The greatest enemy facing Utah's agriculture is the myth -- often perpetuated by some academics and economists -- that farming and ranching are not important to the state's economy, according to C. Booth Wallentine.
Wallentine, executive vice president of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, ripped into those who downplay the role of agriculture in Utah on Thursday during the group's 83rd annual meeting."We have some folks at the University of Utah who say agriculture is responsible for less than 1 percent of the economic activity in Utah," Wallentine said. "Not so."
Additionally, a state official recently said agriculture is done in Utah, a concept that Wallentine rejects. He insisted that agriculture continues to be the state's most basic industry ("What could be more basic than food and fiber?").
Wallentine said Utah farmers and ranchers are responsible for $1 billion in the production of commodities without even counting the processing and manufacturing of agricultural goods. He said his figures were based on data from Utah State University and the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
If processing and manufacturing of agricultural products are factored in -- and this is one of the fastest-growing industries in the state -- that adds more than $3 billion to Utah's economy, Wallentine said.
And he said agriculture shells out $1 billion in payrolls, not including the wages of retail grocery clerks.
Utah might not be the top agricultural state in the union, but it is situated nicely in the middle in terms of production of many commodities, Wallentine said. Nationally, it is ranked second in mink and tart cherry production, sixth in sheep, ninth in spring wheat, onions and pears, 12th in trout, 15th in alfalfa, 17th in dry edible beans, 20th in breeding hogs, 22nd in apples and honey, 23rd in milk cow inventory and 20th in beef cattle.
"Utah's agriculture always has been and continues to be a major player in the economy of Utah," Wallentine said.
In other matters, Wallentine said it is important to move away from massive taxpayer subsidies for farming and switch to a safety net based on an all-commodity federal/private crop insurance program that keeps government from telling people what they can and cannot raise. The premiums would be shared by the producers and the government, and the insurance would protect farm and ranch income.
The bureau also is going to be active in the coming years trying to favorably position rural and agricultural interests in an increasingly urban environment.
Wallentine decried the Clinton administration's foreign policies that use food as a bargaining chip with countries whose humanitarian or military objectives displease the United States. When Pakistan began nuclear testing, the United States stopped selling grain to that country. As a result, Argentina picked up the lion's share of that market, Wallentine said.
Dean Kleckner, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said agriculture must pressure legislators to realize that farming has become a global matter and that tariffs that exist are deeply hurtful to American agriculture.
"Did you know that what the Japanese housewife puts on her table affects what we grow? Did you know that what type of sweetener Europeans use in making their confections and candies affects us? That what Alan Greenspan does has a heck of an effect on what we do?" Kleckner said.
He said the average tariff at the border imposed on foreign agricultural goods coming into the United States is 5 percent. Meanwhile, the average tariff paid by American agricultural producers to send products into other countries is 50 percent.
"There's nothing fair about that at all," Kleckner said. "That's why the Farm Bureau adamantly supports trade negotiations to reduce trade barriers."