TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/040389/04038900.016

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 4KB | 66 lines

BUSINESS, Page 42

Don't Mess Around with Jim

Small farmers love him, but pesticide makers think he's poison


    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."