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"DEFINITION

"SEC. 3801. As used in this subtitle

"(a) a cooperator shall be a producer on whose farm the acreage planted to rice does not exceed the farm acreage allotment for rice under subtitle B. For the purpose of this section, a producer shall not be deemed to have exceeded his farm acreage allotment unless such producer knowingly exceeded such allotment.

"(b) 'food products' includes milled rice, brewers' rice, and other rice products used for human consumption."

TITLE V-MARKETING QUOTAS AND ACREAGE ALLOTMENTS

EXTENSION OF SURRENDER AND REAPPORTION MENT PROVISIONS FOR WHEAT ACREAGE

ALLOTMENTS

SEC. 501. Section 334 (f) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, as amended, is amended by striking out "1955" wherever it appears in such subsection.

SURRENDERED COTTON ACREAGE

SEC. 502. Section 344 (m) (2) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, as amended (relating to voluntary surrender of unused portions of cotton acreage allotments) is amended by striking out ", except that this shall not operate to make the farm from which the allotment was transferred eligible for an allotment as having cotton planted thereon during the three-year base period."

NOTE. If the above provision is adopted, consideration of a similar amendment to section 334 (f) for wheat may be desired.

LONG STAPLE COTTON

SEC. 503. (a) The last sentence in section 347 (b) (providing a minimum national marketing quota for long staple cotton) is amended by striking out "thirty thousand bales" and inserting in lieu thereof "fifty thousand bales."

(b) The amount of long staple cotton which may be entered or withdrawn from warehouse consumption in the United States in the twelve-month period beginning on February 1, 1956, or in any subsequent twelve-month period beginning on a February 1, shall not exceed thirty-five million pounds. The Secretary of Agriculture may promulgate such regulations as may be necessary to assure equitable distribution of such quota among exporting countries. As used in this subsection "long staple cotton" means cotton having a staple length of at least one and one-eighth inches but less than one and eleven-sixteenths inches.

PEANUTS

SEC. 504. (a) The proviso in section 358 (a) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as amended (providing a minimum acreage allotment for peanuts), is hereby repealed. (b) Section 358 (c) (2) of such Act (authorizing the Secretary to increase peanut acreage allotments for types in short supply) is hereby repealed.

SEC.

PRESERVATION OF UNUSED ACREAGE ALLOTMENTS

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, as amended, is amended by inserting after section 376 a new section as follows:

"PRESERVATION OF UNUSED ACREAGE ALLOTMENTS

"SEC. 377. In any case in which, during any year after 1955 for which acreage allotments are in effect for any commodity under this Act, the acreage planted to such commodity on any farm is less than the acreage allotment for such farm, the entire acreage allotment for such farm shall be considered for purposes of future farm acreage allotments to have been planted to such commodity in such year, but only if the owner or operator of such farm notifies the county committee prior to the thirtieth day preceding the beginning of the marketing year for such commodity of his desire to preserve such allotment. This section shall not be applicable in any case in which the amount of the commodity required to be stored to postpone or avoid payment of penalty has been reduced because the allotment was not fully planted."

EFFECTIVE DATE

SEC.

The amendments made by this title shall be effective with respect to 1956 and subsequent crops.

SYNOPSIS OF DRAFT PREPARED BY COMMITTEE STAFF TO ILLUSTRATE SUGGESTIONS MADE BY VARIOUS WITNESSES

TITLE I

This title would

(1) Require support at not less than 90 percent of parity on those grades of basic commodities not in surplus (in the alternate, the draft would make middling 1-inch the standard grade of cotton for price support and require the Secretary to discount wheat support prices for undesirable milling varieties);

(2) Reduce the support price to any producer for basic commodities (other than tobacco) gradually as the quantity put under support by him increases (in the alternate the draft would provide a graduated premium on price support for small producers);

(3) Deny price support to anyone customarily deriving over 50 percent of his income from nonagricultural occupations;

(4) Extend the use of the old parity formula, where higher, for basic commodities and require the Secretary to make a study and report on methods of improving the formula.

SOIL BANK TITLE

This title would require the Secretary to divert from cropland to conservation the number of acres not needed for production. The acres to be added to the soil bank in any year would be apportioned to States, counties, and farms on the basis of past cropland, past retirement, needs caused by acreage restrictions, relative needs for or. surpluses of particular crops, desires of producers, relative needs for flood control and other conservation benefits, administrative efficiency, and other considerations.

Retirement would be accomplished through lease, purchase, payment, or other arrangement (including increased price support). The arrangement used would

(1) Prohibit use for crop or livestock production;

(2) Limit the shifting of other lands to crop or livestock production;

(3) Permit entry and require information necessary to determine compliance;

(4) Prevent tenants from being forced off the farm; and
(5) Specify permitted uses of the lands.

Purchases would be limited. Prices and rentals would not exceed the cash or rental values for agricultural purposes. Payments would be made for a fair share of conservation costs. In determining rentals and payments the Secretary would consider specified factors. Price support and conservation payments would be denied to producers refusing to retire lands.

The Secretary would submit detailed reports to Congress during each of the first 4 years of the program.

This title would-

(1) Increase the cotton and wheat set-aside by the increase in carryover from 1955 to 1956 (the increase is estimated at 52 million bushels of wheat and 2.5 million bales of cotton. This would not affect the minimum support level for wheat, but would raise cotton to 83 percent of parity. If the set-aside were increased by the increased carryover since 1954, the increase would be about 161 million bushels of wheat and 3.9 million bales of cotton making the minimum wheat support 76 percent of parity (the announced support level) and the minimum cotton support 87 percent of parity);

(2) Prevent reduction of the set-aside whenever the free supply exceeds a specified percentage of normal;

(3) Direct the Secretary to dispose of the surplus. The Secretary would be required to submit to Congress a program for such disposition, annual reports, and recommendations for any additional legislation needed;

(4) Include the provisions of S. 2702 directing CCC to encourage cotton exports and restricting cotton imports to 150 percent of a representative 2-year average;

(5) Extend the special school milk program to June 30, 1957 and increase it to $75 million annually;

(6) Extend the accelerated brucellosis program to June 30, 1958; (7) Extend the veterans and Armed Forces milk programs to December 31, 1958.

RICE CERTIFICATE PLAN TITLE

This title provides a two-price plan for rice. A primary market quota equal to the quantity to be consumed in the United States, its territories and possessions or exported to Cuba would be apportioned to States, counties, and farms in the manner now provided for acreage allotments. Farmers underplanting their quotas could preserve them by notice to the county committee.

Cashable marketing certificates would be issued to producers for the quantity produced by them within their quotas. First processors of rice and importers of rice products would be required to purchase marketing certificates from the CCC or otherwise, while exporters of rice products (other than to Cuba) would be given certificates. Certificates would be valued at the difference between the parity price and the farm price as estimated prior to the beginning of the marketing year.

This title would not become effective until approved by one-half the farmers voting in the first rice quota referendum following enactment. After such ap proval, the rice marketing quota provisions of the law would become ineffective, but the acreage allotment provisions would continue in effect under existing law. Price support could be made available at such level and on such terms and conditions as the Secretary might fix.

(Inclusion of Cuba in the primary market creates a serious problem, since the certificate value may exceed the duty preference Cuba gives United States rice. The preference amounts to $1.825 per Cuban quintal (100 pounds) on 3,250,000 quintals, while on the basis of the figures shown on page 28 of the Department's two-price study (H. Doc. 100, 84th Cong.) the certificate value might be about $1.96 per hundredweight.)

This title would

QUOTA AND ALLOTMENT TITLE

(1) Extend the provision permitting the surrender and reapportionment of wheat acreage;

(2) Preserve the old farm status of cotton farms surrendering their allotments (if this policy is adopted for cotton, it should probably be extended to wheat);

(3) Increase the minimum long-staple cotton quota to 50,000 bales (from 30,000) and decrease the import quota to 70,000 bales (from 90,000);

(4) Repeal the minimum national peanut acreage allotment (1,610,000 acres) and the Secretary's authority to increase allotments for types in short supply;

(5) Preserve the allotment history of farms underplanting allotted crops but notifying the Secretary of their desire to preserve their allotments. Senator THYE. You have endeavored, after a complete digest was made of all of the testimony taken, to draw up a legislative proposel which is sort of a composite of all of the testimony?

The CHAIRMAN. That is right.

Senator THYE. And you have had it drafted, and you are presenting it now to the full committee as a basis upon which to work in the development of the legislation that the committee will finally agree upon.

I have bills which I have introduced not only in this session but in the first session of this 84th Congress which relate to some phases of the farm problem. One bill of mine proposes a graduated scale of price supports, so that the person who makes an application for a commodity loan and finds that his application is in the minimum bracket would receive a higher support than the person that would be applying for a large loan.

If the producer exceeded $15,000 in commodity loans, he would not receive more than 70 percent of parity.

I have just hurriedly scanned through this draft of a bill that you presented to us, but I do not find any mention of that particular legislative question in here. Yet we had testimony on that.

The CHAIRMAN. It is in there. Whether it is exactly as you proposed it, I do not know.

Senator THYE. I beg your pardon. It is on page 5. It is embodied to a certain extent in there.

The CHAIRMAN. If you will recall, that method was suggested by witnesses.

Senator THYE. That is why I was calling it to your attention.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish to add that there were other proposals made that we did not incorporate in this bill because there was not too much testimony supporting it. What the staff tried to do was to take, more or less, the majority view of the witnesses who testified on various proposals and then put that into this bill.

I want to repeat with emphasis, and I hope the press will understand it, too, that this is not to be considered as a committee bill. It is my hope that the administration will send us its proposals in legal form and the various organizations that we want to listen to, tomorrow and the next day, and probably later during the hearings. From all of these ideas and views expressed by the Senators, by the witnesses from the grassroots, by the administration, by the heads of the organizations, and from what else the committee can get together, within the next 2 weeks at most, a bill should be drafted that will reflect the majority view of what ought to be done at this session by the committee for presentation to the Senate.

Senator YOUNG. I am sure that we will have some differences on many things.

In glancing through the one a "quality," I would disagree with the provision now in the bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Surely. What you see there, of course, has been suggested, as I said, in the testimony. You will find on every title that is outlined some testimony in the record substantiating it.

Personally, I have not made a close study of the suggested bill at all, but I thought that the committee should have something to work on. That is why, before Congress met, in fact, within a week after the committee got through its hearings in the field, I suggested to the staff that they study the testimony and analyze it, and furnish to the members of the committee an analysis of the testimony and thereafter begin the work on a bill to carry out the views expressed at the grassroots hearings.

That is what this is. It may not contain everything that the witnesses suggested, but the point is that it is something for us to work on, to add to or substract from.

Senator YOUNG. I understand that. I want to make clear that I would not go along with the provision in the bill here because if there was any surplus of top quality wheat the price support again would be lowered to quality producers and I disagree with that principle.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. I discussed that with Mr. Stanton, counsel for the committee, yesterday, and it may be that we can submit that to the millers, submit it to the farm organizations with the hope that we can get a definition of what we mean by millable wheat, see. I

do not know. It depends somewhat upon where the wheat is produced as to how it will be defined.

The point is that we all realize that it will be a rather difficult job to put into this bill a definition of what is "quality wheat" or "quality cotton" or "quality corn."

As you will remember, Senator Young, that was one of the problems that we discussed. It would be rather difficult to define.

Senator YOUNG. Yes, it would in the draft of the bill. I think the draft is somewhat different from my own thoughts on the matter. In the draft of the bill it is based on "quality," of course. The CHAIRMAN. That is right.

Senator YOUNG. If there happened to be a little surplus, again the price would go down. That is not in accord with my views, and I do not think with most of the witnesses.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, suppose this, Senator Young-suppose that you described or you define what "quality wheat" is, and according to the definition of standard put in the bill we ordinarily have enough of that, what would you do about it?

Senator YOUNG. If it is a top quality wheat I think he should be given 90 percent support.

The CHAIRMAN. Even though in surplus?

Senator YOUNG. Yes, because what I am advocating is directly opposite of what we are doing now. We are providing a top-level support now for the poorest quality wheat that a farmer can produce.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right. The idea that we discussed right along was that much of the wheat now in storage was not of a millable kind.

As a matter of fact, in some States it is as much as 40 percent; in others 60 percent of the wheat is not of the kind that millers desire. I do not know whether that is true or not, but it is what we are told. The point is this, suppose in our definition, let us say, of a productlet us take cotton, let us assume that we would put in the bill that we wanted to give special support to good quality cotton of an inch and above. Just assume that as an example.

Suppose that there was on hand a sufficient number of bales of that cotton to supply us for 18 months. We are already in surplus with that.

Would you want to encourage the production of more of that cotton?

Senator YOUNG. No, I would give the higher supports to the better quality. But I would not lower the support way down to a 75-percent or the minimum, if there happened to be a slight surplus, because if we followed that principle all of our support prices, with the exception of isolated instances, would be at the minimum.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

In any event, as I said, this committee print is not that. It is really a misnomer when we call it a committee print.

I have put in parentheses, as I said, on the first page, that this draft was taken from some of the evidence that was submitted in the fall, and it is my hope that we can use it as the basis for hearings, at any rate, and then add to it and subtract from it as we obtain views from the Department and from more witnesses and from the various heads of the organizations.

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