Remarks at Growers Cooperative Warehouse, Inc. in Wilson, North Carolina

Jim, thank you very much. I've been to a lot of tobacco auction barns in Georgia; it's the first time I've ever seen a sale on Saturday. [Laughter] And I especially appreciate both the buyers and the auctioneer and all of you for coming here to let me see at first hand the beautiful quality of your tobacco in North Carolina this year and to take at least part credit for the wonderful price that you are receiving for this high-quality tobacco.

As I told a large crowd earlier this day, my ancestors came from North Carolina. And they were tobacco farmers, and all of my ancestors have been farmers. Neither my father nor any of his ancestors have ever finished high school before. We grew up working people and with the realization that hard work and honest work is the foundation of agriculture all over the world.

Many kinds of crops have been almost totally mechanized. But tobacco, as you know, is one kind of production that still requires a large investment in cash money, that has a doubtful prospect each year for a successful crop and a successful market, and where hard, back-breaking labor is still a prerequisite to a profitable season.

In North Carolina, a third of the families who live on the farm make their income on 10 acres of productive land or less.

There is a lot of talk about maintaining the loan support price for tobacco on the one hand, and having a good health program on the other hand. I think anyone knows that there is no incompatibility between these two commitments. We must have stable agricultural programs, a stable price, an orderly marketing system. And because of the high quality of your crop, there's very little, if any, cost to the Government for this stable production schedule.

There are 2 million families in our country that depend for their livelihood on tobacco farmers; a fourth of them are in North Carolina. It's your number one agricultural export crop. In Georgia, tobacco is the number one agricultural export crop. And I think a good, sound education program for American citizens and a good research program for the benefit of American citizens can let us maintain good health in America and also a stable agriculture environment and industry, including, of course, the production of tobacco.

As long as I'm in the White House and have people like Bob Morgan, Congressman Fountain, and others to help me, we'll have a good loan program for tobacco in the Federal Government. You can depend on that.

Let me just add one other point. I've come here as President of our great country to learn from you, to share with you a responsibility for government. I have a lot of responsibilities on my shoulder, like you do in your own family or community circles—a responsibility to hold down inflation, a responsibility to prevent excessive Government spending, a responsibility to cut down unnecessary Government involvement in the lives of the people who comprise our private enterprise system, a responsibility to maintain the military strength of the United States, to make sure that when other nations look at us, people from all over the world say, "What is the United States of America?", that we can be proud of what they see.

Our Nation is one of great strength. God has blessed us in many ways—with a form of government now more than 200 years old, when individual human beings, no matter how different they might be from one another, could stand and speak as they choose, develop those qualities of individuality and difference that, put together, give us a strong America. He's given us good land over which we exercise stewardship, passing it down to our sons and daughters and their families to keep in a productive state. And when I assess what is the very important differences, or difference, between our country and others that's most valuable, where we have the clearest advantage over all other nations on Earth, it is in the productivity of our land and the productivity of the American farmer.

That's something that's not warlike in nature. It doesn't hurt other people. It keeps our Nation strong and influential in a good way, and it helps other people throughout the world have a better life.

I was concerned when I became President, as a farmer, about farmers. We've got a good sound administration. Bob Bergland, Secretary of Agriculture-he's not a college professor or economist exercising his theories in the Agriculture Department in Washington; he's a dirt farmer. When he came back from the war, he couldn't make a living at home. He had to go down to Florida as an itinerant farmworker. He went back up to northern Minnesota and borrowed money and rented some land and, eventually, built up a farm in his own family of about 600 acres.

He understands farmers. The Vice President does, too. And we've tried to set into progress a program, with the help of the Members of Congress and the Senate, that would turn the tide, because I could see very clearly that unless something was done, we were faced in this country with another Hoover Depression for farmers. Prices were going down; nobody knew what was going to happen next. Under the last administration, exports were turned on and turned off so many times that our foreign buyers didn't have any confidence in American markets.

On the spur of the moment, 32 oil seeds were cut off from being sold to Japan, including soybeans, including peanuts. And we saw the interruption of corn and wheat sales to other countries stopped and started so many times that they not only began to buy those products in other countries but other countries began to produce them. And it took us a long time to turn that around.

But last year, in 1977, with Bob Bergland's leadership, we had the highest level of farm exports in the history of our country-$24 billion. And as you know, farm prices were cheap. That was a lot of tons. This year, we're going to break that record again. And I can predict to you, as I did earlier today, that the net farm income in this country this year will go up 25 percent, with a net additional amount of money going into the farmers' pockets, after expenses, of $5 1/2 or $6 billion.

Now, I know farmers, because they're in my family and they're my neighbors at home. Farmers don't want a handout. Farmers want a chance to take a chance in farming. But they want stable prices. They don't want government to disrupt their lives. They want to have an ability to get a loan with good collateral and face the future, based on their own commitment and their own hard work.

I think we've got a good partnership now between government and agriculture. And I don't think it's any accident that this year the tobacco harvest will be the best and the most profitable, perhaps, in the history of North Carolina. Opening prices for tobacco were 35 or 40 cents higher than they were last year, maybe the highest in the history of our country. A lot of it is, because of you, good quality production. Many of you signed up for the four-leaf program. Many of you didn't sign up and left those bottom four leaves voluntarily. We're getting the reputation of being producers of tobacco who are interested in quality, and that will pay rich dividends for you in the future.

Well, I'm proud of you and I'm proud of the partnership that we've formed. You've got a great commissioner of agriculture, as you well know. I was bragging about him at lunch. I'll let him tell you what I said. But anyone who can bray like a donkey and be as good a commissioner as he is, provides a fine, clear voice when he speaks of North Carolina in Washington. He's the only commissioner of agriculture I know that can let his voice be heard in Washington without using a telephone. [Laughter]

One more word. So, let me say once again that I'm thankful for what you've done. And I hope that you'll let me hear from you about how our Government, your Government in Washington, can be even more helpful to you as we make agriculture in our Nation continue to be the most important strategic asset of the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you very much.