The CHAIRMAN. Is that with the same number of cows or did they increase their herds or what?

Mr. REED. Our cows are as low or lower now than they have been for years. There are many changes taking place in production. The CHAIRMAN. More feed; better feed.

Mr. REED. The production per cow is going up. Next year the Department thinks, and many of us do, I think, that your feed ration will be more satisfactory from the production cost point of view which increases production.

And those factors led to it. Of course, if we have a drought all rules are off. We don't know. Right now certain factors such as favorable feed ratio steady upward trend in production per cow which is more efficient production, will lead to about this.

Senator YOUNG. May I ask this question now: If feed prices drop still more, would not that tend to increase dairy production? Mr. REED. Yes, sir, sure it will.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. What about your situation last year, the drought in our country? We experienced a drought condition in practically every section of the country. Suppose you have a normal climatic year, will that skyrocket your dairy production again?

Mr. REED. No, sir, these estimates are based on normality.

The CHAIRMAN. Since we mentioned the number of cows, will you tell us from the record, how many cows produced this 121 billion plus in 1953, and how many, more or less, will there be to produce the estimated 126 to 127 billion pounds?

Mr. REED. Let me see if I have those figures here. We have approximately 22 million cows on farms as of now. January 1 inventory estimate will be out in mid-February.

I believe our peak cow numbers were reached about 1945, and we have been going downhill or staying constantly at a considerably lower level since that period.

The CHAIRMAN. I wonder if you could obtain for the record-
Mr. REED. I certainly can.

The CHAIRMAN. And will put it in your testimony at this point, the number of cows that produced this 121 billion in 1953 and the number of cows that will produce the estimate 126 or 127 billion pounds in 1956.

Senator AIKEN. I believe the drop in number was around 600,000. Mr. REED. Yes.

Senator AIKEN. There is no comparison of the average cow of a few years ago and the average dairy cow today, so far as production goes.

Mr. REED. Production per cow is increasing approximately, I believe, 2 percent per year. Over a period of 5 years that amounts to a lot of milk.

(The information referred to is as follows:)

Senator ALLEN J. ELLENDER, Sr.,

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 26, 1956.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry,

Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR ELLENDER: During the course of my testimony before your committee on January 21, 1956, you asked me questions concerning specific statistics relative to the dairy industry. I promised to furnish such figures for incorporation in the record of the hearing on the soil-bank proposal.

Attached hereto you will find a table showing trends in certain dairy statistics from 1940 to date. I have constructed index numbers for each series with 1940 as the base year, for your ready reference. The figures show the following:

(1) Milk cow numbers reached their peak in 1945 at 27,770,000 head or 11 percent above 1940 numbers. The smallest number of cows recorded during the period 1940-55 was in 1952 at 23,369,000 head, 6 percent less than in 1940. Since 1947 numbers of milk cows have been less than 1940 and in 1955 were 24,408,000 head or 2 percent below 1940.

(2) Total milk production on farms in the United States was 14 percent above 1940 in 1955. The production in 1940 has been exceeded every year since that date even with fewer cows on farms.

(3) The increase in milk production is accounted for solely by increased production per cow. Production per cow has shown an almost unbroken upward trend since 1940 and in 1954 was 19 percent above 1940. Figures on production per cow in 1955 will not be available for several weeks, but will undoubtedly show a continuation of the upward trend, inasmuch as total production in 1955 was higher than in 1954, since the number of cows was less in 1955 than in 1954. It would be appreciated if this letter and the attached table would be included in the hearing record on the soil-bank bill.

Trusting these data are satisfactory for your purposes, I am,
Sincerely yours,

OTIE M. REED,
Washington Representative, The Joint Committee of the National
Creameries Association and the American Butter Institute.

Number of milk cows on farms, milk production per cow, and total milk production on farms, United States, 1940-55

Source: Reports of the Agricultural Marketing Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

Senator AIKEN. That accounts for the increased production, the quality improvement of the cows. Are still increasing consumption faster, a little, than we are production.

In the Boston market there has not been a month for 19 months now that the consumption has not been at least 2 percent higher than it was the corresponding months the year before. It is because the dairy people themselves are selling milk.

Mr. REED. Yes.

Senator AIKEN. They are selling a lot of it.

The CHAIRMAN. And increased population.

Mr. REED. Yes, increased population and techniques of the fluid milk marketing have increased vastly.

Senator AIKEN. The per capita increase has gone from 669 in 1953 to 710 pounds last year. That is almost 32 billion pounds right there. The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. REED. I think, gentlemen, that just about concludes my testimony.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions?
Senator SCHOEPPEL. No questions.
Senator THYE. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Brightman.

Will you give your name in full for the record and your occupation.

STATEMENT OF M. H. BRIGHTMAN, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, DAIRY INDUSTRY COMMITTEE

Mr. BRIGHTMAN. My name is M. H. Brightman and I am the executive secretary of the Dairy Industry Committee with offices in the Barr Building in Washington, D. C.

The Dairy Industry Committee is composed of official representatives of: American Butter Institute, National Cheese Institute, National Creameries Association, American Dry Milk Institute, Evaporated Milk Association, International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers, Milk Industry Foundation.

The members of these national-dairy associations are primarily engaged in processing, manufacturing and distributing milk and dairy products and are located in every State.

Our interest in the economic well-being of the dairy industry is as profound as those who produce the milk from which the great variety of dairy products are made. We are the agencies that process and sell this great variety of dairy products to the American housewife and to a small degree to purchasers outside of this country.

On November 22 Senator Ellender wrote to us, as well as several other organizations whose interest is in the agricultural field, for our views on several matters.

We have met and considered the various items and deem it best that we present our views only on those items dealing directly with the dairy industry. We feel that those items of a general agricultural nature or those that are most applicable to specific commodities can best be handled by other organizations.

These are our views relative to the dairy situation:

1. Surplus disposal:

(a) We recommend that Public Law 480 be extended beyond the present expiration date, which, I believe, is June 1957.

(b) We commend the United States Department of Agriculture for their efforts in disposing of surplus dairy products at home and abroad, and believe that these efforts deserve the support of all the departments of the executive branch of the Government.

The CCC as such was not set up or was intended to be a selling organization, but during the past 2 or 3 years they have developed quite a selling organization which has assisted materially in disposing of great quantities of products outside of this country.

(c) We urge that the USDA and the dairy industry further develop sales of dairy products under title I of Public Law 480. While progress has been made, we believe that it is possible to develop greater

sales of surplus agricultural products by the Commodity Credit Corporation on the world market at competitive prices.

(d) We also urge that recognition be given to the sales efforts of all segments of the dairy industry which are increasing consumption, including the revised and added sales and advertising programs of the American Dairy Association, the National Dairy Council, and State councils, and other producer-financed groups.

I believe our industry has really become sales minded, all the way from the producer groups to the handlers of all types of commodities. This past week, as a matter of fact day before yesterday, we had our annual meeting and some of the key people we would like to have seen with us were unable to be there because their own organizations were holding sales meetings to really get out and sell these products. Those meetings in many cases extended 3, 4, 5 days, whatever was necessary in order to innoculate in the minds of all their people we had a selling job to do.

(e) We reiterate the position taken in our appearance before this committee in March 1954, that at such time as surpluses are a problem, which we don't believe they are right at the moment, we would recommend that the enactment of short-term legislation to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out disposal programs not only to liquidate existing inventories, but also to dispose of the excess of inventory immediately in prospect. This has been referred to as a "purchase-and-immediate resale" program.

That is found in the records of the hearings before this committee of March 1954.

2. Soil fertility bank: If the Congress considers any so-called soil fertility bank, a provision should be included, as Mr. Reed has testified, that land so set aside is not diverted to pastureland or to produce feed which would tend to increase livestock production and therefore make more acute the livestock and livestock products surplus problem. Senator YOUNG. That is easier said than done, to keep this increased feed from being used.

For example, in the western part of my State it is pretty much open-range country. In the wintertime stock was run pretty much over the country. That grass there preserves very well, in place of the native grass. They graze their cattle all winter. I think there is a way around it.

For example, in our part of the country, you can plant sweetclover and it is a good soil builder, and after the leaves drop off, early summer, it is no good for feed any more, and it does make a good cover for wildlife. That is one of the crops that you can produce in our area that you would not have to worry about being used a couple of weeks after it was right.

Mr. BRIGHTMAN. I realize that. I think it would vary from region to region. There will be different problems in different sections. We feel that this is largely a producer problem in the soil fertility bank.

We do want to see adequate safeguards so we won't increase the overall surplus problem so far as dairy production is concerned. Just what steps should be taken, I cannot state.

Senator YOUNG. A proposal was made to me recently which has a little merit. In these semiarid areas you never know when you will have a drought period. A county agent suggested that we permit

the farmers to put in a year's supply or part of a supply, in trench silos of corn. It would take 40 to 50, as much as 70 acres, to fill a big trench silo. That would lend a lot of stability to agriculture in areas such as that.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean grass?

Senator AIKEN. Of grass or corn?

Senator YOUNG. Grass or things like that. It would not be too hard to watch. Once you had it in the silo there would be the temptation to use it, of course, but if something like that were possible to work out it would lend a lot of stability to that.

Mr. BRIGHTMAN. My personal viewpoint would be that some flexibility should be permitted, some discretionary authority on the part of the Secretary, that if we had drought conditions prevailing so that we had to call on some of that acreage, that some provisions should be granted under certain conditions.

I don't know what they should be. But I believe enough capable people in the country could set up the conditions for the particular areas or regions.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Right along that line, what Senator Young has suggested, if this committee and the members will recall, some of us advocated-certainly I did 2 years ago and last year againthat on some of these programs in these semiarid areas, or in the high upland areas, where the good farmer and even the good cattleman laid in a supply of feed and roughage, that he either stacked up or piled up, because the good rancher and the good farmer, in those areas recognized that if he did not have practically a year's supply ahead-we have had 2 and sometimes going on to 3 short feed supply years and we have to be very careful in those areas we do not mitigate against the historical approach to this thing.

I think that is the thing that Senator Young is pointed out. That is the thing that I certainly want to be very zealous in guarding against, just completely disrupting, because it is a normal practice in those areas.

If we restricted these acreage, or it was to be taken away from them so completely, they will be at the mercy of the elements, and we are doing an irreparable injury to those people that have historically followed that pattern in those areas.

The CHAIRMAN. You might restrict the use of it, not permit the piling up of it as he says there.

Mr. BRIGHTMAN. Purely discretionary.

Senator AIKEN. I think, Mr. Chairman, that the bill as proposed by the Department makes provision for that condition. It is pretty broad. I do not know how you can tighten it up and make a national program of it because you have got a thousand different conditions when you go from coast to coast.

Mr. BRIGHTMAN. To fit the local area.

Senator AIKEN. You have to have some discretionary powers, and I think that is provided for in the bill. We might even, if we include that, state our own position in the report that we get out which would cover the situation that Senator Young speaks of.

Certainly a man does not want to be penalized for being thrifty and looking ahead.

Senator YOUNG. We have some very able ASC committeemen in these areas and you can depend on them for a lot of good advice.