Another Losing Year

Dan Yokum, 32, is doing what he likes best: farming.

But he may not be able to do it much longer. He lost a total of $90,000 in 1975 and 1976, and he expects to be a loser again this year. "I have the best crop I ever raised," he laments, "and it's going to cost me $15,000." Only an upsurge in prices or federal subsidies can bail him out, a plight all too typical of thousands of small farmers throughout the country.

Yokum farms 1,360 acres near Vilas, Colo., which have been in his family for three generations. He has 200 acres planted in corn, 200 in grain sorghum and 300 in wheat. He also has 150 head of mixed heifers. Yokum's wife, Carlyn, 32, helps with chores in addition to taking care of their two children: Danni, 4, and Bobie, 2.

In a sense, Yokum is a victim of his own efficiency. "In 1974 the Government told us to plant fence row to fence row," says Yokum. "They needed all the grain we could produce to aid a starving world." The farmers did as they were told. The upshot: a huge surplus of grain that drastically reduced prices. In 1973 the Government was concerned about the increasing price of meat, and imposed ceilings. "Every time we begin to get a fair price for one of our products," says Yokum, "the Government steps in and puts a ceiling on it." To counteract the price controls, farmers kept their cattle off the market, thus building up another surplus that substantially cut beef prices. Now that farmers have finally sold off this surplus, complains Yokum, they are still faced with mounting cattle imports. Whatever they do, it seems to them that they cannot win.

Costs have risen sharply as prices have fallen. When Yokum first started farming on his own in 1970, his total operating expenses were about the same as the one bill he gets today for the natural gas to run his irrigation-well motors. At the same time, Yokum's property taxes are soaring; in the past year, they jumped 40% after a reassessment. Yokum has exhausted his credit. He is behind in a $10,000 payment to the federal land bank, and he is supposed to make another such payment this spring. Says Yokum: "They have been very good about it so far, but it's coming to a point where it is just not realistic in their judgment to keep deferring the payments."

The way Yokum sees it, he may as well go on strike as try to keep farming. Even if he does not plant his 1978 crops, he can apply for a price-support loan on his current grain. He would get $2.04 per bu. of corn as opposed to the market price of $1.80. He would get $2.12 per bu. of wheat instead of $2.01, the current local price. "This will give us some of the capital we'll need," he admits, but he feels it is only a temporary reprieve.

If Yokum goes broke, he says he will follow countless other farmers and go to a big city to look for a job. "Of course, I'd rather not do it. I really hope to continue farming." He cannot help wondering, however, whether he will be able to avoid the fate of his brother, a Texas farmer who went bankrupt last year.

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