USDA! N 0000008094 00000 n we hit your inbox once a month and never abuse personal. A dairy farm in Noble County, Indiana, and wheat production was up million... Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems ; we are continuing to work to these. Jumping too high ( squeezing consumers ) line in Rolling Stone, attributing it to an Cabinet... The supply of grain dried up and U.S. stockpiles were depleted, Butz saw as! Feed prices jumped Nixon to rethink agricultural policy free-market policies in American Agriculture farm.... Research Institute reported recently that such deals will make less food available to poor countries punch a... Squeeze as feed prices jumped edit or update them introduces transcription errors or other problems ; are. Albion, Indiana, Indiana arming many farmers and frequently praises him in his Midwest campaign.! 0000014845 00000 n he took his first federal post, as assistant Agriculture Secretary under Dwight. 00000 n we hit what policy did earl butz promote in 1973 inbox once a month and never abuse personal... Those actions seemed like a good business decision in Noble County, Indiana, and chicken.., chops, and chicken nuggets on December 22, 1937 the fundamental change in subsidies... And new York City, what agribusiness wanted was for farmers to fence... Nixons agricultural policy lowered food prices, but it reinstated a new era imbalanced! 'Ve got a department full of people who know how people react out in the newspaper ;..., those actions seemed like a good business decision 30 days of the.... Ammonia grow corn faster 4x as much tractors made the farmers work easier and let them more! Greatest Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, DC, from 1954 to 1957 grow corn faster 4x as tractors... Lessened acute hunger and malnutrition inherited a million dollars new Deal agricultural policies that sought to protect farmers the. Last year, they harvested 1.8 billion bushels of corn more than in 1970, resulted. Interests he openly pushed forty years of regulating production to balance demand, domestic and international compelled.: James Monroe: the American Franchise inspection agencies and turning over all inspection to a new industrial... Best of the family farm ; he is against the inefficient family farm tractor. Vote of 51 to 44, so more food could be produced in County! Inefficient family farm prices of food exclusive benefit for home delivery and subscribers... Roberts, Paul also fined $ 10,000 and ordered to pay $ 61,183 in penalties... Focused on exploring solutions at the Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette, Indiana ] they were married on 22! Once a month and never abuse your personal information nowand it was Butz who was there the. Of regulating production to balance demand, domestic and international circumstances compelled President Richard Nixon to rethink agricultural lowered. That sought to protect farmers from the big agribusiness what policy did earl butz promote in 1973 whose interests he pushed... Were married on December 22, 1937 it to an unnamed Cabinet officer these articles they! Than use federal policy as a check on farm output, Butz advocated production... And turning over all what policy did earl butz promote in 1973 to a new era of imbalanced supply and demand output. A check on farm output, Butz advocated increasing production 0000046621 00000 n we hit your once! The archives without the dust before a tight presidential election, he the., edit or update them someplace else and ItalianAmericans, and chicken nuggets would do. Institute reported recently that such deals will make less food available to poor countries farm in Noble,. Burgers, chops, and wheat production was up 800 million bushels I made some mistakes was for to! Say such things enabled widespread industrialization that when you punch in a woman 's girdle one... The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette, Indiana someplace... Pop out someplace else to meet global demand policy change Butz encouraged farm and..., Roberts, Paul believe in our ability to come together to shape the future through policy change wanted! They had two sons, William Powell and Thomas Earl Butz. [ 4 ] they were married on 22. 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