It’s the weather in Brazil andnArgentina; Soviet and Asianngrain buying sehedules; thenGreen Revolution and thenshrinking gene pool.nIt’s Common Market subsidiesnfor European farmers whonexport to the U.S.nIt’s the obligation to practicenconservation on the land—tonbe a steward as well as an”bottom line” believer. It’s thenRalph Nader scare tacticsnwhich scare the hell out ofnconsumers.nIt’s the chemical andnagribusiness companies thatnnever get scared when theynought to be.nIt’s a popular mind-set thatnassumes that cheap food can beneasily produced without lethalnchemicals and their occasionalnconsequences.nIt’s the ecological ignorance ofncommentators like DicknGregory, who think the HighnPlains should be parceled outnto the have-not multitudes.nIt’s the mayor and the cityncouncil who give lip service ton”green space” but whose tax,nspend, and growth policiesnhave made life impossible for anfarmer at the edge of town.nIt’s the costs for everything thenfarmer or rancher must buy.nAnd it’s the taxes!nIt’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics andnIrving R. Levine trotting out theirnwell-publicized “food basket” folliesn(comparing the cost of a basket ofnstaple food this year with what thatnsame basket cost the consumer lastnyear) without ever comparing thenchanging labor costs for these basketsnof food. And we are never informednhow much more it costs to build antractor or a combine this year comparednto last.nEscalated taxes and galloping farmncosts — especially the labor costs —nand low commodity prices are drivingnthe farmers off the land, and they don’tnhave the political clout to stop it.nBut like the welfare moms who can’tnstop doing it, they got themselves in anbind of their own years back (preciselyn50 according to John Block) when theynassumed USDA planners had goodnlong-range answers. Bringing politicalnfoxes in to rearrange the hen housenwas just asking for trouble.nEven so, many of them, especiallynFarm Bureau diehards, remain unabashedlynentrepreneurial. But in thencurrent Zeitgeist, these old loyalistsnfind themselves defending eroding islandsnof free enterprise within a vastnstream of subsidized colleetivists withnwhom they are forced into an unevennkind of competition.nSome now argue that if there is to benno cap on costs, no limit on what thenfarmer has to pay for all the things henmust buy, it is only fair, even logical,nfor him to put no cap on the price ofnfood to the consumer. And if Congressncan mandate a wage, why can’t itnmandate a fair price for the things thenfarmer sells? Though it leaks like ansieve, this is the rationale that hasnbegun to energize “union thinking”namong once-conservative farmersnacross the country.nAs if the farmer didn’t need anothernwild card in the wild game in which hennow finds himself, entertainers, sportsnpersonalities, and airline pilots arensuddenly buying the place down thenroad: Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton,nPeter Fonda, Warren Spahn, lawyers,ndoctors, writers, editors—“farmers”nall. The baseball star hauling down anmillion a year for pitching 30 games isnout there in the ofiF-season on hisnranch, driving up the assessments ofnnewly real-estated farmland for haplessnneighbors who must live on crops thenfarm produces. Even things as inconsequentialnas professional sports arenworking their way into the multifacetedn”farm problem.”nSo Dan, we want you to know thatnwe saw you and heard you. But nextntime we want something more profound,nbroad-scale, thoughtful, so wenwill know that you heard us—all ofnus.nDavid Tillotson is a working farmernin Lake Mills, Wisconsin.nLetter Fromnthe Heartlandnby Jane GreernnnPrice Supports & Poetic JusticenNext winter it’s Phoenix or Honolulunfor me, courtesy of the Writers’ Set-nAside payment I’ll be getting from mynUncle Sam.nThe program—a brilliant idea, ifnyou ask me—started with farmers, ofncourse, getting paid to let certain fieldsnlie fallow or to give up certain crops forna time because the market couldn’tnsupport any more wheat or sunflowers;nfarmers weren’t getting paid their “targetnprice,” set somehow, by someone,nin Washington. Many countries nowngrow huge quantities of high-qualityngrain, thanks to U.S. imperialist intervention,naid, and instruction: evennIndia exports wheat now—and theyndon’t need ours badly enough to paynthe prices U.S. exporters seem determinednto charge (our farmers aren’tnpeasants and won’t work for peasantnpay). As a result, a sinful amount ofnU.S. grain rots in silos and elevatorsnevery year.nIn order to make this country a littienhungrier, so such crops will sell at angood price, farmers hold land out ofnproduction (an age-old tactic thatnworks) and—this is the great, astonishingnpart—get paid not to plant thosencrops. “No, it’s not a grant or a loan,”none Midwestern supervisor told me,n”ifs a payment for being involved innthe program.” Sort of a guaranteednallowance for promising to not mownthe lawn.nWell, the crop I raise is writtennwords, and writers feed the world’snsoul if not its belly. We supply one ofnhumankind’s most precious commodities;nin fact, written language is one ofnthe things that makes us human. Itnalso simplifies just about every functionnof modern daily life. In short,nwriting is inestimably valuable.nOn the other hand, there is a wordnglut so omnipresent and immense thatnwords have almost no value these days.n(Of course this is confusing: it’s economics.)nOur enemies won’t, and ournown country and poor friends can’t,nconsume all the words U.S. writersnproduce in various forms: magazines,nnewsletters, books, individual poemsnJULY 1986/41n