Remarks to Farm Leaders Participating in the "Salute to Agriculture."

Secretary Hardin, Attorney General Mitchell, and all of the distinguished guests on this very significant and historic day, the Salute to American Agriculture:

The Secretary of Agriculture has informed me that this is the most representative group of farm leaders ever gathered in Washington, D.C., for a single meeting. And it is quite appropriate, it seems to me, that this should be so.

My problem is to find the remarks to begin this day that would be appropriate for the occasion, worthy of this occasion.

During the period of the day, you will be briefed on a number of very important matters by the Attorney General, by General Haig,¹ by Governor Romney, and others; matters that involve, of course, every family in America and matters, of course, that farm families and people who live in rural America have a particular concern with.

¹Brig. Gen. Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr., Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

What I would like to do in my opening remarks is perhaps to put this day in perspective, to tell you why I asked the Secretary of Agriculture to work with us and the White House staff in having a salute to Agriculture, a special day for America's farms and America's farm families alone: First, because we thought it was appropriate to express our appreciation to American agriculture for what you have done for America. And my remarks will particularly be directed toward that subject.

Second, because we thought it might be an occasion when we could develop a better method of communication between farm leaders of America, government leaders, leaders of Congress, in developing the programs to carry out and reach the objective that I enunciated when I appeared in this room about 2 years ago: to see that America's farmers and farm families received their fair share; and that means a more fair share than they presently are receiving of America's increasing prosperity and particularly agriculture's productivity.

Then, finally, of course, this day is one in which, as is always the case, those in agriculture, those who live in rural America, want to talk not only about their own problems, but they want to consider the problems of the world in which they live.

I have always found when I have spoken--and I have spoken in many counties and cities across this country-to agricultural audiences, farm families, farm audiences, and the rest, that their interests are, of course, very, very close to the soil and the problems that they have. But they also have enormous interest in terms of the whole Nation, the families of this Nation, the families of the world, and, consequently, my remarks today in opening this conference will, to a certain extent, touch upon that theme. May I first turn to what America owes to agriculture? I say this not just for you, but I want to say it for all of the American people, those who may be listening on radio or may see an excerpt on television. When we think of the problems of this country, we often hear listed among those problems the problem of agriculture. I visited 67 countries in the world and, believe me, most of them would like to have our problem when it comes to agriculture: the problem of surplus, the problem of productivity, the problem of having the ability to produce more than we need. No nation in the world has that capacity. And America's farmers, therefore, have made a contribution to America that is tremendously significant.

Let me put it in terms of programs that, as President of the United States, I have been able to recommend to the Congress and that the Congress has been able to adopt, knowing that we could implement those programs that could otherwise not have been recommended and not adopted had it not been for the productivity of American agriculture.

There is the problem of hunger in the world. There is also a problem of hunger in America. And in this Administration we have moved forward, as you know, on a program to eradicate hunger in this country to the extent that we could.

The number of people in America who today receive food stamps has now passed 10 million. It was 3 million when we began this program just 2 years ago.

Now, how did that happen? It wasn't just as easy as asking the Congress to pass a law and then the Administration to print the stamps. Many nations could do that. It was the fact that in America we produced enough, that we had the food which we could distribute, and because we had that luxury--that problem, some call it--of surplus, we were able to move in a very dramatic way, as no nation in the world has been able to move, to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.

The movement of 3 million to 10 million people who are receiving aid in terms of food stamps could not have taken place except for the productivity of those who live on America's farms.

Then I think of America's competitive position in the world. We have many problems there. This morning, for example, I was looking at some statistics with regard to radio--and I know that this address is being carried on radio. Did you know that over 90 percent of the radios in America today are not made in the United States of America? They are made abroad.

You have been hearing about the problems of America's steel industry, still a very strong and a powerful industry., and it must always be strong and powerful because you cannot have a strong industrial economy without having a strong steel industry. Let's look at what has happened to the competitive position of America's steel industry in the last 20 years.

Twenty years ago in the United States of America we produced 50 percent of all the steel in the world. Today we produce 20 percent of all the steel in the world.

Twenty years ago the Japanese, for example, strong competitors, and we do not complain about competition, but the Japanese produced only 5 million tons of steel. Today they produce 100 million tons of steel; within 2 years in Japan they will produce more steel than is produced in the United States of America.

The problem? The problem has to do, of course, with national priorities; it also has to do with productivity and the competitive capacity of American industry.

And we could go down the line. Oh, there are many industries where competitively we have stayed ahead and moved ahead. There are others where we have fallen behind.

But the most dramatic, the most exciting statistic of all is what has happened in agriculture. I sat in a meeting recently with a group of America's business leaders and labor leaders. They disagreed on many things. But they all agreed that insofar as increases in productivity were concerned that American agriculture led not only the United States but led the world.

Another statistic that will bring it home: In the last 20 years, the total of the American economy or American industry, its part of the total, increased its output per man-hour by 150 percent. That is, of course, a significant increase. But in that last 20 years, American agriculture, America's farmers and farm families, increased their output per man-hour by 300 percent--almost twice as much.

Now we come to the problem. It is a rule in a free society that whoever produces more should be compensated for more. The income per capita of those who live on America's farms has gone up in the last 20 years. But in terms of sharing in this increased productivity, those who live on America's farms, those who produce from America's farms have not had the rewards from increasing productivity that their colleagues who work in American industry have had for their increases in productivity.

It is that problem that we have been addressing ourselves to. It is that problem in which, of course, we need cooperation between all branches of government, the Administration, the Congress, and the farm community to see how we can see that America's farmers receive their fair share of a dramatically increasing productivity.

Then there is a third area where, in the past 2 years, I have seen how much this Nation owes and, beyond that, how much the world owes to American agriculture. That is in the field of foreign policy.

Secretary Hardin mentioned the fact that Mrs. Nixon had been active in 4-H. As a matter of fact, she was a member of 4-H. She didn't win the blue ribbon, but she won the red ribbon, I recall. This was before I was married, so I cannot question her veracity with regard to which ribbon it was.

But she has also done some other things. She has traveled to many countries in the world. And a few months ago, you may recall, she went to Peru where they had a terrible earthquake, where over 50,000, maybe 70, 000, people were killed.

And on that occasion she was able to pledge from the people of the United States and from the Government of the United States millions of dollars in assistance, assistance in many ways, but assistance, among other things, in terms of food.

There have been other disasters in the world. For example, a flood in Romania. And as President of the United States I was able to sign a particular instrument which would enable us to provide assistance, millions of dollars of assistance, to those who suffered from this flood.

And as I look at that situation, I then come to American agriculture. Why was I able to do it? We are not the only good-hearted, generous people in the world. There are many people all over this world living in countries who have very different systems of government who would like to be generous when others are in trouble.

The reason we are able to do it is because we produce so much. The reason that the United States has been able to provide hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assistance in food across this world is because we produce it on America's farms, produce enough to make us the best fed, the best clothed people in the world, and produce enough that America can be, as we are, the most generous people in the world.

It wouldn't be possible except for the fact that out across the great heartland of America farmers and farm families produce more, and more efficiently, than any farmers in the world and make it possible for America, this Nation, as a people, as a government, both individually and collectively, to be generous in terms of what we can do for others who are in distress.

And in the field of foreign policy, of course, I had this brought home to me very vividly yesterday when Dr. Borlaug came over to the White House lawn to see the exhibit that you will see this afternoon. We looked at those strains of wheat that he developed in Mexico and which can also be used in Pakistan, in India, and other areas of the world which will enormously increase their wheat production.

And as I heard him talk, this man who won the Nobel Prize for Peace, I could see why he was, in truth, quite worthy of it. And I could see why he, by receiving this award, was pointing the way to the future of America's role in the world.

He said a very moving thing. He said, "You know, I have lived out of this country for 27 years, but I am a very proud American." And he had reason to be, because he spoke movingly of the poor people he had seen in Mexico, the children who didn't have enough to eat, and others, and he did something about it. He also said there were thousands like him. The people, the armies we shall call them, who go to other countries, who have been doing it for many years, the armies from American agriculture. They go abroad carrying plowshares, not swords. And as they go abroad, they help others learn the techniques that are so important to develop the capacity to feed themselves.

Let us understand: We fortunately have the capacity to produce enough to feed ourselves and to be generous to others. But America cannot feed all the hungry people in the world. America can help others develop, or learn, the capacity to feed themselves. And men like Dr. Borlaug, people that I have seen in other countries, teams from Purdue, for example, and Michigan State and California at Davis, all over this world I have seen them in country after country, working with the local people, helping them to develop the capacity to become self-sufficient or, at least, more self-sufficient in terms of the vital problem of poverty, hunger, as it exists in other countries of the world in such great degree.

So I want to say to you in agriculture today that in the field of foreign policy, as I see it, we now are entering what will be a new period for America. We are ending a war in which we have been engaged, a very difficult war, for the past 5 years. Once that war is ended, then the question is for America and the world and particularly for us: What do we do with the peace? Do we keep it or do we have another war, something we have had for this whole century. Every generation of Americans in the 20th century has had to go to war--World War I, and then the sons of those in World War I went to World War II, and the brothers of those who were in World War II fought in Korea, and the sons of those who were in World War II fought in Vietnam.

Now the question is whether that dreary, dreary practice of the past is to be repeated? It is our responsibility in positions of foreign policy leadership to do all that we can diplomatically to end this war and to build the structure of peace so that Americans can have real peace, and lasting peace, a generation of peace in this last third of a century. That is one side of it.

But peace is something more than simply the absence of war. Peace means creating, giving, making a contribution to the betterment of our own people and to the betterment of people throughout the world. And who better understands that than the men and women of American agriculture?

Dr. Borlaug received the Peace Prize and I would provide certainly the peace prize for hundreds of thousands, yes, millions, of farmers and farm families who will make it possible in this last third of a century, after the world is at peace in terms of absence of war, for us to be creative, creative and helpful, in helping other nations to develop the capacity to feed themselves and to remove what would otherwise be a time bomb which would explode and involve us and all other nations in the world, if those who do not have enough to eat lose faith, lose hope that they will ever get it.

That need not happen. It will not happen. It will not happen because I think we are going to play that role. And I think you are going to help play that role.

So in a sense today I am saying to you: Thanks to American agriculture for making us the best fed, the best clothed people in America; thanks to American agriculture for providing the basic industry that is essential for any nation to be strong in many other fields. We are the richest nation in the world. And thanks to American agriculture for providing for the Government of the United States the opportunity to play a role in peace, to build a peace, a peace that will last.

You are playing a role that is far more important than simply how many bushels of wheat, or corn, or what is the price of this or that or the other thing. All of those things are naturally important in terms of the day-to-day or month-to-month or year-to-year decisions that you make.

But American agriculture plays a fundamental role in this great objective that all of us Americans want to achieve, and that is that the United States in this last third of a century--once we have brought peace, as far as we are concerned, to that area of the world in which we are involved--will be able to build a stronger peace, a more lasting peace among people who will finally appreciate that America, from the time of its beginning, has not been interested in conquest, that America now is not concerned about expanding in terms of our domination over others, but that the American people, despite our failures, despite our mistakes, that we are a generous people, we are an idealistic people. We want, of course, to take care of ourselves, but we also welcome the opportunity to help others.

And it is the idealism, it is the character of the heartland of America represented here today to which I particularly want to pay tribute. America owes a great deal for what you have done. And, looking to the future, as peace comes and as we build a stronger basis for peace, I can assure you that those who live in American agriculture and work in American agriculture, you should receive and you will receive

great credit for what you have contributed.

Thank you.