July 1979 RAIN Page 9 • • •• • ••• • • • • •• • • ••• •• • • •• • ••• •• ••• ••• •• •• •• • •••••••• • • • • •• • ••• • • • • •• • ••••••••• Another curiosity is how smoothly CDC's small-farm activities seem to mesh with the 1974 proposals of the Committee on Economic Development-the pro-Big Business group whose earlier programs were successfully implemented through the federal government, resulting in more than 2.2 million farmers losing their jobs and lifetim_e investments. Their current pitch is to get government welfare to keep small farmers on the farm an9 out of the cities (perhaps that's where CDC's profit money will come from), so the small farmers can provide cheap_laborintensive inputs to agribusiness but lose their independence and political clout. It all becomes.less curious when you find out that one of the CDC Board of Directors was oh the CED committee that formulated their current prol5osals. • More basic than these questions concerning CDC :ire those concerning corporate activity in these areas in-general. It has become clear from analysis of CED documents and subsequent government actions that our agricultural problems by and large have been the result of carefully developed and ~ucce~sfully implemented policies to increase corporate profits. Likewise, current proposals for "solving" present farm problems , are only attempts to repaint the problems to make p~s~ible even further profiteering. Regardless of Control Data s mtentions, any provider of information s·ervices to farmers would be difficult to keep from establishing profitable relations with agribusiness equipment suppliers, agribusiness food processors,· credit suppliers, etc. If CDC won't do it, someone else will step in who will. The mere fact of some small farmers having a "corporate information and management service" would make cr~dit access for other farmers without such (good or bogus) services more difficult and push the;m into similar corporate ties. • The inevitable evoiution of such a 'sy~t~m is into franchise farming, where the farmer takes the risks.and the corporation takes the profits. ,Tenneco switched from direct farming to franchise farming to let someone else provide the dollars and take the risks. MacDonald's did the same with hamburgers. Then when the risk was gone: they began to -take over the more profitable franchises themselves. It is necessary to remember that there are many levels where changes work simultaneously--:-but to frequently different ends. Information services to farmers may help them (questionable in this case) but also help_someone else towards somewhat different ends. In addition to the likelihood of franchise farms, CDC admittedly looks at-the internatjonal farm market as the most lucrative outlet for the data they hope to assemble from U.S. small farmers. They also proudly announced to us·a recent $300,000 contract with the Venezuelan govern- ~ent for improving peasant nutrition. CDC would provide satellite monitoring of weather, c~op conditions, etc., which they also provide to Russia, China, the U.S. and other countries. But centralized knowledge of such information makes meddling in inter-seasonal farm futures a profitable lure-a northern hemisphere crop failu·re can provide an extremely profitable market for reverse-season so'uthern hemisphe~e crops. The tendency then would be to orient Venezuela's agriculture to export markets, which would likely worsen the nutrition level in the country as much as it would fatten the pocketbooks of export:ers. These g~mes are nothin~ new, of course-while you watch TV, the networks are selling your presence to advertisers. And whi~e. y9u enjoy yourself _at Disneyland, their computers are m6nitoring and analyzmg what makes you laugh, and cry,_and pay. Is there reason to support these things? The-se glimpses into corporate strategies in agriculture suggest other disturbing possibilities. A suggestiop that the ser- ' vices·Control Data proposes to sell to farmers would more • aptly be provided by the extension services brought out a suspicion that they would be the next likely public "problem" to be solved by corporate takeover and our tax c;lollars. Then the Post Office, Social Security . . . . We need to look at and deal with the corporate causes of our problems rather than merely their proposed "solutions," to restructure those systems for socially viable operation rather than operation that ciistorts the system to maximize the profit siphoned off at one point, and learn to look . through the masks of rhetoric we so easily have been fooled by in the past. If farm prices, market ·and credit access are the proble'ms, we need'to focus on getting those things changed to resolve the problems and remove the opportunity for selfserving coFporate "soluti~ns." How we learn to respond to_ these corporate initiatives will strongly affect the future direction of development in this c~untry. CDC knows they're not dealing with an easy win. They . know that lying to us will b,oomerang as it did at Three ~ile ·island and innumerable other cases where.corporate deceit has failed. It was dear in our meeting that their staff was instructed to be scrupulously honest with us, even when it hurt, but never, of course, to volunteer, and always to div~rt when possible. A coordinated effort is continuing to examine CDCinteresting new data on their South African activities.has just been uncovered. Detailed proposals for decentralized computer networking are being developed. Discussion on appropriate actions are taking place at farm and a.t. conferences; information is being spread through numerous journals and newsletters. Res·ources The Loss of Our Family Farms: Inevita_ble Results or Conscious Policy, Mark Ritchie, 1979, $2.50 from: • Earthwork 3410 19th St. San''Francisco, CA 94110 An illuminating analysis of the farm policy recommendations of the Committee for Economic Development that forced 2.2 • million farmers out of agriculture, how they have been enacted by the same people-now wearing the hats of the federal government-with<;>ut public debate of alternatives, and _what their present proposals are. Control Dat(!-, Control Data, Control Data, Control Data, A Look at the Small Farm and Appropriate Technology Programs of Control Data, Gil Friend, 1979, 8 pp.; 50¢, bulk rates upon request from: Agribusiness Accountability Publications P.O. Box 313 31 San Francisco·, CA 94131 A discussion paper on the issues focusing on Control Data, including background from Gil's.earlier m_emos, a syi:opsis <:>f the issues ii:ivolved, substance and evaluation of meetmgs with Control Data, and ary exploration of responses to CI)C initia- •tives, user-controlled systems, local actions, etc. DODOO
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