they are not always represented in their opinions by their organi

zations.

Senator HOLLAND. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you again, Mr. Wright.

Let me say, for the benefit of the audience, that to my right is Senator Aiken from Vermont, to my left is Senator Holland from Florida, and we have with us your own Senator, Senator Ives. [Applause.]

Senator IVES. I appreciate the honor of being with you. It is a privilege. It is very kind of you, Mr. Chairman. I will have to leave you this afternoon rather early, because I had a lot of trouble getting here due to the weather.

The CHAIRMAN. We will next hear from Mr. Stanley H. Benham. Give us your name in full, your occupation.

STATEMENT OF STANLEY H. BENHAM, PRESIDENT, DAIRYMEN'S LEAGUE COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, MILLBROOK, N. Y.

Mr. BENHAM. Stanley H. Benham, president of the Dairymen's League Cooperative Association, Inc.

The CHAIRMAN. I notice you have a statement there.

Mr. BENHAM. Yes, I have. And I shall confine my remarks as far as local conditions are concerned to the position of the 24,000 dairy farmers who are members of the Dairymen's League. I observed that Mr. Lent covered many of our local problems. That is, the position that our dairy farmers here find themselves in.

I would like to point out that the estimated prices under the New York milk order for the months ahead indicate that for this month of November our blend price will be 32 cents under that of a year ago, and in December 26 cents. And there is a fear it will continue a downward slope into 1956. Of course, that is our major problem. And what irritates our farm people at the present time, along with these declining prices for several months past, we have been hearing about higher wages for steelworkers and automobile workers and for milk drivers, and as you gentlemen probably well know, with milk as with other agricultural products, the increased handling cost between the farm and the consumer has prevented the consumers from receiving much if any benefits from the declining farm price.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any formula to submit to us?

Mr. BENHAM. I have as I get farther back into the paper, I have some suggestions.

I would touch briefly on some of the situations we find ourselves in from viewpoints that I have not yet heard expressed.

One of the criticisms aimed at farmers, and I guess with some justification in many cases, is our inability to work together. I was pleased this morning to hear just recently Senator Aiken had made an address out in the Dakotas, in which he had stressed that point to the farmers. I would say, however, that such a criticism is not wholly justified in this milkshed. We in our organization have taken the initiative in bringing the dairy and other farm groups of our milkshed together to work for constructive programs. And insofar as our milk situation is concerned, starting a year ago, right here in Utica, these groups worked shoulder to shoulder trying to meet the problem of the declining milk prices.

And I would also point out that the constructive leadership of these recognized dairy cooperatives has so far anyway prevented the irresponsible from seizing upon the present condition of the dairy farmers, that they find themselves in, as an excuse for fomenting serious trouble in this area.

I am saying we have thousands of dairymen in our milkshed who are rather hard up financially, and when that man is in that position he is rather apt to listen to radical ideas. If somebody proposes that he can give him the moon and the stars, too, he has a tendency to follow him. Because we have been working together we have been able to prevent much of that development.

We would agree with Mr. Lent that fluid milk should be priced on its own merits. And as he pointed out, we have the machinery available by which that can be done. It is available to us from the United States Department of Agriculture, that is, the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1937, and our existing marketing orders here.

I think that we dairymen here not only are concerned about our own situation, but we are concerned about the national agricultural situation of the other farm people. While there are varying degrees of pressure on farmers, depending on what crops they are in, where they are located, the fact remains that our farm people in this country pretty generally are just growing a little thinner, while everybody else seems to be getting fat and prosperous. Of course, I do not have to point out to you that this inequitable situation is a result of costs which are primary wages having been allowed to continue the spiral upward, while our prices have tumbled down.

I think that you, our elected leaders, have a primary responsibility of working with us.

The CHAIRMAN. We certainly want to do that. I am anxiously waiting for your solution to the problem. Give us that; that is what we came here for.

Mr. BENHAM. We will skip along over some of these things.

We agree with Mr. Lent that low prices not only do not reduce production, except if they are extended over a very long period of time, when they may starve some people out, but farm families do not starve off their farms very easily. We live up our depreciation, we will deplete the fertility of our soil before you starve us off. And depleting the fertility of the soil is a rather serious matter from the national viewpoint.

We find that there are limitations as to how much our people can eat. We can do advertising and promotion. We can change their preferences for food in a way that will tend to help our problems some, but our people continually lead a more sedentary life and we are always being advised that we are shortening our life expectancy by eating too much.

It would look like in 10 or 15 years from now that we will have a population that will eat up our production and use up our fiber, that is not much consolation to the young farmer today who is wondering how he will meet his interest and amortization on his debt next year.

And when we look at these foreign markets we find that our price levels in this country have been pushed up in the past few years, so far above world prices that we cannot market on foreign markets and get anywhere near the cost of production.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that it will be possible that the people who do enjoy now a high standard will ever be able to compete with the peon labor of Mexico, Peru, Pakistan, and other nations of the world with much lower standards?

Mr. BENHAM. I do not think that will ever come. It is a fact that it exists. And it creates a problem. We are faced by those problems. They are problems that have been in this country. We have to share the responsibility of solving them. The question is how to solve them effectively and at the lowest cost.

On behalf of the Dairymen's League I would offer some suggestions for your consideration. I would hope that you would receive many others that would tie in and extend beyond our suggestions.

One problem we recognize is the problem of farmers on marginal and submarginal land, land except for some special periods a farm family can never expect to have a satisfactory living from.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have much of that in New York?

Mr. BENHAM. We have it in scattered spots in New York. It is not as serious with us as in some places, but I am thinking about our national picture now.

I have pointed out that it is difficult to starve those people off the land by low prices. I think as a Nation we are too tender hearted ever to do that, anyway. We have to develop a program that would influence and encourage them, I think, to turn to something else, and we would propose that both the Federal Government and the State governments develop and finnace programs to influence light industry to locate in such sections.

Senator AIKEN. Are you familiar with the message President Eisenhower sent to the Congress last winter, in which he called attention to this very thing, the borderline farm, and made several requests of the Congress for tools to attack that situation?

Mr. BENHAM. As I recall his request, it was tools to help them stay on those farms. I am proposing to discourage them to get off. Senator AIKEN. He requested several things. He wanted some additional funds for the Farmers' Home Administration, to permit those who were almost large enough to be economic to acquire more land so that they would be economic. He particularly wanted the right to make loans to a farmer who got part of his income off the farm. They cannot do that now. If a man lives on a farm and gets a job off the farm to make a substantial part of his income, he is not eligible for this loan from the Farmers' Home Administration. And he needs it most of all.

Mr. BENHAM. I would be the last one to say that we should try to stop a farmer from raising and selling on the land he has. However, you could take the attitude that labor does against people who, in an attempt to take the jobs of organized labor, referred to as scabs. I would not want to refer to a farmer who earns his living somewhere else and then produces some unneeded agricultural products at the same time in that term.

Senator AIKEN. There were several other points, too, that the President made.

Mr. BENHAM. We think that if this were done that it would provide farm operators in those marginal land areas an alternative means of making a livelihood without having to move away from their estab

lished homes. And it is also consistent with this move to wider dispersal of industrial facilities.

The CHAIRMAN. What kind of encouragement would you expect from the Federal Government and the State governments in accomplishing that, any monetary help?

Mr. BENHAM. Monetary to the extent of educational work, surveys of areas, and possibilities. I do not think there should be any great big monetary inducement offered to industry, but there can be. The CHAIRMAN. Merely to point up the problem?

Mr. BENHAM. Yes, to point up the problem and to work to encourage industries as they expand or as new ones come along. We recognize we will have to have a great expansion as the population increases.

The CHAIRMAN. It is really to give part-time work to farmers in order to make both ends meet?

Mr. BENHAM. I hope it would provide opportunity for full time so he would give up farming.

The CHAIRMAN. I would rather for us to work out a scheme whereby you could let the farmers hold their own on the farm and not get this part-time work. I think that is the goal we ought to strive for. Mr. BENHAM. We would also suggest that consideration be given to establishing trade schools in such areas, so that the sons and daughters of these farmers may be encouraged to learn a trade and qualify for good paying, nonfarm jobs.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the fact now; is it not?
Senator AIKEN. I think that is share and share.

Mr. BENHAM. It could be share and share. Certainly the Federal Government can encourage such programs.

The CHAIRMAN. In our own State we have a lot of trade schools that have been established for many, many years and they are very effective. They are owned and operated by the State with Federal aid and under vocational education appropriations.

Mr. BENHAM. As point No. 2, in regard to this problem of marginal land, we would approve the adoption of a soil bank plan for those areas. We believe that they should be offered only on a long term and full farm basis.

Senator AIKEN. Pardon the interruption. You would be careful how you would apply that soil bank plan? You would not approve any across-the-board cut for all farms?

Mr. BENHAM. I am saying for marginal land areas. I am confining my remarks to marginal land areas.

At the moment

Senator AIKEN. You would not apply it to the land which has been taken out of production by reason of support programs, primarily? Mr. BENHAM. I am referring to lands that are being farmed. Senator AIKEN. All right.

The CHAIRMAN. What about the areas of the country where you have good lands, they are productive, but many crops are missed because of the lack of moisture-you get rain now and then but those lands are likely to blow away; what would you do with that land?

Mr. BENHAM. That has to be thought of as marginal land, too, because you cannot depend on the weather.

The CHAIRMAN. You would get rid of a lot of the Middle West, thousands of acres.

Mr. BENHAM. I am assuming that there would not be anything compulsory about such a program. It is an offer to the landowner who wants to take advantage of it.

The CHAIRMAN. What inducement would you give—have you any plans for that?

Mr. BENHAM. In thinking of these areas, one inducement was where I would provide an alternative opportunity for him to earn a livelihood by having some industries available.

The CHAIRMAN. Supposing in a community you cannot afford that— take in the Middle West, the farms are so far apart.

Mr. BENHAM. I am sure that there are some areas where that would be true.

The CHAIRMAN. The average farm in Wyoming is 3,200 acres, the distances are great; how would you handle your proposition in respect to Wyoming, let us say?

Mr. BENHAM. I assume that you are perhaps better informed with regard to Wyoming than I am. I have been in that country.

The CHAIRMAN. The proposal you are making is to be nationwide? Mr. BENHAM. It might be that under those conditions there would have to be some relenting on this. Say, you retain some of your limited number of the best acres and you the rest.

Let me point out that further that we would recommend that wherever the climate is such where it makes it practical to do so, that the Forestry Service reforest this land that is taken out of production on long-term contracts and reforest the land, care for the plantings until the trees are of a marketable age, and then give the owner the privilege, if he wishes, of repaying the Government, together with interest, to take back the land, or the Government would harvest and market it.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean wherever practicable?

Mr. BENHAM. So that the Government could get its investment returned. In that way we would not only be encouraging the taking of some of this land while it does not produce very heavily, probably produces more than our surpluses are in total, getting some of that out of production. We would be building up a future essential commodity, lumber, that our population 40 or 50 years from now may be seriously in need of. And in the long run the taxpayer could expect to get money back as this timber grew up and came to marketable size.

It would seem to me rather than spend all of our millions in stockpiling surplus products, with not resultant apparent effect in reducing the supply, we might better spend some of this money in programs that would tend to reduce the supply.

The CHAIRMAN. In connection with that, we have had several proposals made by many organizations for the creation of a fertility bank and that the Government would compensate the farmer. Some have said on the fair market value; 6 percent on the fair market value. And then some to plant certain grassy areas that may keep it intact, others have suggested that the Government compensate for whatever income they might derive from this land that is set aside. Others have said that since a farmer buys machinery to operate, let us say, 1,000 acres, and you set aside, say, 10 percent of that, he ought to be compensated for the wear and tear on his machinery.