Stories of the Land: Diverse Agricultural Histories in the U.S.

Politics

An image of a microphone in the foregorund and a blurred crowd in the background. The image says Policy, Collectivity, Rhetoric.

In the depressed 1930s, when times were even harder for farmers than they are today, American political leaders took counsel. They listened to ranchers, growers, sharecroppers, agronomists, soil experts, and marketing specialists; a few of those leaders raised questions of value. What, they asked, is agriculture for? What is the ultimate moral reason behind the pursuit of abundance, new farm technology, and an expanding economy—or is there one?

—Donald Worster, environmental historian²⁶

As the nature of agriculture has changed over the last two hundred years—moving away from small-scale family farming and towards larger, consolidated, and industrial models—so, too, have political discussions about agricultural issues. “A common point in the debate over U.S. farm programs,” states a 2005 report from the USDA, “has been that current policies were tailored for a time in American agriculture that no longer exists.” The report considers how technological efficiency, productivity, and consumer influence have shaped the realities of the industry in both positive and negative ways—as seen in the public broadcasting programs included in this anchor.

Public broadcasting can provide records of how these significant changes were discussed, through coverage of farmers' meetings and opening events at the local level as well as through the national coverage of political events. While many of the programs in this anchor explore how politicians and officials engaged with agricultural workers through Policy and Rhetorical appeals, many others demonstrate how workers Collectively engaged with their representatives and shaped political discourse around their vested interests.

Decisions about farm Policy have been a matter of public debate since before the first Depression-era farm bill in 1933. The broadcasts featured in this section explore the legislation, regulations, and government programs affecting the industry as well as their reception by farmers and the public. Several questions are centered in these debates: Should the government support farms during unstable times through crop insurance and/or subsidies? Should product prices and supply quotas be regulated at the federal level? And, more broadly: What should be the government’s role in supporting and overseeing an agricultural economy?

Though agriculture can seem like an isolating activity—especially in rural areas—the broadcasts in the Collectivity section illustrate what can be accomplished through organized political action. From protest marches to sponsored events supporting sustainable agriculture, the stories in this section mark how cooperatives, organizations, and coalitions of agricultural workers can capture attention and potentially effect change.

In the late nineteenth century, farmers began to be imagined and discussed as a collective political force. This force continued to grow, adapt, splinter, and change in the new century—as evidenced in the Rhetoric section, with broadcasts as far back as 1957. These programs showcase political commentary and speeches that frame those working in farming both as a voting block and as a potential political base. In doing so, the speakers reduce diverse agricultural experience into a singular vision of “the farmer,” and we can see how the effects of this mentality continue to prioritize certain visions of farmers and farming today.

Policy

Featured Item

Reverend Jesse Jackson proposes policies for Black farmers in this 1988 Broadcast of “Election 88: Prairie Fire Presidential Candidates Agricultural Debate” (Iowa Public Television, January 23, 1988). (item below). Jackson’s proposal continues in the second part of the event coverage. https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-37-343r26z7

“Up on the Farm” (Maryland Public Television, Owings Mills, December 6, 1982).

This agricultural news series includes coverage of events relating to farm policy, notably the 1982 Maryland Farm Bureau Convention and the Maryland Agricultural Pesticides Conference. Debates about government support/interference in farm issues happen alongside discussions of what to do with the state’s dairy surplus (proposed answer: make milkshakes available in schools). The conference on pesticide use, in particular, deals with issues of Practice and Environment as attendees learn how to avoid chemical barn fires and the dangers of skin exposure. “Many times that people have used a chemical over and over, they feel secure with it that they know how to use it,” says Jacquelyn Lucy of the Maryland Poison Center. “It’s important that farmers and farm families be aware—that every member of their family use them properly.”

“Clem Tillion on Halibut, Salmon Treaty” (KDLG, Dillingham, Alaska, April 26, 1983).

This radio broadcast covers the intricacies of Alaskan aquaculture in the midst of political maneuverings, as politicians attempt to stay in control of the state’s aquatic Resource management. Recently ousted Clem Tillion (former chairman of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council) speaks on the halibut moratorium, which would greatly limit those able to lawfully harvest halibut. “We need to have some way to spread the take a bit over a longer period of the year,” Tillion asserts. Of the contested salmon treaty between the United States and Canada, he proclaims: “That’s a pickle slicer, I think.” With a potential “fish war” between North American fisheries, Tillion’s analysis of the situation illustrates the political stakeholders in waterway and Land access.

“Election 88: Prairie Fire Presidential Candidates Agricultural Debate” (Iowa Public Television, Johnston, January 23, 1988).

In this debate, sponsored by the three rural activist groups, Democratic candidates—Gary Hart, Bruce Babbitt, Michael Dukakis, Richard Gephardt, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Paul Simon—answered questions relating to the 1980s farm crisis, global markets, and the Harkin-Gephardt farm bill in advance of the Iowa Caucus. This broadcast not only demonstrates the Rhetorical and political moves made by candidates but also the ways in which Land and Stewardship involve issues of class and race. “I think the question about Black land loss deserves at least a different answer,” Rev. Jackson said in response to Dukakis’s proposed plan to support minority farmers by helping small family farms more broadly. “They have a double burden: they’re not only ‘small’ and ‘family,’ but they’re also Black, which means often they cannot get loans—often they cannot get access to markets.”

WPLN News Archive, “Tobacco Buyout Legislation” (WPLN/Nashville Public Radio, March 8, 2004).

“The tobacco buyout made it back in the headlines the moment the Speaker of the House started campaigning in Kentucky last month for a Republican race for a vacant House seat.” So begins this radio broadcast coverage of proposed buyout legislation, which would cover farmers’ financial losses if the tobacco market was deregulated and farmers lost government funding. But at the center of the debate is the question of tobacco regulation through FDA oversight. In this debate, we can see how morality and the ethics of substance cultivation motivated political policy, a point further emphasized in the documentary feature Tobacco Blues (see Philosophy).

Collectivity

Farm workers march for the right to unionize, as highlighted in The MacNeil/Lehrer Report on “Texas Farm Workers” (1977).

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, “Texas Farm Workers” (WNET/WETA, New York/Washington, April 4, 1977).

This national news segment on the Texas Farm Workers movement follows seventeen demonstrators who walked over 400 miles to Austin in order to push for legislation that would affirm the right for farm workers to unionize in the state. Commenting on the event, Jack Angell, speaking on behalf of growers and the American Farm Bureau, suggested that the movement was driven by outsiders: intellectuals, professional organizers, clergy. But the interviews with the Texas Farm Workers union members contradict these assertions. When demonstrators arrived in the city, they were met with supporters and food as they gathered to celebrate and called attention to the cause. Here, Folklife, Labor, and activism intersect as cultural touchstones (food, music, and dance) serve to strengthen resolve and commitment in the community.

“Farm Workers Center” (KUNM, Albuquerque, NM, 1994).

This radio program covers the opening of the Centro de los Trabajadores Agrícolas Fronterizos in El Paso, Texas, which was a 1994 project completed by the Sin Fronteras Border Agricultural Workers Project. It was designed to be one of the first buildings that farm workers might see upon crossing the U.S./Mexico border, a Place embedded with meaning, and it is a demonstration of the collective work of labor activists for over ten years. “Nothing was given to us by the own will of the city,” says director Carlos Marentes. “Everything was the result of struggle: protest, blocking the international bridges, taking over city buildings.” Marentes’s mission didn’t end with the formation of the center; NPR reported on his work—now as a 70-year-old—to protect farm workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Wisconsin Magazine, episode 1522, “Farmers Going It Alone” (Wisconsin Public Television, Madison, date unknown).

This segment from a weekly television magazine examines how some farmers have shifted towards more sustainable agricultural Practices. Several farmers were featured for their work to educate others through onsite demonstrations on their own Land. But, as Dick Thompson of Boone, Iowa, points out, this requires not just a shift in Method but also in Philosophy: “The problem has to be solved on the inside. There has to be regeneration on the inside—that we're concerned about the land the community and people. And when that gets solved, then we'll take care of the land right, and we'll get out of the greed and ease syndromes.” Thompson hosted hundreds of visitors each summer, taking them out into his fields while discussing Stewardship and the Environmental impacts of industrial farming and pesticides.

Rhetoric

This map from The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on “Farm Politics” (1985) indicates open senate seats in the upcoming election (yellow) and states with open seats and a sizeable farm population (orange).

Politics in the Twentieth Century, “Divided We Plow” (San Bernadino Valley College, CA, January 1, 1957).

This political commentary from the 1950s demonstrates how public media talked about farmers in the decades following the Great Depression, as agricultural Practice became more and more industrialized and embedded in global economic systems. We hear from journalists, political scientists, sociologists, and farm organization leaders, all commenting on the potential political power of a farming base that was often tricky to pin down. “Since the end of World War II,” says Samuel Lubell, an author and political journalist of the time, “farmers have become perhaps the most roughly shifting voting element in the whole country.”

The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, “Farm Politics.” WNET/WETA, New York/Washington, October 10, 1985).

In a segment of this national news program, Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute reports on the Reagan-era farm crisis and its impact on the political landscape, with interviews from incumbent congresspeople as well as prospective candidates, many of them called “farm state Republicans.” The episode includes clips from congressional sessions, with senators and representatives reacting to Reagan’s farm program and considering its impacts on their agricultural constituents. The report aired in advance of the 1986 midterm elections, and much of the discussion is framed around partisan divides and how farm issues complicate party lines. By attending to the language and ideas invoked by politicians, we can better understand what rhetorical appeals were utilized to bring together and mobilize a Collective farming base.

“Green Acres: A History of Farming in America” (BackStory, Charlottesville, VA, 2013).

“Farmers have always been a big part of the American identity,” begins historian Peter Onuf, the host of this BackStory radio episode. “But in the early twentieth century, farmers became something else: a powerful political lobby.” In this broadcast, the entanglement of farming and politics is explored through the work of historians, political scientists, and other scholars. This program provides useful historical context for many other items in this anchor, discussing some of the landmark political moves and legislation of the twentieth century as well as the enduring idea of the small family farm Philosophy and its rhetorical significance in political discourse.

The Advocates, episode 322, “Should We Support the National Lettuce Boycotts” (WGBH, Boston, MA, March 8, 1973).

This audio recording of an episode from the PBS television series The Advocates presents a debate between those supporting a national boycott of iceberg lettuce and those opposed. Those speaking in favor of the boycott represent a coalition of farm-worker support, most notably Chicano activists and leaders of the United Farm Workers. Those against it include a state senator, California lettuce growers, and a representative from the Teamsters, who continue to deny that farm workers actually want union representation. Clergy spoke on both sides of the debate. Farm workers had been excluded from the 1930s labor legislation meant to protect workers in the United States, and leaders such as César Chávez worked to organize in order to protect agricultural workers through Collective action and striking power. These debates exemplify the rhetorical appeals—specifically to public consumers—on both sides of the Labor debate.