Proclamation 4094—National Farm-City Week, 1971

More than at any time in our history, it is apparent that the quality of life in America tomorrow will greatly depend upon balanced growth in our Nation today.

The flourishing of agriculture upon our shores has been one of the greatest success stories in the history of man, and today Americans are the best fed people the world has ever known.

Yet average family income in non-metropolitan areas is 22 percent below that of metropolitan areas, and growing numbers of people have left rural America to seek fresh opportunity in the city. With this vast migration has come not just industrial progress, but also a host of new social and economic problems. Many of our cities are becoming less and less governable.

Only through balanced growth in both our rural and urban areas can we weather this gathering storm. It is time for all Americans to realize that we must have a strong rural economy in order to achieve orderly and beneficial urban growth.

In recognition of this need, I, RICHARD NIXON, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week of November 19 through November 25, as National Farm-City Week and call upon all citizens wherever they live to participate in this observance.

I request that leaders of agricultural organizations, business groups, labor unions, youth and women's clubs, schools, and other interested groups, focus their attention upon the interrelationship of urban and rural community development.

I urge the Department of Agriculture, land-grant educational institutions, and all appropriate organizations and Government officials to mark the significance of National Farm-City Week with public meetings, exhibits, and presentations for the press, radio, and television.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 12th day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-sixth.

RICHARD NIXON