Senator LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Dr. Richard Weisskoff of Iowa State University of Ames, Iowa. If you will come forward. The doctor says he has to assemble some visual aids, so why do we not stand up for 1 minute and see if our legs still work. [Pause]. The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Weisskoff, if you will identify yourself for the record and if you will proceed. STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD WEISSKOFF, IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY, AMES, IOWA Dr. WEISSKOFF. My name is Richard Weisskoff, and my acquaintance with Puerto Rico began in 1962. Two years ago, I taught as a visiting professor at the University of Puerto Rico, and then I lived 8 months and researched in the western mountain region in a town called Lares, and that, gentlemen, is the flag of the municipality of the people of Lares, the Republic of Puerto Rico.1 I left Puerto Rico for Washington in September 1980, and I have been employed doing a study on the impact of food stamps in Puerto Rico for the Food and Nutrition Service. I would like to tell you about food stamps in Puerto Rico. Dr. WEISSKOFF. Puerto Rico has, since the fifties, followed the wrong development policies, and these have resulted in the current crisis. The extension of food stamps to Puerto Rico in 1975 was inappropriate to the needs of the island. Food stamps have deepened the crisis, not solved it. It is time to move from the incorrect policies to the correct ones, and these I will outline in detail. We have 10 minutes? The extension of food stamps to Puerto Rico was done hastily. The effect has been economic and moral disaster for Puerto Rico. In the years since 1975, the official unemployment rate rose from 12 percent to nearly 20 percent and now it is 18 percent. In Puerto Rico today, only a third of adults are working. That means twothirds are not working. They are either officially unemployed that is, looking for work and cannot find it, or they have stopped looking for work and have dropped out of the labor force. When food stamps were introduced into Puerto Rico, the price of food rose 18 percent. Now, the U.S. census of agriculture for Puerto Rico indicates that between 1974 and 1978-food stamps came in in 1975-cultivated crop lands fell by 20 percent. The banana crop fell in physical terms by almost 80 percent. Oranges by 60 percent [indicating on map]. I wanted to show you where Puerto Rico was in a second. It is far away. It is a thousand miles from Miami, and 1,500 miles from New York. It is a small island, a small island in the Caribbean, see, out here. That makes it difficult to know what is going on there. It makes it difficult to administer programs that are there. In 1950, 82 percent of all Puerto Rican lands was in farms. By 1978, only 48 percent of its land remained in farms. It had gone from 40 percent of its labor force in 1950, working in agriculture, and by 1978 only 5 percent of its labor force were in agriculture. So 1 See p. 290 for additional material supplied by Dr. Weisskoff. food stamps fills Puerto Rico with $800 million a year of easy money. That is Puerto Rico on $2 million a day. It is paper money, and people have stopped farming their land, they go into debt, they rely on food stamps, black marketeering, and casual work to supply themselves with real money for green money. Now, the Government's solution has been, first, to seek more Federal funds, never taxing its own industry and not enforcing its own progressive income tax on its own wealthy. Last year, for example, the Governor announced a tax cut to his people in view of his own operating surplus; that is, he let the U.S. taxpayer pick up the tab for all the welfare on the island. A second solution has been for Puerto Rico to invest in expensive demonstration projects which have yielded little and have proved dangerous to the delicate ecology [holding article]. Now, last month, New York Times front page, Tuesday, February 17, "Puerto Rican Agricultural Woes Reflect Dangers of Rapid Growth." It is an examination of the rice-growing program that the Governor just spoke about. Now, to cut food stamps quickly in Puerto Rico does mean that many families are likely-yes, are likely-to send a son or daughter to the United States to seek work and welfare. And for those who stay in Puerto Rico, there may well be an increase in crime, in theft, and the further collapse of social order. So what is the solution? Well, stop the wrong policies and start the correct ones. The goal must be food self-sufficiency, so that there is no longer a need-or a desire-for a single food stamp. Now, 30 years ago, Nathan Koenig, who was an Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, led a team of 100 technicians and, in 2 years, produced the study called a comprehensive agricultural program for Puerto Rico. Now, in this report, he wrote-I would like to read this to you, this is fantastic. "It is on the farms that the island's basic economic problems must be dealt with. Diversifying and increasing production for local needs while, at the same time, maximizing economic production for exports "This study shows," Mr. Koenig writes, "that the proposed attainable production would yield enough food to meet the requirements of a low-cost adequate diet for a population of 3 million people." Well, that is the population of Puerto Rico today-he was writing this in 1953-"and permits production in food imports.' In 1970, Mr. Koenig was again employed by the Puerto Rican government, and this time he produced a report, "The Role of Cooperatives in the Production and Marketing of Vegetables and Fruits." Another book filled with plans still waiting and ready to be executed tomorrow. Both plans, by the way, have been ignored. These programs must be updated and revised. On March 15, 1981, that is, yesterday, I went and interviewed Mr. Koenig in his home in Washington. He is a retired economist. And he said to me the following: "The record is very clear. Without motivation for self-help, all this is useless. You can study this thing to death. Pumping more money is not going to solve the basic problem." Now, what is? A food self-sufficiency program for Puerto Rico, that I am suggesting, would consist of improving the already exist ing small farms, building green belts of larger cooperative farms around the cities, raising farm prices to small farmers for nutritious tropical produce, financing the system of irrigation for small farmers, terracing the hills, contouring, plowing with small instruments, and emphasizing the nutritional advantages of the native diet. Now, the government of Puerto Rico must also immediately halt the fragmentation and speculation in farmland. It must reduce the importing of tropical foods from other Caribbean islands that undercut local producers. It must also appoint an an ombudsman for agriculture, a Puerto Rican trained in both modern and traditional agriculture, especially in tropical agriculture, and it is time for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to take full responsibility for its people and direct its energy toward food self-sufficiency. Now, what is the time schedule for this? First of all, no cuts, I would say, immediately for 6 months, while the government completes a crash program to update and revise the old studies, and find out from the small farmer what he and she needs. Second, to declare a temporary emergency tax of 5 percent. That is not much-in the net income of that industry in Puerto Rico, which is currently exempt from Federal and local taxes. So, 5 percent is nothing. This would generate $170 million a year to compensate for any cuts in the food programs, and could be used to build food sufficiency. You see, after 30 years, gentlemen, of taxfree profits let industry now make its contribution to food selfsufficiency. And then commence-after the planning-commence 1 year of intensive planting, installation of irrigation tubing, construction, contouring, cleaning, and restocking the inland lakes, refitting fishing lakes, preparing seedlings and nurseries. And then-in the second through the fourth years-phase food stamps out in Puerto Rico, by linking proposed Federal funds and grants to support for the small family farm, producing food for the native diet, and to the taxation of profits of industry, which is currently exempt from all Federal income taxes. This programthis program would put the Puerto Rican government on notice that it must be responsive to its own people's needs to make a decent living in their country and raise their own food, not to run to Washington year in and year out with the bogeyman-in Spanish the word is cuco-with the bogeyman of Communist threats or even threats of mass exile of its own people to the United States. Puerto Rico, in reality, is not-is not-a desperately poor island as we are told over and over again. It is simply that the government of Puerto Rico has been milking the Federal Treasury for billions of dollars over the past 30 years and, in so doing, has led its own people down the wrong path. Puerto Rico must not be nailed upon a cross of dollars. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Senator Leahy? Senator LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me ask you a question. I find your testimony interesting when you talk about the change in the number of people involved in agriculture, and let us see if I get the numbers right, from 1950 to 1970 it went from 95 to 5 percent? Dr. WEISSKOFF. No, the people involved in agriculture, it is 40 percent of the labor force. Did you want land or people? Senator LEAHY. People first. Dr. WEISSKOFF. People is 40 percent of the labor force in 1950. It goes to 5 percent in current time, maybe 3 percent now. Senator LEAHY. Now, what about land at the same time? Dr. WEISSKOFF. Land, the statistics we have from the agricultural census, say that in 1950, 80 percent of all of the land of Puerto Rico was classified as farmland-it could be pasture, it could be crops. By 1978, which is the latest agricultral census we have, it is 42 percent. That is a drop. Senator LEAHY. Now, is that land classified, or is the land actually used for agriculture? Dr. WEISSKOFF. No, it says farmland. Now, we all know that you could hold farmland as speculation, you could graze cattle. Senator LEAHY. That is my question. How much of the land in 1950 is actually used for agricultural purposes, as compared to how much is used for agricultural purposes now? Dr. WEISSKOFF. Right. You know, we do not have that statistic. In 1950, that is blank. They started asking that question in 1959, in the census, and there they come up with 700,000 cuerdas—that is, 0.97 of an acre-compared to 300,000. Senator LEAHY. What was the first number? Dr. WEISSKOFF. In 1979 it is 700,000, and then in 1978 it falls to less than 300,000. This is cultivated cropland. Now, this is also pasture, aside from that. The cropland falls about half. Senator LEAHY. So where did the agricultural land go to? Did it go to industrial development, or did it go to the Americans in San Juan? Where did it go? Dr. WEISSKOFF. That is a good question. A lot of it went nowhere. It is there. I have two slide projectors that do not work today, but it is there, and not used, that is the land has been abandoned. Senator LEAHY. Is the census wrong, or are they using two different figures? I do not understand. If it is still there, how can the figures change? Dr. WEISSKOFF. You take a farm out of cultivation, you leave it, you graze your cattle on it, you get your tax writeoff. There is certain land, if it is farmland, but it is not cultivated. Everyone wants to own a farm, that is the splitting up, the selling of farms to people. So that every professor at the university-not every-but they have a little farm, and they go there on the weekends, that is classified as farmland. Senator LEAHY. But that would still be considered within the statistics? Dr. WEISSKOFF. Right, but there is an abandonment of land. Senator LEAHY. That is probably similar to what we are seeing in other parts of our country, on the mainland, how much of that agricultural labor force-the decrease-how much of that reflects, for example, the change from a very labor intensive type of agriculture to a mechanized energy intensive type of agriculture. Dr. WEISSKOFF. Yes, that is a good question, and that is the point, they have gone from a labor intensive, which was sugar, tobacco, plus the root crops. I think we have some examples of crops that I would like to pass around. They have gone from that to nothing. There are a few major experiments yet in which they use machinery, but they are actually very minimal, token. There is a risky experiment. Senator LEAHY. What is the difference, for example, today from 1950, in the degree of mechanization, in using machines for agriculture today, as compared to then? Dr. WEISSKOFF. You see, in 1950, the major crop was sugarcane, which was cut by hand, a very labor-intensive technique. Senator LEAHY. Is that the only way you can cut sugarcane? Dr. WEISSKOFF. No. Where is our Senator from Louisiana and Florida? It is cut by machines. So the Puerto Rican government could have mechanized, that would have meant disemploying people. Instead they chose not to mechanize, I will use that word, and instead the whole crop disappeared, and the sugar mills have been disassembled, and sold to Brazil and other countries. Where is the cane cutter today? They are in the cities, where they are picking tomatoes, that is, or they are washing dishes. That is where the cane cutters are, or they are very old people. That whole industry-I will show you on the map [indicating] it is on the northern lands and on the southern lands. If you notice that the mass of the country is mountainous. This is a mountainous country, and now 30 percent of the people still live in the mountains, and the mountains is where the rainfall is, provides for three crops a year. We have a 12-month growing season, which means in certain vegetables and grains that is three to four crops, if they are transplanted, so it has tremendous potential. However, it is hilly, which means that it requires a lot of labor, and you can get several crops in the same place, like a bush crop, a root crop, all growing as neighbors on the same land. It is extraordinarily different agriculture, nothing like-nothing which the U.S. Department of Agriculture has ever seen. It is a complicated, historical agriculture, and it requires a special program. It does not require food stamps. It requires special agricultural programs, tropical agriculture. Senator LEAHY. I have one last question in my time, I will save it for the next go-around. Because this has been an interest of mine for quite some number of years, Mr. Chairman. Every time I have gone on my own, either to Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands, I have talked to a number of people, nonprofessionally, I might say, to find out why more is not done in agriculture. So I will get back to it. One last question. To what extent has there been encouragement from those sugarcane producing or sugar producing States on the mainland, what extent have they encouraged the dissolution of sugarcane production in Puerto Rico? Dr. WEISSKOFF. OK, that is good. Senator LEAHY. Especially when they are going to have to compete with a highly different wage? Dr. WEISSKOFF. That is good. I will answer you in two ways. That question ought to be asked about citrus. In 1950 Senator LEAHY. OK. Add citrus to it, but do not forget to get back to the sugarcane. |