Would flavored milk in a school lunch program be advisable or not? In other words, chocolate and vanilla flavors. Is that advisable or not in your opinion?

Mr. HAWKINS. They would do no harm. I can see no harm in letting them flavor it if some people just naturally don't like plain milk and do like chocolate milk, or like vanilla milk. Yes, any flavor, such as strawberry or pineapple or what-not. Any way you can get them to drink it, more power to you.

The CHAIRMAN. You know, I made a suggestion some time ago that if the dairy people, instead of getting Bob Hope as the main attraction to teach children how to drink milk-you know they tried Bob Hopewould put Hopalong Cassidy on their programs or Davy Crockett, you would sell more milk. I have five little grandsons and the mother doesn't have any trouble at all getting the kids to eat anything that is recommended by Davy Crockett, that is their hero. The same is true of Hopalong Cassidy, the Cisco Kid, and others. If you boys will get together and get that kind of advertising you might be able to get rid of your milk surplus soon.

Mr. HAWKINS. Since you are referring to the self-help that the dairymen are giving to get rid of the surplus by allowing a checkoff in lots of places in the United States, it is not general enough I will say. I think the Department of Agriculture or certain parties in the Department of Agriculture have done more to hinder that program than even you realize by forever keeping this surplus problem and how much the Government is spending on butter and cheese and milk and so forth-you can't pick up a paper that that thing isn't headlined to look like it is trying to build up a resistance in the consuming public to milk.

It acts as a detriment to the self-help program that the dairymen have organized in this advertising program to get people to drink more milk.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I tried to point out to you a while ago. When Secretary Benson, I am not here to say he did it intentionally, because I will give him more credit than that, but I agree with you thoroughly that the farmers of this Nation have been given the black eye not only by members in the Agriculture Department, but you have a lot of newspaper people who do it, a lot of columnists who do it, and radio commentators who comment on it. They take it from the newspapers in a good many cases. But if the farmers' plight were corectly described by these people and the public shown what would happen to the whole Nation if the farmers fade out, they might do a good job.

Senator JOHNSTON. I think we ought to know too, that the newspapers are subsized to the amount of about $250 million a year. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead and explain, Senator.

Senator JOHNSTON. Newspapers and magazines in the last 10 years have cost the Government $2,500 million. So they don't tell you

about that.

Mr. HAWKINS. How much is the steel industry subsidized?

Senator JOHNSTON. It is educational, all little papers get free deliveries but they ought to think about that when they are talking.

Mr. HAWKINS. There is another thing I want to say that I think could be carried further. This surplus milk that is in storage, this

surplus butter going to waste, why couldn't that be distributed through the public welfare and through school-lunch programs? I don't know. There may be a reason why it cannot. I don't know. Instead of letting it rot in the warehouse, why couldn't it be used there? The CHAIRMAN. They use as much as the kids will eat.

Mr. HAWKINS. I am speaking about the public-welfare program. We have them walking up and down the roads every day with sacks of food on their shoulder and they could put some milk in there.

The CHAIRMAN. You would be surprised at the large number of bills we had. I had my name on 2 or 3 of them. Instead of increasing the payments by cash to the aged, give them a certificate to get so much milk, so much of this, but so far Congress hasn't passed it. We have tried it but you know you have to get a majority of the Members of Congress in order to get that into law.

Mr. HAWKINS. I would like to go on record as being for it, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Good.

Mr. HAWKINS. There is another program I want to commend the Congress for and when I say Congress I mean both Houses of the Legislature. This brucellosis program. That seems on the surface that I am speaking just from the point of the cattleman, but I am speaking for the health of the Nation as a whole, because it is a disease that is transmitted to the human in the form of undulant fever and it can be eradicated and you are taking steps to do it. This new program you have stepped up for the next 2 years is making progress and I would like to see it continued only step it up further and make more money available to carry it out.

There is always a lot in Congress every year about taxing the co-ops. If a co-op is functioning right it has no profit. It is a group of farmers doing their marketing service for themselves and they are going to have to do more and more to stay in business, because every time you pick up statistics the farmer's share of the consumer dollar is getting less and they are going to have to process their product. If you must equalize the tax between your corporations and co-ops, why not take off the double taxation on the corporations?

That is, if you are going to tax it as a corporation why tax it when it goes back to the individual? Or else if you tax the individuals cut out the original corporation tax. I think that would equalize it but I am not a tax expert so don't start questioning me on that. The CHAIRMAN. We are all silent. We are not experts, either. Don't be disapponted if we do not ask questions on that subject. Mr. HAWKINS. If we are going to subsidize the agricultural industry in the United States, we are going to subsidize the agricultural industry in the United States, we are going to have to control import quotas because it seems foolish to me for Government to reduce acreage here, subsidize the price and then let this cheap foreign labor put material in here to compete with it to cause more subsidization. The CHAIRMAN. Any questions?

We thank you, sir.

Mr. Agnew, please. Give us your name in full and your occupation.

STATEMENT OF E. H. AGNEW, PRESIDENT, SOUTH CAROLINA FARM FEDERATION, COLUMBIA, S. C.

Mr. AGNEW. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am E. H. Agnew, a general farmer from Anderson County, S. C. Í farm 266 acres as a combination cotton and small grain and beef cattle farm.

I am here quite in sympathy with your avowed intention of hearing primarily from individual farmers in South Carolina as to what they want with respect to the future farm support price program. I ask your permission to tender a statement that I have prepared on behalf of the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation of which I am president.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that in line with the general policy of the Farm Bureau?

Mr. AGNEW. American?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. AGNEW. To a great extent, yes, but not altogether.

The CHAIRMAN. There is a little difference of opinion, I think, as to whether or not the Bureau is for rigid or flexible price supports. What is your plan as to supports? Does the Farm Bureau of South Carolina want rigid or flexible price supports?

Mr. AGNEW. Senator, we don't think there is any such thing as a rigid price support because the price is variable according to parity calculations. We are for 90 percent of parity support prices for

basics.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I mean, a rigid fixed amount, a minimum without the sliding scale.

Mr. AGNEW. But we do believe that a producer group among those six should conform to the adjustment principle and be willing to adjust production to consumption in order to earn and justify and defend the obtaining of a 90 percent support price. We don't feel that a commodity producer group, the majority of whom do not subscribe to the adjustment principle are entitled to the same level of support price as a producer group that does try to do a good job in adjusting production to consumption. If I may clarify that—

The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would because I don't follow you.

Mr. AGNEW. As far as tobacco and cotton, our two principal cash crops in South Carolina, are concerned, historically our farmers by some 98 to 99 percent majority of those voting have continued to approve marketing quota programs. We believe in that.

The CHAIRMAN. That is about the only crop you have here, tobacco and cotton.

Mr. AGNEW. And peanuts.

The CHAIRMAN. How about peanuts? Do you believe in 90 percent on peanuts?

Mr. AGNEW. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. How about wheat?

Mr. AGNEW. Well, provided the wheat farmer subscribes and practices the adjustment principle to the point that he is willing to cut his acreage and control his production to the point that he can justify it. The particular point that I wanted to make

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you are advocating the old program. then of 90 percent of parity on the basics? Mr. AGNEW. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Because that contemplates a curtailment of acreage in proportion to whatever level is placed by the Secretary of Agriculture in keeping with the supply on hand and demand abroad and a certain amount over and above our requirements.

Mr. AGNEW. That is right, but we do not believe corn, for instance, should be at 90 percent of parity just because cotton and tobacco are. The corn farmers ought to take the same attitude and practice the same principle of adjustment of production to consumption if they are to have the same level of support price. You know there are no marketing quota provisions of law for corn and corn farmers as a rule by majority do not conform voluntarily to the voluntary acreage allotments program.

The CHAIRMAN. You would put corn out of the program?

Mr. AGNEW. Their product should be supported in relation to the supply. If they overproduce and create a surplus under those conditions they are not entitled to the same level of support as tobacco and cotton farmers.

Senator JOHNSTON. You are saying you think all six basic commodities should be controlled alike if they receive the parity of 90 percent?

Mr. AGNEW. At least they should have the privilege of using the same kind of machinery if they want to. If the corn farmers want the kind of program they want we are quite willing for them to have it and the present provisions of law predicate the support price now on corn based on supply and not on a fixed 90 percent.

But we farmers, as you have brought out, Senator, very clearly this morning, are in a tight squeeze. During the last several years the average price of our products is down 23 to 25 percent and the average cost of production is up 29 to 30 percent. We have got to approach that thing on both ends and the support price level, be whatever it may, doesn't hold any hope for a complete solution of all the problems of the various commodity producer groups. There are many other things that enter into it, some of which you have intimated this morning.

While we have reduced the acreage of cotton in this country by 8 million acres, foreign countries have increased their production by 17 million acres. What the Congress does, what the Department of Agriculture does, has been on occasion considerably stymied, if you please, and influenced by rulings and practices of the State Department. Now, you did a very fine job in making a billion and a half dollars available under Public Law 804, the expansion of foreign markets of United States agricultural products for foreign currencies. Then the State Department may come along and stymie that program to a considerable extent because of the fear from Russia or somewhere else of being accused of dumping in foreign markets. Presumably the fear stems primarily from friendly countries.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe you are very modest when you say the State Department may. It did.

Mr. AGNEW. It certainly has.

The CHAIRMAN. It has done it, and, as a matter of fact, under the law as now drafted, the law today in effect, the Secretary of Agriculture could, if he desires, sell these surplus commodities without consulting the State Department, but you know the only way you might

be able to enforce it is impeach somebody and I don't want to do that. The State Department today has nullified our efforts in a measure to dispose of this for fear that they might hurt somebody. The people they are hurting now are these farmers and we might get a change that will make them do these things next election, and I am not trying to use politics in this.

Mr. AGNEW. Why, sure.

The CHAIRMAN. The farmers of this Nation need something now, be it Republicans or Democrats, that will do the job together or separately, we have to have something done, not in 1957 but now. Mr. AGNEW. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. If it is left to me and this committee we are going to do something.

Mr. AGNEW. I wish it were possible for me to suggest a complete and workable solution for all our multiple problems.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I thought you would do for us this morning, sir. That is what I am waiting for. I am waiting to get that spark from you.

Mr. AGNEW. I accept that as a facetious remark.

The CHAIRMAN. No, it is not a facetious remark. That is why we came here. We did not come here to hear organizations. We have too many of them maybe on the Washington scene now. They don't play politics of course, but they are there.

We have come here

Mr. AGNEW. They do exert some influence. The CHAIRMAN. They are there on the scene. to hear the farmers and that is why we want you, if you will, forget that you are a member of the Farm Bureau now, you are a farmer and you have been in the farming business a long time and you might have a little spark to throw to us that may light the way for us. Let's have it if you have it.

Mr. AGNEW. Due to the fact that the number of people working on farms has decreased by one-third in the past 15 years, we have been able to keep going under present conditions. If we had as many people on farms to divide this income among as we had 15 years ago, we would be virtually on starvation.

A lot is said about the preservation of the family-type farm but the trend of today is exactly in the opposite direction, away from it, bigger units from the standpoint of efficiency, we have to have very efficient production because farmers don't have anybody to pass their additional costs and charges back to.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that is a good policy?

Mr. AGNEW. It is a necessity. I don't know that it is desirable from all standpoints. Certainly we must preserve something of the American family type operation, but it itself is becoming a bigger operation on the average than it has been heretofore.

Senator SCOTT. Right at that point, wouldn't it be well to encourage that smaller type family farm getting larger within itself through improved machinery and improved production practices? That is what we need to do as much as anything else, is it not?

Mr. AGNEW. You are right, Senator Scott. South Carolina has approximately one-third of its farms with no more than 20 acres in cultivation, another third with no more than 40 acres in cultivation and a little more than 2,000 farms in this State with more than 100 acres in cultivation. We are a State of little farmers.