Don't Mess Around with Jim Small farmers love him, but pesticide makers think he's poison

By Richard Woodbury/Austin

As spring arrived on the Texas prairie last week, farmers and ranchers were fighting a range war that packed all the fury of a Panhandle twister. At the eye of the storm was Jim Hightower, the state's populist, barb-witted agriculture commissioner. Outside Texas, Hightower is best known for regaling the Democratic National Convention last year with his zingers about George Bush, who he said "was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." Hightower provoked national attention again early this year when he urged cattlemen to grow hormone-free cattle in response to the European Community's ban on U.S. beef.

In farm country, Hightower has become a hotly controversial figure because of his impassioned attacks on pesticides and corporate agriculture in general. Delegates of the Texas Farm Bureau, a privately supported business group, met in Waco last week for a special session in which they railed against Hightower. They were joined by an array of cattlemen, grain-elevator operators and pesticide makers, who charged that Hightower is pursuing political ambitions instead of looking after the state's farmers. But supporters of small-farm interests rallied just as staunchly to his defense. Said Joe Rankin, president of the Texas Farmers Union: "The entrenched powers feel alienated. Jim won't get into bed with the good ole boys."

Hightower, who heads a staff of 575 state workers, was elected to his post in 1982 and re-elected in 1986 with 60% of the vote. His foes realize they would be unlikely to whip him at the polls, so they want to abolish his job and replace it with a panel appointed by the Governor. Hightower forced the showdown two months ago, when he made the surprise decision to pass up a race for the U.S. Senate against Republican Phil Gramm and instead run for re- election in 1990. Then he promptly spurred a ruckus with his plan to promote hormone-free Texas beef. The proposal angered many cattlemen in part because it would boost feed costs.

Hightower, 46, a native of Denison in North Texas who edited the activist biweekly Texas Observer before running for office, is an unabashed advocate of consumers and small farmers. Says he: "There's room for more family farms, not less. You can make money on 40 acres." Hightower has encouraged farmers to adopt organic growing methods and to handle the processing of their products so they can keep more of the 75 cents of every food dollar that goes to middlemen. Hightower has also urged growers to diversify into potentially lucrative crops ranging from pinto beans to blueberries to wine grapes. He has even encouraged farmers to raise crayfish in their ponds.

But Hightower's tub-thumping has prompted resentment among industry giants like Othal Brand, a vegetable grower in the Rio Grande valley. Says Brand: "The little farmer has gone the way of the oxcart. Leave it up to Hightower, and we'd be like India." Among Hightower's powerful foes are chemical companies, which he alienated by pushing a tough pesticide law in 1985 and nearly doubling the number of produce inspectors.

Hightower won a test of strength last week in the state senate, which passed a bill to extend the life of his agency. The acid test may come when Republican Governor Bill Clements, no Hightower fan, decides whether to sign the measure. A veto could send Hightower packing to his backyard tomato-and- okra patch. But the feisty populist is unlikely to moderate his radical position. As he has said, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos."