A Real Sodbuster

Jimmy Carter wanted to put a farmer in charge of U.S. agriculture, and he made good on that goal--very good. Amiable Bob Bergland, 48, a three-term Congressman from northern Minnesota, is an authentic sodbuster who knows the ups and downs of farming at first hand. Son of a mechanic and farmer, he spent two winters as a carpenter to work off debts before making a go of a 600-acre spread planted to seed and feed grain hard by the Canadian border near Roseau, Minn. (pop. 2,552).

On the Hill, Bergland has blamed former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz's laissez-faire farm policy for putting farmers in peril of a "disastrous cycle of boom and bust." Butz abolished costly Government food stockpiles and deeply slashed the multibillion-dollar farm subsidies established in the Kennedy-Johnson era. At the same time, he launched an aggressive food-export push that has helped boost farmers' incomes.

Bergland will probably continue the emphasis on exports, but he is also expected to bring the Government back into U.S. agriculture in a big way. One objective: to protect smaller operations among the U.S.'s 2.8 million farms (down from 5.4 million in 1950). This intervention will take the form of higher crop-support prices and increased crop loans coupled with creation of a national grain-reserve system to cushion farmers against price fluctuations.

The Butz policy had its successes, thanks to a lot of luck--record corn and wheat harvests as well as big Soviet grain purchases. With the 1977 harvests expected to set new records, farmers may soon need protection from falling prices. Says Bergland: "I favor the free market, but when I say free market, I don't mean bankrupt prices."

Bergland maintains that the Carter agriculture policy will benefit food shoppers as well as growers, but some consumer advocates are unconvinced. Ralph Nader, while conceding that Bergland has "a very good consumer voting record," warns that he may fail to keep prices in check.

A freewheeling, gregarious politician, the rangy (6 ft. 2 in.) Bergland is married to a farmer's daughter and is the father of six children. Though he lost his first House race to an entrenched Republican in 1968, he ran a better-financed, more moderate campaign to win two years later. Last November he won a third term with 73% of the vote. When word began to spread that Bergland might be Carter's choice for Agriculture, the phone in his Roseau office began to jangle. The folks back home did not want him to leave.

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