FARMERS’ STRIKE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 74, 9 March 1933, Page 5

FARMERS’ STRIKE

CRISIS IN ARGENTINA. LOCUSTS AND WEATHER CONDITIONS. It is generally admitted that the position of farmers in New Zealand is not very bright, what with reduced prices for export produce, but compared with the plight of farmers in the Argentine, the position of the New Zealand producer is very good.

The agrarian crisis is assuming alarming proportions, especially in the Province of Entre Rios, where according to the report of the Department of Rural Economy just published 18,000 farmers and their families arc in danger of starvation owing to the destruction of all growing things by locusts and unfavourable weather conditions, and are asking for 2,700,000 paper pesos (about £202.000) to be sent immediately in food or cash, as even the cows formerly kept to supply the household with milk have been sold. Conditions are almost as bad in northern Santa Fe, where a meeting of delegates of the Argentine Agrarian Federation has voted in favour of a farmers’ strike for the suspension of all farm work pending the Government’s acceptance of an agricultural relief programme comprising a fouryear moratorium of all commercial and bank debts, and of rent; the reduction of the rate of interest on agricultural obligations; the abolition of Customs duties on machinery and implements necessary for the national industry; the negotiation of reciprocal agreements with foreign countries to facilitate the marketing of Argentine products; the reduction of freight rates; and a minimum price of five paper pesos for the quintal of maize under whatever restrictions might be necessary to guarantee it. The Federation is organising meetings in other provinces to secure adhesion to this.

In northern Santa Fe and Entre Rios farmers are unable to buy seed for the next crops and the Department of Rural Economy are urging the railways and grain exporters to co-oper-ate with the Federal and Provincial Governments to secure the free provision of seed at the cost of 3,500,000 paper pesos (about £262,000). in the United States, conditions are also very bad, as pointed out in a previous article in these columns. A report from U.S.A., relative to farm mortgages throws an interesting light on the position of American farmers. A Kansas City real estate agent who went to Mound City, Kansas, to foreclose a mortgage on a farm rvas found on a highway there mortally wounded with many bullets from two different calibre firearms. A Grand Jury at Cerokee, lowa, has indicted for “conspiracy to gas, beat and shoot’’ and for assault with intent to kill 11 persons who are alleged to have fired upon pickets of the Farmers’ Holiday Association while the latter were illegally preventing the transportation of farm products to market. In response to a protest from the farmers the Governor of Ohio has appointed a board of five persons to mediate between debtors and creditors in six agricultural counties of that State. It has recently been estimated by a competent authority that farm mortgage debt in the United States amounts to about 8,500,000,000 dollars (about £1,700,000,000 at par), as against 9,500,000,000 dollars in 1929, the difference being accounted for by foreclosures of many mortgages in the course of the depression. The other debt of the farmers was estimated to be about 3,000,000,000 dollars. Between 1929 and 1932 farm income dropped from 1.1,000,000,000 dollars to 5,300,000,000 dollars. The latest index number of wholesale prices for farm products is 43 per cent, of the 1926 average, as against an index number for all commodities of 61.2 per cent, of the 1926 average.